Installing CrashFix in Windows

CrashFix software contains the following components: CrashFix service, CrashFix web application and CrashFix debug info uploader application.

System Requirements

In order to install and use CrashFix, you need the following system requirements to be satisfied:

• Windows operating system (Windows Vista or later).
• Apache HTTP Server (version 2.2 or later).
• PHP (version 5.3 or later).
• Database (MySQL).
• 2 GB of free disk space (to store crash reports and symbols).
• Network connection (either LAN or Internet).

Installing Apache + PHP + Database

You may read this section if you do not have Apache HTTP server, PHP engine and a database installed. This section provides instructions on how to install Apache, PHP and an appropriate database (MySQL). If you already have these installed, you may skip this section and refer directly to the Installing CrashFix Web Application section.

There are a couple of most popular Apache + MySQL + PHP distributions:

• WampServer

• XAMPP

Choose one and install it on your Windows server machine.

Checking Web Server Installation

After you set up your web server, check that it is installed correctly and that your Apache server recognizes your PHP engine.

To check that Apache and PHP are installed and running, create phpinfo.php file in Apache document root directory.

In the phpinfo.php file, enter the PHP method phpinfo() as follows:

<?php 
     phpinfo(); 
?>

Open the file in your browser. The standard PHP information page should display.

PHP Info

Configuring the MySQL Database Server

Now we need to create a new database schema that will store CrashFix tables. To do this, type the following in the MySQL client window:

CREATE SCHEMA crashfix;

The command above creates empty schema that we will populate later. If the command is executed successfully, the following message is displayed:

Query OK, 1 rows affected (0.05 sec)

Next, we want to create a database user named crashfix that will be used by CrashFix web application for connecting to database. To create the user, type the following (in the command below, replace the <your_password> placeholder with some password):

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON crashfix.* TO 'crashfix'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '<your_password>';

The command above creates the user named 'crashfix' and grants the user all privileges on 'crashfix' database schema.

Installing CrashFix Web Application

CrashFix web application is a web site written in PHP. Using the web application, CrashFix users may access CrashFix and perform administrative and daily usage tasks.

At this point, you should have Apache HTTP server + PHP + database (MySQL) installed.

Now, download the CrashFix web application zip archive from our Download page. Then unpack the archive to web server's document root directory.

Note: Below, we denote the document root directory as DOCUMENT_ROOT, and you should replace this placeholder with the actual directory path.

If everything is OK, you should have CrashFix files in DOCUMENT_ROOT/crashfix directory:

DOCUMENT_ROOT/crashfix
    index.php       | CrashFix web application entry script
    assets/         | The directory where temporary resources (like images and CSS files) will be published
    protected/      | This directory content is protected from direct access by .htaccess file
        ...
        config/     | This directory contains configuration files
        data/       | This directory will contain crash reports and debug info files
        ...
        runtime/    | This directory will contain logs and temporary files

Edit the DOCUMENT_ROOT/crashfix/protected/config/user_params.ini config file and specify the correct database connection string, login and password. For additional information on config file fields and their meaning, please refer to comment lines that can be found in the config file.

Now, you can try to open the CrashFix web application in your web browser. To do this, type 'http://localhost/crashfix/index.php' in your browser's navigation bar and press Enter. Typically, you should see the following in your browser (see the image below).

Web Application Login Page

Note: If instead of the page like in figure above you see PHP warning 'date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings', than you need to edit date.timezone parameter in PHP configuration file php.ini. You need to specify your time zone, for example:

date.timezone = UTC

Do not forget to restart your Apache webserver after editing the config file.

Initializing CrashFix Database

And at last, CrashFix database tables must be created and initialized before using the web application. This is performed by the database migration mechanism. To initialize the database tables, run the following command from DOS shell:

php DOCUMENT_ROOT/crashfix/protected/yiic.php migrate

When prompted, press 'y' and then press 'Enter'. If everything is OK, the following message appears:

Migrated up successfully.

Congratulations! Your CrashFix web application is now installed!

Installing CrashFix Service

CrashFix service is a long-running application that persists in background and processes incoming crash report files.

First of all, download CrashFix service installer (EXE) from our Download page.

When the installer has been downloaded, run it and follow wizard's instructions.

If everything is OK, you should have the following directories and files:

C:\Program Files (x86)\CrashFix\
    bin\crashfixd.exe         | The CrashFix service executable file
    conf\crashfixd.conf       | The CrashFix service configuration file
    logs                      | The directory where CrashFix service places its log files

Installing CrashFix Debug Info Uploader Tool

CrashFix debug info uploader tool is a Windows application allowing users to upload their debug info (symbol) files to CrashFix server.

Download the CrashFix uploader tool ZIP archive from our Download page. Then unpack the archive to a directory of your choice.

You should have the following executable files in the directory:

• uploader_gui.exe - GUI version of the tool
• uploader.exe - console version of the tool

To get help on available uploader commands, type the following:

uploader.exe --help

Note: By default, PHP doesn't allow to upload large files (larger than 2MB). In order to upload large symbol files, you may need to edit your php.ini configuration file and modify the post_max_size and upload_max_filesize parameters. Setting these with 100MB would typically be sufficient (if you plan to upload very large PDB files up to 1 GB in size, than better set these with 1024MB). Do not forget to restart your Apache webserver after editing the config file.