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Webserver on my computer

M

MTXR

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Nov 4, 2000
Messages
1,324
Is there anyway to turn my machine into a webserver?

I want to just be able to host very basic .html pages that i create and have other people test them on there machine.

Is there any type of software?

Its really basic website stuff, and flash. nothing hardcore.

I wanna be able to turn it on for a bit so people can test and turn it off.


Specs are...

2 x 3.0ghz Xeon(prestonia) (1.6ghz@3.0)
2gigs DDR 3200
WinXP Pro SP2
 
anything can be a webserver, the amount of users/traffic are limited by your hardware. how many users, just a few, to test? should be able to do that easily. your ISP may not let you run a server without paying for an upgraded plan. not sure if they check for additional traffic, or if there is another way. not familiar with windows, but i'm sure there is probably something built in.
 
You need you get over the notion that a server is some kind of specieist machine (more so a peice of software that responds to requests). You mention that you are running windows xp pre, great. It comes with IIS (Internet Information Server aka MS's websrever). You can see if its configured by cicking here.

I'm to drunk to try and expain how you use it (yes its a wednesday), however there are loads of guides on the net.
 
Take a look at apache. There are tons of webservers out there, but apache is among the best. Just install it, configure it, and you're good to go.
 
I run Apache on my two production machines, and for simple webserving you definitely don't need a beastly machine. I used to run a production server on a Celeron 600 with 384 MB RAM, which is still more than I needed for what I was doing. A friend of mine a few years ago was running a site that had a 6 GB collection of pictures on a dual Pentium 2 box the school gave to him.

I'd recommend just downloading Apache and reading the documentation on their site.

Apache Documentation:
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/

I've been getting big into Ruby on Rails lately, and there's something called Instant Rails, which is a self contained zip archive that includes Apache, Ruby, mySQL, and Rails with no installation needed.
 
for something simple, just use IIS that comes with XP. You install it by going to add/remove programs, then Add/Remove Windows Components, then select IIS.

Setting it up for basic web serving is pretty easy, just do a quick Google search and you should be good to go.

Apache is also excellent, but the http.conf file can be daunting for the beginner.

You will also need to get some kind of IP forwarding service. There are many free ones out there, I personally use DynDNS.org.
 
Aw c'mon, don't get him started using IIS :p Apache is simple to download and install, and you can sometimes find Apache "packs" that are Apache + PHP/Perl/etc already configured, saving you some work. If you're behind a router, you'll need to forward the port as well...general rule for running a webserver of your home computer is to a port other than 80, iirc. I use port 1337 :p
 
movax said:
Aw c'mon, don't get him started using IIS :p Apache is simple to download and install, and you can sometimes find Apache "packs" that are Apache + PHP/Perl/etc already configured, saving you some work. If you're behind a router, you'll need to forward the port as well...general rule for running a webserver of your home computer is to a port other than 80, iirc. I use port 1337 :p
Click to expand...

i hear ya, I have nothing against Apache, but honestly for a beginner who just wants to set up a simple little site serving some static pages, why not just use IIS? For someone unfamiliar with web servers, it's far easier to get your feet wet with IIS.
 
I'll try both, but i am confused on the port forwading aspect....

I am not behind a router right now at all.

I will be in the future, but i guess i'll google everything. Thanks for the help.
 
MTXR said:
I'll try both, but i am confused on the port forwading aspect....
Click to expand...

basically, you need some way to get people on the Internet to find your webserver. You can get a DNS name setup (e.g - http://www.yourname.com), so when people type in that address it goes to the IP address of your computer. The IP address is assigned by your ISP, but in most cases with people using a cable modem, the IP address is selected from a pool of available addresses and it can change frequently, especially if you reboot your computer a lot. it would therefore be a royal pain to update your DNS entry to point to the new address every time your IP address changes.

where the forwarding service comes into play is it can automatically detect your current IP address and updates your DNS entry automatically. They also have the option to use one of their "sub-domains" for free instead of paying to register your own DNS name. So instead of paying to register http://www.yourname.com, you would instead use their service to setup http://yourname.dyndns.org

hope this helps!
 
i think you guys are missing the point. the OP wanted something very basic and simple to serve some static pages. You are all recommending stuff he really doesn't need, a full-blown LAMP/WAMP isn't what i'd call easy for the beginner and especially isn't needed for what he is asking for.
 
Apache would be the best choice for long term use, I wouldnt run IIS cause of the shear amount of exploits out there for it. (You will need to keep apache up to date as well, there will always be exploits, but I believe the ratio is much lower for apache)

Apache isnt hard to setup, just ask for our help if you get stuck. If you want something moron proof I think analogx has a barebones webserver app that will suffice. Although its far from what one would consider a "real" webserver.

