How to run a Web Server at Home - Assignment Example

How to run a Web Server at Home By Luay Alshawi Introduction: This “How to” will take you step by step to install and setup a web server from homealong with your main operating system by using a VM workstation. We will install the server using Centos OS 7, which is one of the newest Linux distributions from Centos. Then link your home web server to your domain.com, domain.net … etc. Requirements: 1. A copy of Centos OS 7 “recommended Everything’s copy.” 2. Installed VM workstation 3. Full access to the router 4. At least 4GB of ram or more and a free space of 20GB for best performance from your original computer machine 5. Optional: it is better if your internet provider gives a static IP address. (Comcast gives a static IP address 1) Main Steps to have a working web server. I. Installing VM workstation II. Downloading Centos OS 7 III. Setup a virtual machine IV. Setup Centos OS 7 and then install the required packages V. Setup the router to direct the visitors to our server Step 1: Installing VM workstation a. Oregon State University offers an access to varieties of software free, only for their engineering students that have an engineering account and can access to teach. b. Log in to teach https://secure.engr.oregonstate.edu:8000. After you login scroll down until you see “External sites” click on “VMware Academic Site Login.” c. Download VMware workstation and install it on your computer. Step 2: Downloading Centos OS 7 a. Download “Centos OS 7 everything package” from one of the links on the following page http://isoredirect.centos.org/centos/7/isos/x86_64/CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-Everything.iso. b. After downloading, the IOS file for Centos OS 7. You should be ready to install it on the VM workstation. Step 3: Install Centos OS 7 on a virtual machine Open your VM workstation. Got to: File->New Virtual Machine Select the custom option then click next. Click Next. Select “Installer disc image file” option. Then click “Browse” to choose our centos image file After you find the file, you downloaded from centos.org. Click open. Then next Make sure you chose Linux and the version is “other Linux 3.x kernel 64-bit2.” Click Next. Then you will name your virtual file. I am going to name it Web Server. Click Next. Click Next. Now, we are going to specify how much memory of ram our virtual machine uses. I set my virtual machine to 2GB. My recommendation is to set it to more than 1GB of ram. Otherwise, you will have a very slow virtual machine. Then click Next Select “Bridged Networking”. Then, Next Next Next Next. My recommendation is to use more than 8GB. It depends on what are you going to do with the web server. However, for now I will set it to 8GB and select “split virtual disk” option. Then, next Next Now, we are on the final step of creating our virtual machine. Click Finish. We created our virual machine. Let’s power on this virtual machine so we can install and setup Centos OS 7. Step 4: Setup Centos OS 7 and then install the required packages Hit enter on the “Install centos 7” option. Then enter again. Chose your preferable installing language and then continue. From here, we are going to select our software option and connect to the internet. First: Click on “Software selection”. For me I will select “Server with GUI” Because it has a graphical user interface. It’s easier if you are not familiar with Linux. Otherwise, go a ahead and select “Basic Web Server.” If you are finish click “done”. Click on “Network & Hostname” from the system option. Then, Power on the “Ethernet.” Done If you want you can setup the time, location, and language preference. From “Localization” Now, we should be done and ready to install our Centos Operating System as a server. Make sure you set a password for your root. In addition, do not forget to create a user. We are going to wait until it is done. Then we will reboot our virtual machine. After rebooting the system, you will have to accept Licensee information. Then, Finish. Click on Not listed to login as a root. Therefore, we can have access to anything on the system. Type in your username: root Moreover, the password you closed during setup. First thing when you login you will have to complete the “Genome initial Setup” If you are done. Now we need to make sure that we have access to the internet. After we verified we have a connection to our home network. Then, let us move and install the required packages. Go to Application->Utilities->Terminal. First, we need to update the packages on Centos OS 7. sudo yum -y update After we are done, we can install virtualmin package that will manage our server. This package will install all the required packages such as apache, mysql, Bind Dns server, Mail, etc. sudo wget http://software.virtualmin.com/gpl/scripts/install.sh Then, sudo sh install.sh During installation, it will ask you to name your host name: Name it to host.yourdomain.com Then when you are done To Login to your Webmin which is the user interface for managing the server? You might need to go to setup the router first and Come back to finish this Step. host.yourdomain:10000 Type in your root and your password, You don’t have to worry on setting up Webmin, because now you can have a working web server. For more information on Webmin, just Google Webmin. Also, if you want to setup Webmin, Google it. To see the content of your website: you either use the internal IP address alternatively, your domain. However, you have to follow the instruction from the next part. In order to add files or folders to your website, go to Places->Computer->var->www->html. Step 5: Setup the router to direct the visitors to our server: 1. Login to the router home webpage, mine is 192.168.2.1. 2. Go to Firewall->virtual servers. Then Apply changes. If your external IP address is 73.11.10.111 Then if you give this IP address to your friend, they will be able to access your web server. Optional: if you have a domain, Log in to your domain’s control panel. Add an”A” record that points to your IP Address. Now you are completely done! Congratulation… 1IP address is very important here. The IP address that is given from your internet provider is your identifier on the web. Therefore, if your IP address is always the same then you do not need to worry about anything. However, if your IP address always changing then you need to setup software that informs the domain that your address has changed. Google it and you should be fine. 2 Version 10.0 of VM Workstation does not recognize Centos OS 7. Therefore, we need to inform VM, we have Linux and it has 3.x kernel. Not doing this Centos OS 7 will not have access to the internet. Read More