Do I need Apache for Drupal to work?

Question

Hi, I'm new to PHP and interactive web portal sites. Currently I've uploaded drupel to my server which already has mySQL and phpmyadmin. I have set both of those up correctly, but I'm still having problems with errors. Do I need to also upload Apache to my server to get drupel to work properly? I've never used Apache, so any info about uploading it would also be helpful, thanks.

Thanks to the responder below, if I knew more about what I was talking about I'd add more details lol. What I can say is that I'm hosting my account via godaddy and they have mySQL and phpmyadmin already set up on their servers. I activated both, created a mySQL database and populated it with tables via phpmyadmin. I'm not sure which version of mySQL or phpmyadmin is running on their servers however?

Anyway, my drupel site is full of errors, and I kept seeing Apache mentioned so I wondered if I needed it. Guess not if I've gotten a basic version of drupel online already.

Answer 1

How are you accessing phpmyadmin if you don't already have a PHP-enabled webserver?

Apache is simply that: a webserver (or an "HTTP server"). It accepts the requests from HTTP clients (e.g. web browsers) and processes them. If the request asks for a resource that happens to be a PHP file, and if your webserver is configured to execute that file, then the PHP engine is invoked to process the PHP code and return the results (typically an HTML page).

Drupal is simply a PHP application. By that, I mean it is a series of PHP files that, when the components are configured correctly, executes logic to do all the Drupal functionality (display content, allow users to log in, administration and content editing, etc...)

So the short answer is that you need a webserver of some type. The odds are, if you already have PHP running correctly, that you already have a webserver such as the Apache HTTPd server, or Microsoft IIS, or iPlanet or a number of others.

BTW: you'd have gotten a more accurate response if you told us what operating system (and version) is on your "server" [or any relevant details, such as hosting system or whatnot].

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Adding to the previous answer....
It seems to me that it is not necessarily the apache issue in stake but rather the server itself whether it is windows based or unix/linux or it could also be that the security is set to prevent perticular configurations.
For example, when you install a PHP application it may require the use of writing files to the server and some servers, especially shared hosts like godaddy.com are designed with high security to prevent writing files unless security measures are taken.