Gain insights into building a modern, production-ready PHP app. Delve into CRUD operations, I/O security, routing, and more. Discover how to effectively use PHP and MySQL for database applications.

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Learning a programming language is one thing and using it to build something great is another. I've been teaching code newbies and aspiring developers for a long time and I see many of them struggling to put into practice their newly acquired skills. I've also noticed that many resources on the Internet are out-of-date, misleading, or don't provide real hands-on practice.

I've built this course to fix the issues above. You'll learn a better way to build a modern and production-ready PHP app connected to a database like a pro. The app, a CRUD one, will also have some more advanced features like I/O security, router, and more. 

At the end of this course, you'll be well equipped to build database apps with PHP.

Hands-on PHP & MySQL: Build a CRUD Application

Setting up a web server like Apache gives us only one domain, which is `http://localhost`. This domain is associated with the `127.0.0.1` IP address.

# One host per server —localhost

As we stated above, we are only allowed to have on the website by a web server. To get around this limitation, we’ll create different directories, each for one website on the localhost:
```
http://localhost/time-tracker
http://localhost/smartsapp
```
We have two directories in `http://localhost`. We can add as many as we want.

Although this solution is helpful it has its own issues as well:

- It does not reflect the reality of the production server, where each site has its own domain (`http://time-tracker.com`).
- We may encounter issues with relative paths.

To avoid issues in a production server, it would be better if we have a local environment that is almost the same as the production environment.
 

# Multiple hosts per server —virtual host

To allow more than one website to work on one system or web server, each with their own domain name, we’ll need to activate the virtual host feature on that server. For instance, both `www.amezon.cd` and `www.facebook.cd` can be hosted on the same web server.

There are many types of virtual host methods, but the most widely used one is the name-based virtual host method. The **name-based virtual host method** allows one IP address (for example, `127.0.0.1`) to host more than one website (host name). This approach allows for an unlimited number of servers, ease of configuration and use, and requires no additional hardware or software.

# Three steps to create a virtual host 

**Step 1: Create a new virtual host**

We’ll need to create a virtual host for each domain that we want.

The configuration file responsible for this is `httpd-vhosts.conf`. In my installation, it is located at `/opt/lampp/etc/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf`

Now, let’s open it with the gedit editor or whichever editor we want:

```
sudo gedit /opt/lampp/etc/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
```
We’ll enter our password and begin editing as follows:

```
<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin sarah@masika.com
    DocumentRoot "/opt/lampp/htdocs/time-tracker"
    ServerName local.tracker.com
    ServerAlias www.local.tracker.com
    ErrorLog "logs/tracker.com-error_log"
    CustomLog "logs/tracker.com-access_log" common
</VirtualHost>
```
In the `DocumentRoot` directive, we’ll specify where our project is located. `ServerName` and `ServerAlias` are the domain names we want the server to respond to. So, in our case, the server will respond to  `http://local.tracker.com` or `www.local.tracker.com`.

**Step 2: Register the new virtual hostname**

This must be done in the `hosts` file. In Debian GNU/Linux, it is located at /`etc/hosts`:

```
sudo nano /etc/hosts
```
We’ll enter our password if asked the following:
```
127.0.0.1   local.tracker.com
```
We’ll save the file (`Ctrl + X` and `Y`):

![](/api/collection/4668316850323456/6499762311266304/page/5098330957807616/image/5975848053112832)

**Step 3: Enable virtual host configuration** 

By default, the virtual host is disabled in `httpd.conf`. We’ll open it to allow virtual hosts:

```
sudo nano /opt/lampp/etc/httpd.conf
```
We’ll do a search to quickly find the `virtual hosts` line (`ctrl + W` and write `Include etc`). We’ll uncomment (delete the `#` sign before the line) this line:
```
Include etc/extra/httpd-vhosts.conf
```
![](/api/collection/4668316850323456/6499762311266304/page/5098330957807616/image/4555467126210560?page_type=collection_lesson)

We can now restart our server:

```
sudo /opt/lampp/lampp restart 
```

We can now access our site at `local.tracker.com`.

# Wrap up
Virtual hosting is a technique used to allow one web server to host more than one domain. The name-based virtual hosting type is the most popular.

We can create a virtual host on Debian GNU/Linux following these three steps:
- Create a new virtual host in the `httpd-vhosts.conf` file.
- Register it in `hosts`.
- Enable the virtual host in `httpd.conf`.


Learn how to set up a virtual host in an Apache-like server and in GNU/Linux.

Introduction

App Initialization

Create and Read Records

Refactor the Application

PHP Data Validation

Generate Reports

Update and Delete Records

PHP Router

Conclusion

Appendix

Apache Virtual Host Setup

One host per