Are you curious to know or create your own Linux computer and turned it into a web server, may be yes and that’s why you came up here, today’s tutorial is on demand, we all know that basically hackers and programmers use Linux and Ubuntu operating system to get fully customised operating system but some of them also love to do experiments with their Linux computer just like hosting a website on a personal computer.
You can host your whole website database on your personal computer using Linux Operating system, in this tutorial we will explain you to do that in 6 different stages, the stages are very important to follow, skip those steps if you already completed. Now Your Linux Computer Will Be Web Server.
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Six Primary stage To Follow:
Step1: Need A Computer: At First you will be needed a computer with or without having any OS installed, after having a compatible computer find out the specification that meets to install Ubuntu, The specification is very low, that is we are installing OS Ubuntu 10.10 which required 256MB of RAM if you have more than that then that’s well and good, and other need internal Hard Disk storage which is required 3.5GB but it is recommended you should use above 200GB of hard disk because your really don’t want your website visitor to see any server error or you really need to store many data.
Note: If you use High specification computer that means your computer can handle upto 50,000 visitors per second on your website. Make sure that your computer has a perfect vintage system, Heat is the leading enemy of your server so keep in cool place and must have a proper cool air supply, Air Conditioned if possible.
Your computer will be 24×7 online and you really need to care for your computer, so be friendly with your server computer. In this stage or step, you only required having a perfect computer. Proceed to the Next step!
Step2: Install Ubuntu 10.10: There is two process either you use Pen drive installation of your Ubuntu OS or you can process with ISO file CD burn. Now download Ubuntu from here on the official site and then choose as per your system Bit.
- If you have chosen to install Ubuntu 10.10 via pendrive then use the installation process that how you can create your pen drive as bootable and then just upload the ISO unpacked files on that pendrive, you need to open your ISO image file use some software such as DAEMON TOOL and then after you unpacked your files, move those files on your bootable pendrive, after that back to your OLD computer and then before start insert your Pendrive in USB and then start that computer to install, you will be prompt to run pendrive as bootable, then your installation process will be start, follow the process and you are done.
- If you have chosen to Install Ubuntu 10.10 via CD then you need to burn your ISO file on CD and then insert that CD on your booting time system you will be prompt to boot CD to install Ubuntu 10.10. If you unable to boot Ubuntu using the CD then you need to change the BIOS settings, press any key at the time of restarting your computer and select Install Ubuntu.
Important note: if you keep your system free of malware without installing any useless software then your computer will be safe from any security holes. Use less amount of software to maintain the best performance of your computer.
While installation you need to click on Download updates and Install 3rd Party Software and then you will be prompt to Erase and Use The Entire Hard Disk, select it. After you select the Erase other files from the disc, it will erase other OS from the computer if already you are using OS on this computer, now move to next process, follow each option which is required by you. You will be rebooted after installation, or you can manually reboot your computer for overall system refreshment.
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After reboot you go to the System -> Administration -> Update Manager and select Install Updates, after new updates you need to reboot your system , likewise on every update you should reboot your system to take the new updates effect.
You have successfully installed Ubuntu On Your New System! Now it’s time to make it as a Web Server.
Full Tutorial Get A Linux Computer Turn Into A Web Server
Step3: Software Installation For Web Server: In this stage you are going to install some software which is damn necessary to get your computer work for Web Server, this includes Apache, MySQL and PHP, these are also used for Windows Computer Web Server, Now move to your Synaptic Package Manager where all your required software stored by Ubuntu Officials, for that from System -> Software Centre -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager.
Search for the software you need and that is apache2, php5, php5-mysql and mysql-server, select all and click on Apply to install all these packages. After successfully download all the packages you will be prompt by the installer for Root password for MySQL and after all, you are not required to reboot your computer.
Step4: Connect Your Website using computer web browser: Its time to connect your computer root folder, anyone from the internet can access to your computer. But for now, you need to test it on your computer so that you can access your HTML/PHP files via web browser, open your browser and goto http://127.0.01/ and you can see that it is working fine!
You can upload your files in directory /var/www and after every change goes to the web address and reloads it to see if it worked or not. Now we are sure that we can access to the root folder from the computer only and now how to make it available for the world so that anyone can access to your address as per your desire!
This process is only to test whether our web server is accessible from an internal computer or not, but if passed and saw you HTML root directory file then you are good to go next step. How To Access Owned Web Server From Different PC or From anywhere around the world.
