When you install PHP, you get a simple built-in webserver as a bonus. This is very handy for testing web pages you’re writing, but I also sometimes use it as a simple way to transfer files between devices on my local wifi network. In particular, it’s a convenient way of getting files from my laptop onto my phone.
The basic idea is that I run the PHP web server in the folder that contains the files I want to transfer onto my phone, then use the browser on my phone to download the files. Let’s say that the file I’m transferring is called “myfile.txt” and it’s in the directory “/home/xubuntu/Downloads/“. I would type the following commands in a terminal to run the PHP web server in that directory:
cd /home/xubuntu/Downloads php -S 0.0.0.0:8000
The “0.0.0.0” part is a dummy IP address that tells the PHP web server to listen on all network interfaces (e.g. 127.0.0.1 and 192.168.0.16 on my machine). I’ve also specified 8000 as the port number for the web server. To download the file onto my phone, the URL would be:
http//192.168.0.16:8000/myfile.txt
The phone needs to be connected to the same local network as the computer that the web server is running on. I have both connected to my wifi router.
If I have a few files to transfer, or if the filenames are long, it can be useful to make a little PHP script in the directory to generate a simple web page with links to each file. This is what I’m currently using (saved in the same directory as “index.php“):
<!DOCTYPE html>
<head>
<style>
body {font-size:200%;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<br>
<?php
$i = 1;
$g = glob("*");
foreach ($g as $f)
{
if ($f == "index.php") continue;
echo $i . ". " . "<a href=\"" . $f . "\">" . $f . "</a><br><br>";
$i = $i + 1;
}
?>
</body>
Here are the files stored in “/home/xubuntu/Downloads/”:
And here’s how it looks in the phone browser (the address is “192.168.0.16:8000”):
When I’m finished transferring files, I just press Ctrl-C in the terminal to close down the web server.
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