As for ports, if you have no firewall the webserver should open up port 80 to the world. So just open up internet explorer and type in your ip address and you should see exactly what others would.
 
maw said:
i think you guys are missing the point. the OP wanted something very basic and simple to serve some static pages.
Click to expand...
The motto where I work is "Give the customer more than they expect." He asked a question and we've given suggestions. Yes, some suggestions are more or less than the OP may need. But, at least he'll have the information to make that decision. :)
 
F**k me there are some hardcore apache pushers here. Yeah apache is powerful, but its not like it has a user friendly GUI or any gui infact. IIS is up there with apache, plus it comes with windows. Last time i checked Apache Is far less secure than IIS. Theres only 3 reasons to run Apache over IIS. 1 - Running a mac or linux. 2 - Using php, perl or ruby/rails. 3 - You have a small penis and believe that running a command line interface will somehow make up for it.
 
Wiseguy2001 said:
F**k me there are some hardcore apache pushers here. Yeah apache is powerful, but its not like it has a user friendly GUI or any gui infact. IIS is up there with apache, plus it comes with windows. Last time i checked Apache Is far less secure than IIS. Theres only 3 reasons to run Apache over IIS. 1 - Running a mac or linux. 2 - Using php, perl or ruby/rails. 3 - You have a small penis and believe that running a command line interface will somehow make up for it.
Click to expand...
I certainly don't want this to turn into a pissing match or anything, but you seem to be pushing IIS more than anyone has been pushing apache. Apache is simply a great webserver; that's why everyone suggests it.

1. That doesn't make any sense. Apache runs on a wide variety of platforms, and I'd say it's by far the most popular web server for the BSDs and solaris.

2. I'm sure IIS can do those things as well.

3. Not sure where you're coming from on this one. People run apache because it is a great, solid, stable webserver, not because they are trying to prove something about themselves. There are plenty of gui configuration tools for Apache for those who do not want to edit config files. But the config files are heavily commented and there is substantial documentation for editing those files that there's really no excuse not to be able to edit the files.

We're not pushing Apache. We're simply suggesting it because it is one of the best webservers. Your post has an incredibly trollish tone, which doesn't really help your argument. ;) You're certainly pushing IIS harder than any of us are pushing apache. At least we don't have to take our reasons to the level of badmouthing IIS users.
 
I simply stated my preferences - I have used both IIS and Apache (1.x and 2.x) and I prefer Apache over IIS.

Also, do you really think that publication of known security problems makes Apache less secure than IIS? That is a weak statement, because for all we know, IIS (or Apache, or whatever) could have dozens or hundreds of undiscovered bugs.

Not to mention that Apache (according to last netcraft crawling of 75+ million servers) is running on 50+ million servers vs. 15+ million for IIS (sorry, don't know about breakdown of Apache 1.x servers, 2.x servers, IIS 5/6, etc), so kind of like how the most security exploits are discovered for Windows systems because of its majority user base, I'd think the situation is the same since Apache is the most widely used server software.

1 - Well, I run Apache on Windows as well as Linux. ;)
2 - All this can be done on IIS (well, maybe not mod_perl, but eh). Not to mention IIS also gets ASP and the .NET benefits (I really would like Apache support for this)
3 - Having worked with both, I don't have the preference of GUI or command line, but I find command line and file editing a lot more natural.

Just my 2 cents.
 
BillLeeLee said:
2 - All this can be done on IIS (well, maybe not mod_perl, but eh). Not to mention IIS also gets ASP and the .NET benefits (I really would like Apache support for this)
Click to expand...

heh, that's the main reason i'm running a WIMP :p . ASP, .NET and PHP all on the same platform makes my life easier.

i like and use both Apache and IIS. But to be honest, if my first exposure to web servers was Apache, I'd have run screaming. Sorry, but Directives and .htaccess files are just not that easy for the beginner to grasp.
 
(Several grains of salt here as I make my living pushing Java code)

If all you are doing is static html, then Apache or IIS will work just fine. Eventually you will want to do some server side scripting... ASP==IIS, PHP==Apache, and JSP==Tomcat. As you get into more advanced configurations, Apache front ends Tomcat, so if you start there you lose nothing. A JSP/Servlet engine can also serve up static HTTP files without any problem as well.

Odds are you don’t have a Java Development Kit installed on your machine – download the JDK , install, reboot. Setting up Tomcat by downloading , running the exe, and putting your static files in the “C:\jakarta-tomcat-5.0.28\webapps\ROOT” directory. And you are live. By default, it runs on port 8080. If you want to change that without setting up Apache to front end, change the Connector port="8080" property (found in C:\jakarta-tomcat-5.0.28\conf\server.xml) to Connector port="80" and restart Tomcat.
 
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