Project for 300166 Systems and Network Management

Spring, 2020
Project for 300166 Systems and Network Management
XAMPP Configuration
The configurations of web servers and database servers are important tasks of system administrators.
Moreover, in the previous unit 300582 Technologies for Web Applications, you were provided with a web
server and existing databases to do practicals with. You may be curious how these things are set up for you.
In the project of this unit, you will learn and practise such configurations. Particularly, we choose to use
the XAMPP (/ˈzæmp/) package for this purpose. You should refer to our lecture slides in Weeks 2-3 on how
to do configurations under XAMPP. The main tasks of this project include:
• setting up the Apache server and MariaDB database server
• setting up a website which involves database access
• writing a report to account all the steps you have taken.
Project Specification
Please follow the step-by-step instructions below (NB: the project totals 20 marks; the mark for each step is
included in the end of that step):
1. Download the XAMPP package from the following URL: https://www.apachefriends.org/index.html.
( no mark )
2. Install XAMPP on one of your computers. It is highly recommended that you install this package on a
Windows platform. Mac OS and Linux are also fine, but you need to tweak the instructions from our
lecture slides; for later configurations, tweaks are also needed. ( no mark )
3. Set up the Apache Server such that
a. HTTP listens on port 8000 (done through httpd.conf), and HTTPS listens on port 8443 (done
through httpd-ssl.conf), such that the web server can be visited using both protocols as
below:
http://localhost:8000 and https://localhost:8443 ( 1 mark )
b. The index files in a folder only consist of and are searched in the following order: home.php,
home.html, home.htm, index.php, index.html, and index.htm. This should apply to all web
folders served by Apache, unless it is overridden by the directives for a particular folder. ( 1
mark )
c. The functionality of listing folder contents when index files do not exist is disabled. This
should apply to all web folders served by Apache, unless it is overridden by the directives for
a particular folder. ( 1 mark )
4. Use phpMyAdmin to configure MariaDB to achieve the following:
a. Import the database called ‘autoservice’ into MariaDB. The database file ‘autoservice.sql’ is
provided in vUWS as well. (NB: for this database, you should know that the ‘staff’ table
contains the staffIDs and passwords for staff to log into a website called “Michael’s
Mechanic”, which will be installed in Step 5) ( 1 mark )
b. In the ‘staff’ table of ‘autoservice’ database, add a new staff member with the following
details: staffID (V55555), password (allowme), firstName (Alice), familyName (Liang), job
(clerk), level (1). ( getting mark at Step 5.c )
c. Create a new database user with username ‘michael’ and password ‘17701788’. Set up the
user privileges for ‘michael’ such that he can only access the ‘autoservice’ database and can
only execute ‘SELECT’ and ‘UPDATE’ queries. ( 1 mark )
Note: There are two types of user accounts here. One type is for accessing the website, and the
users are stored in the ‘staff’ table of the ‘autoservice’ database. The other type is for accessing
the database, and the users are managed by the phpMyAdmin ‘users’ interface.
5. Install the website “Michael’s Mechanic — Internal Staff Website” under Apache. This website’s
source code is provided in ‘autoservice.zip’, which is downloadable on vUWS. The following
requirements should be satisfied in setting up this website:
a. This website has the following URL: http://localhost:8000/autoservice ( 1 mark )
b. Modify the source file ‘dbconn.php’ extracted from ‘autoservice.zip’, such that it uses
username ‘michael’ and password ‘17701788’ to access the ‘autoservice’ database. ( 2
marks )
c. You can use the credentials of the new staff member added in Step 4.b to login this website
and run reports. ( 1 mark )
6. Install a web folder for sharing some beautiful landscape photos under Apache. This web folder with
some photos in it is provided as ‘landscapes.zip’ on vUWS. The following requirements should be
satisfied in setting up this web folder:
a. This web folder can be visited by the following URL: http://localhost:8000/landscapes ( no
mark )
b. The directory listing functionality (see the picture below) should be enabled for this web
folder by placing a ‘.htaccess’ file in this folder and by adding appropriate directives into
‘.htaccess’. ( 1 mark )
c. This web folder should be protected by username ‘naturelover’ and password ‘oneearth’,
which is enabled by HTTP Basic Authentication (see the picture below). ( 2 marks )
Note: You see a third type of user accounts here, which are for HTTP Basic Authentication. The users
for this purpose are managed by the .htaccess and .htpasswd files.
7. Write a report that records the process you take to complete the above steps 1 – 6. Basically the
report should include the following:
a. Descriptions with a narrative style and full sentences covering steps 1 – 6 such that a reader can
clearly follow and repeat what you have done. (2 marks)
b. If a configuration is done by GUI, screenshots for that configuration accompanied with text
descriptions should be included. (3 marks)
c. If a configuration is done by source code, the relevant lines of code accompanied with text
descriptions should be included. (3 marks)
Project submission
The project should be completed individually. To submit the project, you should:
• Demonstrate your completed project to your tutor for marking and feedback in the lab classes in
Week 13 or Week 14. The students with last names’ first letter ranging from A to L should
demonstrate in Week 13, and the remaining students should demonstrate in Week 14. This is fair
because if you finish demonstration earlier, you will have more time to prepare for the final exam.
• Submit your report to turnitin by the deadline 3pm Friday of Week 13. The report should be in pdf
format, and be named Lastname_sid.pdf. Note that turnitin stores project submissions of previous
years and this year. Any plagiarism discovered by turnitin will be punished according to university
policy, which will at least result in an academic misconduct placed on your record.
Marking criteria
The marking criteria for demonstration will be very strict. For each step above, you get either full marks or
zero mark; any mistake spotted during demonstration for a step will result in a zero mark.
The marking criteria for project report are designed in the form of rubric, which can be found by visiting
“My Grade” on vUWS and then clicking the rubric link. The rubric will be used for summing up your marks
and also providing feedback to you.