Saturday, December 17, 2011

Fast Guide to hosting webpages or website

Sharing my quick guide; how to host files with the least amount of time:

Want to host your own webpage on your own desktop ??
Not Tech Savvy or lazy to configure a proper server for hosting your pages?? Setting up Apache gives you a headache ??


If you merely need to host files without php/perl support AnalogX is a free and good tool i would recommend.
1) Download & Install it
http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/Network/sswww/Freeware.htm
2) Launch it

Click the middle box to select the directory you are serving your files from.
Click the start button and if your port 80 is not occupied the server should work.
Moment of truth:
Place an index.html file in the selected directory.
Surf to that index.html by typing http://127.0.0.1/index.html in your web browser.


If your site needs php, perl, ssl support, mysql and many more ..............
I would recommend this excellent tool Xammp
1) Download & Install xammp here.
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html
2) Launch it here


Click start on the box beside Apache.
Place your files in \htdocs\
Surf to that index.html by typing http://127.0.0.1/index.html in your web browser.


oxymoron alert ................
For Linux users who are not tech savvy
.
Most linux distribution should already have a server install by default.
Do a quick check by typing without quote "which httpd" in Terminal (linux version of cmd.exe)
.
If you see a path then congrats you already have a server.
If not install it with this command: yum install httpd
ps. if your linux distribution is no longer supported (EOL) then yum would not work.

Where should your html files be placed?
My default path is /var/www/
If yours is not the same path, then i would suggest searching httpd.conf for your root directory.

Default path to httpd.conf is /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
To configure httpd server, edit the httpd.conf file and restart httpd server.
To start or restart your httpd server use this command: service httpd restart