Using XAMPP and the NNTPGrab PHP module¶

As of version 0.3 of NNTPGrab it is possible to control the program through a web-interface. To enable this web-interface you need to set up an webserver with PHP support. This document describes how to enable the web-interface using XAMPP.

XAMPP is a so-called WAMP program which contains the following software:

Apache
PHP
MySQL
Perl

First, you need to go to the XAMPP website and download the latest version of XAMPP. Next, install it.

After the installation is complete, you can download and install NNTPGrab. If you choose for the custom installation, you need to make sure the 'Webinterface' component gets installed.

Next, open the Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder where you've installed NNTPGrab (this is C:\Program Files\NNTPGrab by default). In it you will find several folders.

Copy the contents of the folder 'webinterface' to the XAMPP htdocs folder (this is by default C:\xampp\htdocs, you can delete all the files which are already there or create a new subfolder)
Copy the contents of the folder 'php_module' to the XAMPP PHP extensions folder (C:\xampp\php\ext)
Copy the contents of the folder 'php_deps' to the XAMPP Apache folder (C:\xampp\apache\bin) (This step is only necessary when using NNTPGrab 0.4.90 or older)

Next, you need to make a small adjustment to the PHP configuration file. This file can be found at C:\xampp\apache\bin\php.ini. Open this file in an editor (notepad for example) and search for a block of text containing 'extension=xxxx' rules. This should be around line number 600. You need to add a new line of text below the rest of the extension lines containing :

extension=php_nntpgrab.dll

Finally, start the XAMPP control panel and start/restart the Apache service. You're now ready to go and use your web browser to navigate to https://localhost to use the NNTPGrab webinterface