Helm

A local server for Apache, PHP, MySQL, and phpMyAdmin on Windows — one installer, nothing else to download. Built to replace XAMPP and the InnoDB corruption problem that comes with it. Companion tool to Keel.

The problem this fixes

XAMPP's control panel starts mysqld.exe and httpd.exe as bare child processes and stops them with a hard kill. MySQL's InnoDB storage engine needs a clean shutdown to flush ibdata1 / ib_logfile0 / ib_logfile1 to disk. A hard kill mid-write is what corrupts those files and produces the classic:

Error: MySQL shutdown unexpectedly.
This may be due to a blocked port, missing dependencies,
improper privileges, a crash, or a shutdown by another method.

...followed by the rename-data-to-data_old-and-restore-from-backup dance.

How Helm fixes it

Helm ships Apache, PHP, and MySQL (MariaDB) inside the installer itself. There's no separate XAMPP download and no "point Helm at your existing install" step — you install Helm, it sets itself up, and Apache + MySQL are registered as native Windows services from the start.

Windows' Service Control Manager stops a service by sending a proper SERVICE_CONTROL_STOP signal. Both httpd.exe and mysqld.exe already handle that natively as a graceful shutdown request — XAMPP's control panel just never uses it. That one change removes the entire failure mode.

One root, matching XAMPP

Everything lives under a single install folder, same as C:\xampp:

C:\Helm\resources\server\
  apache\    (binaries, generated config, logs)
  mysql\     (binaries, my.ini, data\)
  php\       (binaries, php.ini)
  phpmyadmin\
  htdocs\

The installer defaults to C:\Helm rather than C:\Program Files\Helm (see build/installer.nsh) specifically so this works without needing admin rights for routine writes — C:\Program Files has restrictive permissions by default, C:\Helm doesn't, which is the same reasoning XAMPP itself gives for recommending C:\xampp over Program Files. Only registering/starting/stopping the actual Windows services needs elevation (via a per-action prompt, not the whole app running elevated).

What first run actually does

1. Extracts the vendor Apache config's own LoadModule list (so Helm never risks omitting a module the bundled build needs) and writes a generated httpd-helm.conf pointing at Helm's htdocs/logs/PHP module.
2. Copies PHP's own php.ini-development and enables the extensions your PHP 8.2 MVC stack needs (mysqli, pdo_mysql, curl, mbstring, openssl, fileinfo, gd, intl).
3. Writes a minimal my.ini with innodb_file_per_table=1 — this is what lets the recovery panel archive only InnoDB's system files later, not your whole data folder.
4. Runs mariadb-install-db.exe once to create a fresh MySQL data directory (not mysqld --initialize-insecure -- that flag is MySQL-only, MariaDB never adopted it and ships this dedicated tool instead).
5. Creates htdocs with a default landing page.
6. Generates phpMyAdmin's config.inc.php in place (random blowfish secret, passwordless root login since step 4 creates root with no password).

After that, Apache and MySQL register as HelmApache / HelmMySQL Windows services and the control panel takes over. Each station has an admin-style shortcut like XAMPP's own panel: Apache's opens http://localhost, MySQL's opens http://localhost/phpmyadmin.

Other things Helm adds

• Log-aware recovery — the log drawer pattern-matches known InnoDB corruption signatures and offers a one-click "Attempt clean recovery" that archives only the InnoDB system files.
• Port conflict detection — checks what's actually bound to :80 or :3306 before you fight with a vague startup failure.
• Auto-start toggle per service, instead of all-or-nothing.

For end users

Download the installer from Releases and run it — it defaults to installing at C:\Helm (changeable on the installer's directory page). The installer itself asks for admin approval once on launch (this is a deliberate tradeoff -- see the note in build/installer.nsh on why the non-elevated install mode couldn't reliably default to C:\Helm), but Helm itself never does: opening the app and editing your project files afterward needs no elevation. Open Helm, click Set up Helm, then Register services — that step alone prompts for admin rights again, since registering Windows services genuinely requires it. That's it: one .exe, nothing else to install first, and no npm/VS Code/terminal involved in actually using it day to day — those are only needed to build Helm itself (see below).

