Throughout the internet, this seems to be the mission link for making any iOS device a web server. Right now the biggest issue we have now is making sure that it is of a legal origin.

Right now we are waiting to hear from a visitor who mentioned he had a solution for this aspect of a IOS Web server.

First off, make sure you have jailbroken your iPhone iOS device, and have installed the app installer. Make sure you have the Community Sources installed or you will not be able to install Apache HTTPD server or PHP.

Installation of Apache

This is pretty painless.

First, install from the app installer the apache package. Once installed it will look as though nothing was installed (There is no icon added to the app list).

Reboot your iPhone iOS device, and open a safari window.

Type: http://127.0.0.1/

You should be greeted with an apache welcome screen! Congratulations, you now have Apache on your iPhone iOS device!

Installing and Configuring PHP

Installing PHP is a bit tougher but its not that bad.

1. Download the package through the App Installer, after installation it will give you the path to PHP. It should read: /opt/iphone/bin
2. Using winscp, or another sftp client ftp into your iPhone iOS device (You should be able to do this if you have setup the ssh/sftp for jailbreaking in the first place). Open the following file for editing: /etc/httpd/httpd.conf.Once you have the conf file open search for:

   Somewhere within this if add the following (I added it to the end right before the endif)

   Code:
   ScriptAlias /php /opt/iphone/bin
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
Action application/x-httpd-php "/php/php-cgi"
Save the conf file and reupload it.

3. Now using your sftp client download and edit /etc/profileAdd the PHP Path to the path details, after your done the PATH line should read:

   Code:
   PATH = "/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/opt/iphone/bin"

4. Create a php file on your pc named index.php and add the following code to it:Code:
   
5. Upload this file to Library/WebServer/Documents/. This is your apache web directory for your new server.Restart your iPhone iOS device again.
6. Fire up Safari again, and this time navigate to: http://127.0.0.1/index.php

You should now see a php information page with details about your PHP build information! Congrats, you now have a functioning Apache Webserver with PHP scripting Support on your iPhone iOS device! How cool is that?

For those who like commands

For those who like commands, heres some basic commands to run your server through shell.

Download Term-vt100 through the installer app – The best shell app for the iPhone iOS device.

Use the following commands to do various things to your server:

apachectl start ->This starts the apache service and loads the httpd.conf file.

apachectl restart -> This reloads the apache service, and will reload the httpd.conf file. Useful if you make changes on the go and wish to restart apache without having to reboot.

apachectl stop -> Stops the apache server.

I hope it all works for you, if not please let me know and I will fix the tutorial, It is however working fine for me! Goodluck!

More forum content related to iphone apache server:

Apache HTTP Server Project

I giving it an original name iApache seems like a valid, but humorous, name; even though it should in theory just be httpd compiled for arm.

I have found a number of pre-compiled versions of apache (like that on OSx), however I do not know how or where they were compiled, and furthermore if they are legal/ethical. Therefore I will not post these, rather I would like to find someone who knows how to, or has compiled/cross-compiled the true apache server for the ARM processor.

If anybody knows how to cross compile

Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.

Which means the very existence of this website can be deemed legal!

In the future, we hope to be a hub for iPhone (iOS) web server technology. We believe that iOS devices are the future of the internet, due to their compact size, affordable nature, and solid state construction.

Expect more posts to come!

For more info on this ruling, see:

U.S. Copyright Office – Anticircumvention Rulemaking
(english speak) The Wise Guide : It’s a Jailbreak!

iPhone Running Safari... Soon to be running localhost.

We need to break down exactly what the goal is… Our goal is to make any iPhone device into a web server (ideally apache/httpd server) with MySQL and PHP support.

This is also known as a iOS LAMP server.

Presently, the only working items in existence is lighttpd, and PHP. Personally, I am not a fan of lighttpd… it is too buggy, and too vulnerable, and no MySQL.

We need to be able to have a full blown LAMP server running, and this site is geared to be the development site and hub of this technology.

I have rounded up a few existing posts that already have this topic, but no solid answer exits yet.

http://modmyi.com/forums/general-iphone-chat/734682-question-apache-php-mysql-running-webserver-idevice-ios-4-0-a.html

If you know how to cross-compile any of these items, and have them legally, please leave a comment describing this, and I will get it publicized.