Looking at putting a website together after much procrastination and I've been looking at setting up a basic web server for testing purposes. Just generally looking for a 2nd/3rd opinion on what to use by asking what you lot use [if you use anything at all]. so the options are: xampp on windows apache etc. on a linux VM apache etc. on a dedicated machine so what do you all use if anything?
I tend to use a virtual machine running windows xp and xampp. I keep a backup of it before setting any websites up. That way I can quickly setup a new virtual. webserver ready for development.
Depends on the server OS, but i have all of them (except XAMPP, i manually install everything every time even on Windows).
Installing XAMPP and running it when needed is pretty much the easiest option for testing your stuff at home. I'm using it for years now to test my work and it never caused any problems.
I use Apache on a Ubuntu VM (only if I am on Windows, otherwise it is on the local machine), since it makes the whole installation process so easy. It is literally as easy as typing a few commands (or doing it through Synaptic) then copying in your web files.
For me it's your standard LAMP stack running in Gentoo (either virtualized with ESXi or VirtualBox, or running on bare metal. Rail against me all you want, but I love my emerge over apt and yum and all those other attempts at package management.
The question is: Will you be hosting in a windows or 'nix environment? Most web hosts are 'nix based, and as such, you kinda want a LAMP stack. The reason for this is mainly that Linux is case sensitive. This is possible to configure on windows as well, but mostly not natively done by the likes of XAMPP. But yeah... LAMP on Linux, XAMPP on windows (i'd configure for case sensitive, though), and MAMP on a mac. Those are the easiest.
ok so i've set up the server, linux [ubuntu] VM apache/mysql/php all set up and working now the tricky bit [and the bit that always annoys me with VMs] how would you recommend putting files to/from the server/VM? as far as i can see there's 2 options, set up FTP on the VM or use samba [?] file sharing any thoughts?
I'd use WinSCP. Make sure you have an ssh server enabled on the VM: Code: sudo apt-get install openssh-server Then you can just SCP them over and it means you do not need to worry about setting up an FTP server or messing about setting up samba. Also if you want to go into more depth, then check out some of the perfect setup guide from howtoforge.com, they are pretty good.
IIS was also an option, but as the hosting i was looking at getting was linux/apache that's what i went for
I used to do manual self install of MySQL, PHP on a local IIS. However after moving to Windows 8 Pro I enabled Hyper-V, installed a Windows Server VM and Zend Server CE which is free. This sets up a complete PHP, MySQL and Zend Framework stack and Apache if required therwise it integrates with IIS. I'm using Apache 2.2 so that I can test .htaccess files too. Installed IIS on top for FTP functionality only. Though I'm yet to work out how to integrate the VM with Zend Studio that I use for development (Dreamweaver for front end design).