Easy Way To Set Up Your Own Web Server

So, first things first, why would you want a web server?
I use mine to test out new things that I come up with Have you ever tried to view a PHP file? All you get is the code. If your making a new website, its a bit annoying uploading it to the online web server, viewing it, making more changes... re-uploading it again.. and so on.

So, there are many tutorials on the internet that explain how to set up Apache, MYSQL, PHP, Perl & a FTP server. I remember trying to get it up and running on my laptop. Although I got it working fine, I still thought it was a bit of an arse ache. - and if I were really new to Linux,I wouldn't have a clue to what I was doing

XAMPP
This is a great piece of software that you should use if you want web server up and running. XAMPP comes with Apache, MYSQL, PHP, & Perl.

You can get XAMPP for the following Operating systems:

Windows
Comes with: Apache, MySQL, PHP + PEAR, Perl, mod_php, mod_perl, mod_ssl, OpenSSL, phpMyAdmin, Webalizer, Mercury Mail Transport System for Win32 and NetWare Systems v3.32, Ming, JpGraph, FileZilla FTP Server, mcrypt, eAccelerator, SQLite, and WEB-DAV + mod_auth_mysql.

Linux
Comes with: Apache, MySQL, PHP & PEAR, Perl, ProFTPD, phpMyAdmin, OpenSSL, GD, Freetype2, libjpeg, libpng, gdbm, zlib, expat, Sablotron, libxml, Ming, Webalizer, pdf class, ncurses, mod_perl, FreeTDS, gettext, mcrypt, mhash, eAccelerator, SQLite and IMAP C-Client.

Mac OS X
Comes with: Apache, MySQL, PHP & PEAR, SQLite, Perl, ProFTPD, phpMyAdmin, OpenSSL, GD, Freetype2, libjpeg, libpng, zlib, Ming, Webalizer, mod_perl, eAccelerator, phpSQLiteAdmin.

Solaris
Comes with: Apache, MySQL, PHP & PEAR, Perl, ProFTPD, phpMyAdmin, OpenSSL, Freetype2, libjpeg, libpng, zlib, expat, Ming, Webalizer, pdf class.

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So why download and use XAMPP?
A few reasons, firstly its free of charge - Always a good thing.
The second, anyone can download, install and use it, its that easy.

For Windows & Linux, you can download it as a portable application, which means you can have it running on your USB stick, or from a folder on your C:\. (or /opt for Linux)

For Windows, I belive you can just double click on the main .EXE file to run. on Linux,

sudo /opt/lampp/lampp start

Once you have it up and running, go to: http://localhost/ and you will see the default website. Upload your own files to the default location, and you will see your website there

Note! : This method should 100% NOT be used to have a live website running from your home PC. XAMPP is designed for ease of use for your own testing purposes only! On a default install, there is no root password for MYSQL, the MYSQL database is accessible via the network & PHPmyAdmin has no password.


To view your website from outside of your network, you will need to divert all traffic on the port 80 to your PC / Laptop which has XAMPP running. To access the website from outside of your network, you will need the IP Address, or to set up a dynamic DNS. (I might write a tutorial on how to do this later on).

I wouldn't really recommend this though, as for the reasons mentioned above

Jam