How to make XAMMP go completely offline?

[SuperInfinity]

How can I make XAMMP and apache go COMPLETELY offline, without the ability to ever go online?

Why do I want this weird request?

Well it's because I want some place to errmm... discuss things and goals with myself in private lol. I mean like a diary, with things under specific headings and time-stamped. I looked at the various softwares for note taking, or journals or diaries and I don't think any of them would suit me as good as a personal private simple forum. I really like the style of these boards.

So security of this would also be important. Is there any way anyone else could somehow access it?

[JonB]

About this -

without the ability to ever go online?

not sure you can get to that point -

Edited - Well - you could put XAMMP on a secure USB stick - that could prolly work.

BUT - as long as you put your XAMPP machine behind a firewall router and DON'T turn on port forwarding for port 80 or enable a DMZ server IP, pretty much no-one can come knocking at the door.

(and most routers have all that stuff OFF by default)

And, of course, most forums, journals and blogs have their own security measures, which you can turn on if you are feeling VERY paranoid -

There are even more measures possible - but you would need to be very, very, very paranoid to get there - and at that extreme - you would not have posted to an open forum

So - nothing to be done basically - type away!



BTW - Yabb is quite good, and will run on XAMPP with no fixes.

[SuperInfinity]

Okay, thanks for your helpful reply.

It still seems a little odd to me that my computer will be actively continually trying to connect all my private data to the whole world and I can't turn that off.

I have also set the forums to give access only to me. I wonder if Apache or the forums themselves had some sort of backdoor that would let them view all forums no matter what way they are set... but if I'm correct then http://(myipaddress)/forum should show whether it's online or not if http://localhost/forum picks it up anyway, so I can test it any time I'm feeling paranoid (correct me if I'm wrong here)...

[JonB]

OK
you ARE paranoid

there's a way to do everything (and undo as well)

Give me a few and I will dish you up the right .htaccess file.

or you maybe be able to find one

but if I'm correct then http://(myipaddress)/forum

The IP address of the server will be your LOCAL IP address, unless YOU change it.

NO ONE outside your home network can access it without YOU disabling a firewall or enabling port 80 forwarding or the DMZ server option in your router (presumably your machine has a firewall/router between it and the DSL modem or cable modem?)

BUT - understand this - it (XAMPP) is NOT trying to dish it up - there has to be a request FIRST. I.e - no INBOUND HTTP request traffic from internet access = no requests (other than yours) to XAMPP. And that's what a router with NAT and/or a firewall does, keeps GET, POST, HEAD etc HTTP Requests from coming into your network by not FORWARDING them to the Local IP of the XAMMP server.

Take a chill pill, lOL.

[Franky.xl]

my $.02

One thing you need to remember is that your computer will most likely be using a private IP address as in 192.168.x.x which can only be seen by other computers on the same network. Only you would know If you configured port forwarding (Think Public Access) on your Router or 2Wire gateway or whatever device you ISP (Internet Service Provider) issued you. For some one to get to your instance of the XAMMP server they would have to know your public IP (The one your ISP provided you) and that IP address must be static (Never changes) and you would of had to forward the ports (i.e. Port 80) so that any trffic coming from the internet to your public IP would be forward to the private IP that your XAMMP is using.


From the cloud to your System where the XAMMP is located the process would look like this:

Cloud ----> Public IP --> Router with forwarding rules configured --> Your XAMMP system.

By default the ports are not forwarded so you should not have to worry about someone accessing your XAMMP setup.

[SuperInfinity]

Okay guys, thank you very much for your help and all that information.

Now I have another question: I have the forum in an encrypted file container that is 400 megabytes, the forum itself takes up about 320 megabytes. However I notice I can easily "back up" the forum with only a fraction of a megabyte by getting an SQL file.

Is there any way I could get it to automatically just use that small SQL file when I start it up? I searched for the "modified today" files in the folder and came up with a lot of "log" and "temp" and "cache" type files but no SQL ones. This way I could put it on dropbox without it having to update an entire 400 megabytes every time I changed it!!! (as the file is encrypted, dropbox sees the whole thing as meaningless binary data and can't update it incrementally as it's changed).

If there's no way to do it I guess I can just email myself a backup of it periodically. I better just make sure not to ever send it to anyone else accidentally....

[JonB]

I have the forum in an encrypted file container that is 400 megabytes

my, you ARE paranoid.

BUT last question - basically - uhh - NO! lol The MySQL 'backup' would have to be restored, so its no difference. Open the backup file in an editor and you will see its just mySQL statements in plaintext - NOT a database.

[SuperInfinity]

I have the forum in an encrypted file container that is 400 megabytes

my, you ARE paranoid.

BUT last question - basically - uhh - NO! lol The MySQL 'backup' would have to be restored, so its no difference. Open the backup file in an editor and you will see its just mySQL statements in plaintext - NOT a database.

That's fine that you can see it in plaintext, in fact that's what I was hoping for just in case it wouldn't open for some reason.

What I want is to have the web forum software as a kind of client on my computer, while the actual DATA of the forum would be elsewhere in the small MySQL file. Every time I used the forum, I would decrypt the small (file container containing the) MySQL file on my computer and load it up. The small MySQL file could then easily be backed up on the mydropbox network automatically as it could be in a very small file container.

[JonB]

You missed my point

a SQL file is a series of plaintext SQL statements - NOT JUST DATA, and its not an indexed database and tables that can be opened/connected to. The tool that creates them in this context - mysqldump.exe is a backup/restoration tool.

well no 'therefore' symbol

- ITS NOT A DATABASE that your forum can read!

NO - NADA, ZIPPO, Zed, NOT HAPPENING etc.

the datafiles are located under mysql\data (ironically enough)

You should learn about MySQL - get a tutorial, video or a book.

I'm not responding any to this thread any further, as this has ZERO to do with XAMPP any longer - only your paranoia - feed that hunger with knowledge (maybe you will get the big picture in the process)

Good Luck

[SuperInfinity]

I don't think that's quite correct for the forum software I use which is phpbb, here the MySQL file has all the relevant data including all tables, permissions, styles, logs, everything. That's what a backup is for, in case your drive fails or something so you can simply restore the database.

The reason why your computer has all those temp files and doesn't just open up the small SQL file every time is because for large forums it would take a very long time to open them all up and sort them all, and it would be very inefficient doing that for every computer that connects to you to use the forum. The mysql file is just the bare bones of it

Thanks for the friendly help anyway.

[JonB]

Since this is an important project for you, I again recommend you learn a bit about MySQL, and the difference between MySQL statements/directives contained in .SQL files and MySQL datafiles (like those found in \xampp\mysql\data), which are used by the actual database engine. You will later thank me if something goes wrong.

Good Luck