I’ve always wondered how difficult it would be to set up a local web server. It’s been a personal project of mine considering I utilize web technologies on a daily basis.
Thanks to Chad of Greasy Valley I found an excellent writeup entitled Setting up your first web server on windows with Apache, PHP and MySQL by Amit Arora. In plain jane language, Amit walks you through the steps of installing PHP, MySQL and Apache on a Windows machine. It’s like a Sparknotes or Dummies guide for setting up web servers, clearly written for the “newbie” but concise and informative enough for a novice user.
As I sat here reading through Amit’s tutorial, I felt as if the author was holding my hand through the nasty bits, explaining in laymens terms what each configuration meant. Within about 15-20 minutes tops I had my own private Idaho (server) ready to be experimented with, and to think it only took a minor 7 or 8 steps and presto! I’m with Chad on this one — why didn’t we think of this earlier?
I plan on mirroring an exact replica of the kartooner.com website. This way I can experiment and tinker to my heart’s content without actually messing up the original pristine installation. Clearly this means improving not only my web server maintenance skills, but also tidying up my CSS and coding habits, not to mention along the way I’ll improve and refine my PHP and MySQL knowledge.
Thanks for pointing this one out. I’ve recently had to switch back to windows due to some work programs I need to run from home. This is going to be fun to play with.
Mark: Good to hear someone else will benefit from Amit’s excellent tutorial. I’m actually in awe that I was able to set it up and without a hitch!
Cool! Yeah, crazy how easy it was, eh? I guess that tells us something about Apache, huh (and PHP for that matter)? All our sysadmin here at the office does is complain about running IIS. I’m actually going to do this on my Win2K home machine next, hopefully tonight. Did you also install MySQL?? I didn’t do that on my XP box here at work.
Chad: I setup two, count ‘em two, server installations both on my work and home PCs (Windows XP Home Edition) and yes, that included MySQL. I’ve already put the work testing server to good use by creating a new layout for our corporate web site.
At home, as I mentioned, I mirrored an exact replica (save for a few plugins) of the kartooner.com site. I plan on tweaking the stylesheet to save a few bytes and clean it up a bit.
Thanks for the link. For once I was able to setup something and feel like a true web geek.
I have only one web server set up on my home comp and I love it, It allows me to test things without the use of an ftp client every 10 seconds.
I’ve had an OmniHTTPd installed on my hard drive ever since I can remember… OK it was probably 2002.
It came with a PHP install and then I downloaded an update.
However, I’ve only recently installed a MySQL server. I didn’t really need it for the websites, but I’m working on a Java project of mine that is so much easier once you use SQL instead of text files…
I set one up on my server a year or so ago. Didn’t have a fancy guide to walk me through it though. Probably would have solved a ton of heartaches.
I even installed wordpress on it to serve as a homepage for my wife and I. We can leave messages to each other and manage our daily bookmarks from there.
I’ve done it with Apache, Xiami and IIS. I think IIS is running now…