New to web hosting! - UK Web Hosting | Dedicated Server Windows and Linux VPS Forum

**daledavies** · #1 (**permalink**) 13-07-2007, 21:27

For some reason Ive always wanted my own home web server, over the last year or so Ive made several fleeting attempts at it and always failed miserably! I think it is fair to say that web hosting is not a simple subject to tackle, I would say my knowledge of it ranges to intermediate in some areas and complete novice in others.

Anyway, I recently took the plunge and installed the latest version of Ubuntu Desktop in a dualboot with Windows, this is my first ever experience of using linux and I was actually surprised at how easy it was to get Ubuntu working. Anyways I think the first thing I did was open firefox and search for how to install lamp on Ubuntu Desktop, a day later and I have what appears to be a fully operational web server based on LAMP, running a Wordpress blog!

Now surely it cant just be this easy I think to myself! Common sense however tells me it cant be, after all I have a lot to learn. I realise that running a web server on a platform like Ubuntu Desktop is not ideal in any way, but so far its given me a way to crowbar myself away from Windows and get my head around Linux.

I was pondering about where the best place would be to start on my quest for knowledge of all things LAMP, I instantly thought of you lot here in the eukhost forums. Can anyone offer any advice for where I should go from here?

Many thnks

**flesso** · #2 (**permalink**) 13-07-2007, 21:46

First off, you are very brave to have your own home web server. I had my own Windows one for about 6 months, but had to stop it because it was using up so much electricity - giving us a huge bill. I would suggest that you are better off with a dedi or a VPS Hosting, for many reasons; including that you get full technical support.

Now, as for learning LAMP, I can suggest the following:

Linux (Ubuntu Desktop)

http://beginlinux.org/ - This website hosting provides listings of courses in which you can learn Linux, Ubuntu obviously being one of the supported distros. From what I can see some of the courses are free, some of them certainly accept guest logins.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-t...wn-53104.shtml - This is a basic tutorial on how to use Ubuntu. It takes you through the basic settings and should get you on your way.

Apache

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com...2-5076696.html - This is a basic tutorial which takes you through the basic steps of configuring Apache.

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/howto/htaccess.html - This could prove an important tutorial as it takes you over the basics of the very important .htaccess file.

MySQL

http://www.washington.edu/computing/...l-install.html - This is a tutorial that takes you through the basics of installing and starting MySQL version 4.1 (some people are still running it.

http://rpbouman.blogspot.com/2006/01...ubuntu_07.html - This is a tutorial on installing and confirguring MySQL 5 on Ubuntu.

PHP

http://www.w3schools.com/ - This is the place where many developers first visit when they're starting out with a new language. This is also generally a good website hosting to bookmark should you need to look back at it in the future.

http://www.learnphpfree.com/ - This is a free website hosting where you can go and learn the basics of PHP.

Misc

http://blog.eukhost.com/ - Theres always the good old eUKhost blog full of articles fit to any purpose.

Books - There may be many good resources on the web, but I suggest that you go out and buy some books on the subject as they will have much more in depth information than anything that you will find for free on the web.

**WelshTom** · #3 (**permalink**) 13-07-2007, 21:56

You need a REALLY good internet connection anyway to have a website hosting sitting in your house - or it will be really slow for other users.

**daledavies** · #4 (**permalink**) 13-07-2007, 22:17

Thanks flesso thats great! Plenty to be getting on with there, can you recommend any good web hosting books?

The web server for me is two things; something that Ive always been intrigued by and a tool that allows the world wide web to happen. I don't think I would ever really consider actually hosting a website hosting from home, apart from to fuel my interest in just having my own web server and learning all about it.

I definitely agree that from a professional point of view if you wanted to host website hostings then you would need much more than a computer sitting in your bedroom on a broadband connection, even if it is supposedly "high speed".

If you want a more serious web hosting solution and actually want the high level of control owning your own server allows, then I guess a dedicated server or VPS Hosting is the probably only way to go.

To be successful in operating and understanding either of these areas I'm going to need to learn a lot first! Its good to have somewhere like this to get friendly advice

**flesso** · #5 (**permalink**) 13-07-2007, 22:22

A quick search on Amazon brings this up:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Understandin...365174&sr=8-15

'Understand Web Hosting On Linux' - I think this would be suitable for you as you seem to be a new comer to webhosting in general and Linux.

You can always do more in depth searches, as that book is only really touching the tip of the ice berg.

Hope that helps.

**daledavies** · #6 (**permalink**) 14-07-2007, 16:12

That sounds perfect, I might make the investment. I think once Ive got my head around Linux and the basics of web hosting I'll know what to look for.

What Linux distro would you recomend? Im trying to put together another PC to use and Ive been considering Ubuntu Server. Although the network admin people in the uni I work for have been adiment that Windows is the way to go.

**WelshTom** · #7 (**permalink**) 14-07-2007, 16:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by daledavies

That sounds perfect, I might make the investment. I think once Ive got my head around Linux and the basics of web hosting I'll know what to look for.

What Linux distro would you recomend? Im trying to put together another PC to use and Ive been considering Ubuntu Server. Although the network admin people in the uni I work for have been adiment that Windows is the way to go.

CentOS is what eukhost uses, but personally, I would go for Fedora Core.

It all depends on your personal requirements - if you don't want anything fancy and just want the basic web server etc, CentOS is fine.

**flesso** · #8 (**permalink**) 14-07-2007, 16:29

Distro wise, it really depends on what you want to do. If your requirements are down the server road then I highly suggest that you use CentOS. CentOS is the favoured distro of many webhosts (including eUK) as well as the leading control manufacturers, such as cPanel and DirectAdmin.

If your looking to use Linux simply in a desktop manner then I would stick with Ubuntu or use Gentoo.

Thomas mentioned Fedora Core; this is a very powerful system but may not always be the best to use in a server environment.

You also mentioned that the network people at your workplace said Windows was the way to go. I wouldn't disagree with this, however if you are going to go with Windows I would highly suggest a VPS Hosting. This is because if you have a home server or a dedi then you are responsible for applying the Microsoft updates; if you go for a VPS Hosting then the hosting company are responsible for the updates as they normally do them on the main node which then take affect accross all the VPS Hosting.

**daledavies** · #9 (**permalink**) 16-07-2007, 11:28

Well I got my girlfriend to buy me that book for my birthday so hopefully I'll be reading it soon!

What is it about CentOS that makes you beleive its better that any other distro?

**flesso** · #10 (**permalink**) 16-07-2007, 12:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by daledavies

Well I got my girlfriend to buy me that book for my birthday so hopefully I'll be reading it soon!

What is it about CentOS that makes you beleive its better that any other distro?

It's a very stable distro as it's based on the same code as Redhat. This seems to be the main reason why many people, including the control panel people seem to opt for it over other distros.

**daledavies** · #11 (**permalink**) 16-07-2007, 14:44

Thanks, I gotta get a spare machine to try all this stuff out on instead of having it set up in a dual boot. Im fed up of rebooting everytime I want to browse the internet!

**schoolbag** · #12 (**permalink**) 11-11-2007, 09:03

If you install a web server i think, fedora or centos is the best for operation system. you may want to install a hosting control panel, if so, try out webmin and vhcs2, they are the best free webhosting control panels

**WelshTom** · #13 (**permalink**) 12-11-2007, 08:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by schoolbag

If you install a web server i think, fedora or centos is the best for operation system. you may want to install a hosting control panel, if so, try out webmin and vhcs2, they are the best free webhosting control panels

You've just replied to a very old topic.