Also Read: How To Turn Your Computer Into A Website Server
Step5: Make it WorldWide Available Or Online: In this stage, we will expand our server for public use so that from anywhere people can access to the server.
At first, find out your computer’s IP address and to find that you need to follow the below steps. Go to the Network Information Box and under that find Dynamic DHPC protocol.
From the desktop right click on up/down array which is Network Connection, and select Connection Information and soon a popup will appear with a variety of information which includes your computer’s current IP address, write all the information on something because you are gonna need it in future. write all the address below IP address, such as IP address, Broadcast Address, Subnet Mask, Network Adapter, DNS server and gateway.
You should well aware that now you have copied all the address and going to edit the network address connection which will provide you with a static IP address on your Local computer network, again Right click on up/down the array and select Edit connections.
Now on the editor you need to select the one connection you copied, see the above image and you will find that it is Auto eth1 as the connection name we have copied (In your case you may have another name), now edit that connection, on IPv4 Settings Tab changes the method type from Automatic to Manual.
Now move down you will see addresses, you need to change the address, not the Netmask or Gateway, only on Address column edit it, click to edit and change the address of last digits as per your choice under 254, in our case it is 10 as you can see. Now it’s done, if you have changed your IP last two it to any three to two then that overall Ip will be your Static and Local IP address.
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Step6: Now Upload your file To Online Sharing: In this case you are creating a server for public access and for that you should make yourself aware of any security breach. you can share any Video files or MP3 files but not your secret files.
Go to your computer terminal and for that Go to Applications and then Accessories you will see the Terminal on that Type
$ sudo chmod 777 /var/www
as soon as you put your command and hit enter, it will ask you for your password and after providing the password you will need to change the permissions which in return you will see no pop-ups or any messages because it went correctly or if you see any reply in the permission change then it went wrong.
Move to your computer file manager and the File System ->/var/ and on that place Right click on www folder to change the sharing setting and click on Sharing Option after Right click, give it as per your requirement, share this folder with password or without password, or you can select Guest access will not require any username and password.
You can change anything in permission of that folder for any visitors of the server, just change it on Sharing Settings and make it secure by providing the password.
Now for the test just go to //192.168.2.10/www and you will see your files and folders but hence, you should use your own IP, it may ask you if you have provided folder sharing on password and it will not ask you any password if you didn’t provide any password protection sharing.
Everything is done but one important process is still behind, Port Forwarding, you really don’t want your visitors to dial-up numbers IP address and visit your site, you just need an invisible number with having a text just for example Gadgetsay.com what makes you think that this is only a text that enables you to visit this place, there are certain hidden IP address process over the internet which turns your IP into a text address which till not with a combination no one has taken.
Every web server use port 80 which is by default and now your computer router also need to do that same, back to your Router and you need to find out the port Forwarding section or Applications which will help you to forward your port as 80 by default.
if you have a problem having the section of Port Forwarding then you must use the router manual instruction where you will find the Port Forwarding instructions.
Now after you resolve the port Forwarding you need to get a Static Hostname, your router will be playing the main role in this, you should get DynDNS account which will provide your free desired URL and this can be done using your own router Firmware, to inform you that not ever router support free Dynamic DNS by default, you can either install that software on your computer. or visit on dyn.com to get your URL.
POPULAR DEVICES WITH DDNS INCLUDED:
D-Link
Linksys
Cisco
Honeywell
Foscam
Netgear
Asus
Comcast
Sonic Wall (Dell)
Panasonic
After gaining the DynDNS server you should use Linux client for updating your Dynamic IO with your DynDNS server, usually, your home computer Dynamic IP changes on every 1 week but in manual setting or process, it should be updated on hourly.
Now forward your port to 80 but some of your ISPs or even your router will block to access but for that, you need to visit your Domain name you selected from dyn.com using this HTTP: http://yourdomain.dyndns.org:8080.
A long and lengthy process of making your home computer as a web server ends here, you may have many problems besides and for then feel free to use the comment box and our TEAM will reply you shortly.
This amazing post is really bit confusing for new commerce, but hence you can directly use your domain by purchasing and host that on any company server paying monthly/yearly fees, as simple as that, but if you want to share many data as in GBs then you should use this method of turn your Linux computer into a web server.
Hope you liked it, if you have any queries then drop below.