Connect Arctype to a XAMPP Server

Introduction

XAMPP is a cross-platform web server solution package developed by Apache Friends. It’s open-source and free to use. It uses an Apache HTTP Server and MariaDB, PHP, and Perl.

XAMPP is an acronym for:

• X - Cross-Platform
• A - Apache
• M - MariaDB (formerly MySQL)
• P - PHP
• P - Perl

XAMPP works perfectly well on different operating systems like Windows or Linux. However, other versions are specifically made for an operating system like WAMP (Windows) or LAMP (Linux). To download XAMPP, visit the Apache and Friends Web page.

Why Connect XAMPP To Arctype?

Arctype is a fast, beautiful database GUI for developers and teams. With SQL autocomplete, spreadsheet-style editing, one-click visualizations, collaboration, and the best support for Postgres, MySQL, PlanetScale, Yugabyte, and SQLite, you can use Arctype to work with almost any DB.

This guide will walk you through the process of:

• Configuring XAMPP to connect with Arctype

• Changing or setting the password for your XAMPP server

• Configuring Arctype to connect with XAMPP

Prerequisites

To follow along, you need to have:

• XAMPP downloaded and installed on your PC
• Arctype downloaded and installed on your PC

Step 1: Start Apache and MySQL

First, open the XAMPP GUI. Then, start Apache and MySQL by clicking on “start” for both in the GUI. This will run the XAMPP server and activate all the packages built into it. It also enables an SQL client like Arctype to connect to it.

Step 2: Set Password for Your XAMPP Server

After installing XAMPP on your Windows machine, the root password is set to empty by default. However, this is not recommended, as a database without a password is accessible to everyone. Therefore, you need to set a secure password for your server.

Old versions of XAMPP come with a security page, allowing you to visit http://localhost/security/** **to set up the password for XAMPP directly. However, the new versions of XAMPP no longer support the security page, so your password will have to be set from PhpMyAdmin.

From your browser, visit http://localhost/phpmyadmin/, then click on “user account.” On the User accounts overview page, go to the user with username as “root” and hostname as “localhost” and click on “Edit Privileges.”

This takes you to a page where you can create your password and click ‘“Go.”

If you try accessing http://localhost/phpmyadmin/ after setting or changing your password, it displays an error.

To resolve this error, go to the XAMPP directory on your PC and locate the PhpMyAdmin folder. Inside the folder, locate a file named “config.inc.php” then open the file in an editor.

File Explorer → This PC → Local Disk (C:) → Xampp → PhpMyAdmin → Config.inc File

Under “Authentication type and info” change ‘config’ to ‘cookie’ then insert the password you created earlier into the open quotation mark for password. Then save the file.

The above steps will successfully create a password for your MySQL database on XAMPP, which you can now use to connect to Arctype.

Step 3: Connect to Arctype

The last step is to add or create a new connection on the Arctype GUI using the credentials from the XAMPP and PhpMyAdmin setup.

User name: root Password: same as created on XAMPP

Then, test your connection. You should see a “connection successful” message, after which you can save your connection

You now have access to your database on Arctype, where you can write your queries visualize your data with graphs, charts or tables. For more information about Arctype, check out the Arctype documentation or join the Arctype Discord.