Screenshot of the PHPMyAdmin field setup for an IP address field

You’ll realise I’m sure that you can’t just add the dotted IP address straight into an INT field without first converting it into a valid format. For that you’ll need a PHP function called ip2long which will convert a string containing an IP dotted address into a integer that can be stored in the INT field.

Here is a quick example of how you might go about getting the real IP address of a client and then storing and retrieving its value from the mysql DB:

//Test if it is a shared client
if (!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'])){
  $ip=$_SERVER['HTTP_CLIENT_IP'];
//Is it a proxy address
}elseif (!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'])){
  $ip=$_SERVER['HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR'];
}else{
  $ip=$_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR'];
}
//The value of $ip at this point would look something like: "192.0.34.166"
$ip = ip2long($ip);
//The $ip would now look something like: 1073732954

Now that you have the real IP address of the client converted to the INT format, you can write it into the DB as you normally would:

$sql = "INSERT INTO user(ip) VALUES('$ip')";
$dbQuery = mysql_query($sql,$dbLink);

To retrieve the original IP address from the database you can use the mysql function INET_NTOA like so:

SELECT INET_NTOA(ip) FROM 'user' WHERE 1

Alternately you could use the PHP function longtoip to convert the returned INT value into the dotted IPv4 address in the PHP code instead, and you could even add the dotted IP address to the INT field in the db using the mysql funtion INET_ATON.

Storing IP addresses in this manner is beneficial because it takes less space than storing it as a string. The other benefit is that lookups are faster because integer comparisons are quicker than string comparisons.

“You probably tried to upload too large file. Please refer to documentation for ways to workaround this limit.”

When trying to import large SQL files into mysql using phpmyadmin, the phpmyadmin documentation offers a few solutions, but I find the easiest method to overcome this is…

Find the config.inc.php file located in the phpmyadmin directory. In my case it is located here:

C:\wamp\apps\phpmyadmin3.2.0.1\config.inc.php

Find the line with $cfg['UploadDir'] on it and update it to:

$cfg['UploadDir'] = 'upload';

Create a directory called ‘upload’ within the phpmyadmin directory.

C:\wamp\apps\phpmyadmin3.2.0.1\upload\

Then place the large sql file that you are trying to import into the new upload directory. Now when you go onto the db import page within phpmyadmin console you will notice a drop down present that wasn’t there before – it contains all of the sql files in the upload directory that you have just created. You can now select this and begin the import.

If you’re not using WAMP on Windows, then I’m sure you’ll be able to adapt this to your environment without too much trouble.

Mission 1: Download everything

Create a folder on your desktop and put the following downloads in it:

• Apache – direct
• MySQL – Get the windows installer
• PHP – direct
• Module – GD – direct
• Module – Mail Server – direct
• PHPMyAdmin – direct

Mission 2: Install everything with default settings

Install the applications in the order that I have listed.

Apart from PHPMyAdmin. Park that.

Make sure that you write down with a pen and paper all of your paired usernames and passwords – you do not want to be in a situation where you end up sitting there wondering whether the default username was root, admin, guest and whether you paired it with your usual password, a special easy one or no password at all!

So, if you do cock up and can’t remember your username and password (as I did for MySQL) then you’ll need to uninstall it with a special tool as the windows one will keep you locked out on reinstall. You’ll need Revo univstaller unless you fancying hitting F3 about 50 times in regedit.

Mission 3: Configure Apache

Unfortunately everything doesn’t work and play nice straight out of the box. It needs some love (as most things tech do).

Enable Apache mod_rewrite module

This is the feature that allows sexxy clean urls (permalinks in WordPress) with none of this .php?foo=blah rubbish.

1. Open your httpd.conf configuration file (C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2confhttpd.conf) with Notepad.
2. Remove the # on the #LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so line so it becomes LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so only.
3. Save httpd.conf .

Enable AllowOverride for web directory folder (htdocs)

This allows the rule set in .htaccess file to over-ride the main one. A bit like upping the specificity in CSS if thats your thing…

1. Open your httpd.conf configuration file (C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2confhttpd.conf) with Notepad.
2. Under the directory C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2htdocs section, change the line that says “AllowOverride None” to “AllowOverride All”.
3. Save your httpd.conf .

Mission 4: Create and run info.php

Create a file called info.php, place it in the directory C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2htdocs and put the following code in it:

<?php
phpinfo();
phpinfo(INFO_MODULES);
?>

Now fire up your web browser and type in the url http://localhost/info.php and the page should render with a load of information. On it you should see that “rewrite module” is enabled and gd library is active, zend php is working.

Mission 5: Get PHP to talk to MySQL

Now that we know PHP works we can configure it to work with MySQL, but first we need to do a quick restart of Apache – double click on the Apache system tray icon and click restart.

Next it is time to find PHPMyAdmin.zip you have sitting in that desktop folder, unzip it to this location: C:Program FilesApache Software FoundationApache2.2htdocsphpmyadmin

Open your browser and navigate to http://localhost/phpmyadmin/

Enter all of the details that you wrote down on that piece of paper from earlier.

And do restart you local Apache web server. Now your can enable the pretty permalink structure from the WordPress dashboard and it will work nicely after that.

There you have it;  One local server that doesn’t do a lot. You could have just installed this if you want the easy option! I’ll do a follow up post about some of the things that you might want to do with your local server soon…