For maintainers: building a release

The vendor binaries aren't committed to this repo (they're large, third-party redistributed builds with their own licenses) — they're fetched at build time and baked into the installer.

npm install
npm run build:server   # fetches Apache + PHP + MariaDB + phpMyAdmin into resources/server
npm start                # run Helm in dev mode against those binaries
npm run dist               # produces the single Windows installer (electron-builder + NSIS)

npm run dist is the actual ".exe installer" step — electron-builder packages Helm plus everything under resources/server into one NSIS installer at dist/Helm Setup <version>.exe. That's the only file an end user ever downloads; Apache, PHP, MySQL, and phpMyAdmin all ride inside it. It defaults to installing at C:\Helm rather than Program Files (see build/installer.nsh) so routine file access after install never needs admin rights — only the installer itself (once, on launch) and the in-app "Register services" action do.

If you want a custom taskbar/installer icon, drop a build/icon.ico and add "icon": "build/icon.ico" back under build.win in package.json — it's left out by default since no icon ships with this repo yet.

npm run build:server runs server-build/fetch-binaries.ps1. Apache Lounge, PHP for Windows, MariaDB, and phpMyAdmin don't publish permanent "latest" URLs — filenames change every release. The script forces TLS 1.2 and retries downloads automatically (Windows PowerShell 5.1 often can't negotiate TLS 1.2 by default, which otherwise looks exactly like a dead URL even when the file is live). If a download still fails after retries, check the page listed in the script's header comment, grab the current filename, and update the version variable.

Version matching matters: PHP's Apache SAPI module (php8apache2_4.dll) has to be built against the same Visual C++ toolset (VS16/VS17) as the Apache build it loads into, or PHP won't load. The script's default versions are picked to match; if you bump one, check the other. phpMyAdmin has no such constraint — it's pure PHP.

Project layout

main.js                 Electron main process, IPC handlers
preload.js               contextBridge API exposed to the renderer
src/
  config.js               Resolves the single unified server root's paths
  bootstrap.js             First-run: generates configs, inits MySQL data dir
  serviceManager.js        Installs/starts/stops/queries the Windows services
  portChecker.js           netstat-based port conflict detection
  logWatcher.js             Tails logs, matches known InnoDB failure signatures
  recovery.js               Automates safe InnoDB system-file recovery
  prereqs.js                Checks/installs the VC++ Redistributable
renderer/
  index.html / styles.css / renderer.js   The control panel UI
build/
  installer.nsh             Forces the installer's default path to C:\Helm
server-build/
  fetch-binaries.ps1        Maintainer-only: stages resources/server
scripts/
  install-services.ps1 / uninstall-services.ps1   CLI equivalents (assume
    setup has already run once via the app)

Sites and backups

• Sites panel (top bar): give a project its own *.local domain instead of a folder under localhost — e.g. claimiq.local instead of localhost/claimiq. Adding a site writes a Windows hosts file entry (delimited by marker comments, so it never touches anything else already in that file) and an Apache <VirtualHost> block, both regenerated from a single vhosts.json registry so removing a site cleans up completely. Only *.local domains are ever accepted — the hosts file is security-sensitive, and this guarantees Helm can never be pointed at a real public domain. Each site is Require local by default (matching phpMyAdmin) rather than open to the network, since project folders routinely contain .env files and other things that shouldn't be browsable by anyone else on the same wifi. Point the folder at your project's actual public/servable directory (e.g. public_html\), not its root — pointing at the root serves vendor\, composer.json, and similar as a directory listing when there's no top-level index.php.
• Database backup (Settings): one-click mysqldump --all-databases snapshot. This is the actual guarantee behind the log-aware InnoDB recovery in recovery.js, which is explicitly best-effort automation of a manual rescue, not a promise. Checks for both mysqldump.exe and mariadb-dump.exe at call time rather than assuming one name, since MariaDB has been renaming its client tools.

What Helm does not do (yet)

• PHP loads into Apache as mod_php (matches how XAMPP itself runs it). Isolating PHP into its own FastCGI process would let a PHP crash stay contained instead of taking Apache down with it — a reasonable future improvement for stability, but a bigger, riskier change (new bundled Apache module, a different PHP process model) that hasn't been attempted yet.

License

MIT