Installing LampRabit

Status: installers for every platform are on the GitHub Releases page: https://github.com/Shivam-SV/LampRabit/releases/latest. Windows and Linux are fully supported; macOS is in preview (LampRabit’s macOS builds of Apache, Nginx and PHP are new, and MariaDB and MySQL can’t be downloaded there yet; see the table below).

System requirements

What can be downloaded on each platform

Install

Windows

1. Download LampRabit_<version>_x64-setup.exe (or the .msi for managed installs) from the Releases page.
2. Run it. LampRabit installs per user; administrator rights aren’t required for the app itself.
3. “Windows protected your PC” appears because the installer isn’t code-signed yet. Click More info, then Run anyway.
4. Apache and PHP need the Microsoft Visual C++ 2015–2022 Redistributable (x64). LampRabit checks for it and shows an Install button on the Overview page if it’s missing.

macOS

1. Download LampRabit_<version>_aarch64.dmg (Apple Silicon: M1 and later) or LampRabit_<version>_x64.dmg (Intel).
2. Open it and drag LampRabit to Applications.
3. Open LampRabit. Because it isn’t signed yet, macOS says it can’t be opened: go to System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll down and click Open Anyway, then confirm. (Or right-click the app in Applications and choose Open.) You only need to do this once.

Linux

• AppImage: download LampRabit_<version>_amd64.AppImage, make it executable (chmod +x LampRabit_*.AppImage) and run it.
• Debian/Ubuntu: sudo apt install ./lampRabit_<version>_amd64.deb

First run

1. Environment folder. LampRabit keeps everything in one folder: C:\lampRabit on Windows, ~/lampRabit on macOS and Linux. You can change it in Settings → General. Inside it:

   bin/    downloaded runtimes (Apache, PHP, MariaDB, ...)
   etc/    generated configuration
   www/    your projects: one folder per site
   data/   databases
   logs/   all log files
   ssl/    local certificate authority and site certificates
   tmp/    sessions, uploads, temporary files

2. Install your stack. Open Services and install Apache (or Nginx), PHP and MariaDB. The first version you install of each becomes the active one.

3. Start. Click Start all in the title bar.

4. Create a site. Click Open www, create a folder such as hello, and add index.php:

   <?php phpinfo();

5. Add it to the hosts file. On the Sites page, click Apply changes (or restart Apache). Windows asks for administrator approval once; approve it. From then on the hosts file is updated automatically when Apache starts and the site list has changed.

6. Trust the certificate. On the Sites page, click Trust certificate and confirm. Restart your browser if it was open.

7. Open https://hello.test.

Optional

• Developer tools: Services → Developer tools → install phpMyAdmin, Adminer and Mailpit.
• No hosts file: set the domain suffix to localhost in Settings. Sites become hello.localhost and browsers resolve them without the hosts file.

Firefox and HTTPS

Firefox keeps its own certificate list. To make it trust LampRabit’s certificates, open about:config, set security.enterprise_roots.enabled to true, and restart Firefox. Chrome, Edge, Brave and Safari use the system certificate store and work after Trust certificate.

On Linux, Trust certificate asks for your password once and adds the certificate to the system store. Chrome, Chromium and Firefox keep their own lists, which LampRabit updates too when certutil is installed (sudo apt install libnss3-tools, or nss-tools on Fedora).

On Linux, normal users can’t listen on ports below 1024. The first time Apache or Nginx starts on port 80/443, LampRabit asks for your password once and saves the change in /etc/sysctl.d/50-lamprabit.conf. To avoid it, use ports above 1024 (such as 8080 and 8443) in Settings → Ports.

Ports used

Uninstall

Uninstalling removes everything LampRabit set up and keeps your projects (www/) and databases (data/), so a later install picks them up again. It deletes the runtimes, configs, logs and certificates in the environment folder (bin, etc, logs, tmp, ssl, shims; nothing else in that folder is touched), LampRabit’s settings, the .test entries in the hosts file, the trusted “lampRabit Local CA” certificate, LampRabit’s commands on your PATH, the saved ngrok token and starting with your computer.

• Windows: Settings → Apps → LampRabit → Uninstall. The uninstaller asks you to close LampRabit, then does the cleanup; Windows asks for confirmation for the hosts file and the certificate. (Updating LampRabit never runs this.)
• macOS and Linux: in LampRabit, open Settings → Troubleshooting → Remove LampRabit from this computer. It shows what is deleted and kept before doing anything, then quits. Afterwards move LampRabit to the Trash (macOS), or delete the AppImage / run sudo apt remove lamprabit (Linux). On Linux your password is asked once, for the hosts file, the certificate and the ports 80/443 setting.
• The same Settings action works on Windows too, if you’d rather clean up before uninstalling.

To delete your projects and databases as well, delete the environment folder (C:\lampRabit or ~/lampRabit) afterwards. Back up www/ and data/ first if you might need them.

If something couldn’t be undone (for example a cancelled administrator prompt), LampRabit lists it with what to do by hand.

Building from source

For contributors and early testers.

1. Install Node.js 20 or later and Rust (stable).

2. Platform prerequisites for Tauri:

   • Windows: Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools with the “Desktop development with C++” workload; WebView2 (built into Windows 11).
   • macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install).
   • Linux: WebKitGTK 4.1 and build tools, see https://tauri.app/start/prerequisites/

3. Clone and run:

   git clone https://github.com/Shivam-SV/LampRabit.git
   cd LampRabit
   npm install
   npm run tauri dev

4. Build an installer for your platform: npm run tauri build.