Modular Webserver System

Draft

Introduction

(MoWeS), formerly Webserver On Stick (WOS) is a portable WAMP system. It makes it possible to run a webserver based on Apache, MySQL and PHP from an USB Stick or any other writable media (harddrive, flash cards etc.) without installation under Windows.

Download and installation

Mixing" a Mowes combo

• MoWeS Portable (download).
• Make sure not to forget to include one (just one) version of Apache, PHP, MySQL and PHPMyAdmin.

Installation

We strongly recommend to install Mowes on a harddisk. You then can copy it to a memory stick. But do not decompress large archives on a memory stick, there may be write errors ....

Step 1: Unzip to harddrive directory. Create the directory first, then use a decent dezip program like 7zip (not the native Windows program).

Step 2: After dezipping, click on Mowes.exe now visible in this directory. Click OK each time the installer will ask you. This will install all the packages you downloaded.

The directory structure looks like this (I put mine under c:\soft

 c:/soft/mowes:
        18348 09-24 15:25 GPL.txt
          660 09-24 15:25 Licence.txt
            0 01-12 22:08 apache2
            0 01-12 22:07 mowes
       409600 09-24 15:25 mowes.exe
            0 01-12 22:08 mysql
            0 01-12 22:08 php5
            0 01-12 22:13 www

Step 3: Test the webserver

http://localhost

Step 4: Configure the main settings for your MoWeS package using the Options option from the menu in the MoWeS Portable Status dialog to open the Options window:

To stop the webserver, click on "End" or "Stopserver" followed by "End".

Adding new modules

Copy the archive that you downloaded from Mowes to the top-level directory, i.e. inside the directory with the MoWES files. When you restart MoWes, the system will detect the new addition and ask if it should install it.

Adding other portalware

You may use the MOWES installation to install other portals (like on a "real" WAMP/LAMP system. However, there are a few caveats.

Comments

Test of WOS Portable II (6 May 2007)

Daniel K. Schneider tried WOS + Apache2_SE, PHP5_SE, MySQL5_SE, MediaWiki, Moodle, PHPMyAdmin, Wordpress. Total download size was 18MB. Once installed the whole package was about 200MB.

• I dezipped the package into a "wos" directory on a memory stick.
• Clicking on f:/wos/wos.exe starts installing all the packages (make sure not interrupt when the WOS install screen is empty after installation of a single component ... it will go on) Memory sticks are very slow in writing thousands of files and the whole the procedure may take much more than an hour!! Install will only be complete when you see a new small administration panel "WOS Portable II - Status.
• Once complete, it will launch the start page and remind you that for all applications installed (e.g. Moodle) login is always: admin and password is password.
• Results: Apache/PHP/MySQL/Moodle/Wordpress installed fine. Install of Mediawiki & PhpMyAdmin failed the first time (maybe a write error ?). After relaunch of wos.exe (and an additional 30 minutes) they were installed and ran fine.
• Note: The Website was a bit confusing on 13:36, 6 May 2007 (MEST) (not clear how to get to the downloads, I found it through Useware-->WOS Portable). Also installation can go badly wrong, if you forget a component (e.g. php or mysql). Totally delete the install dir, kill hanging processes or reboot Windows, download again a good combination and reinstall. With my succesful install I did have a 7z.exe (decompression) error, but ignored it, but then had to install one of the applications again (faulty memory stick ?)
• Conclusion: Do not install this directly on a memory stick. Dezip and install on a harddisk, then transfer. I tried again and again had write errors (with a different memory stick).

Test of MOWES Portable II (Jan 2010)

• Installation of a combo + several CMSs to the harddisk on Windows Vista, copy to the memory stick and copy again to an XP system's harddisk went fine...

Links

• Help System" (includes an installation tutorial in PDF, but clicking on the menu to the left is enough ...).