A Blog for Anuj

Finally i’m running my own web-server at home at a static IP i got as bonus from my ISP.

After my 3 day lazy ordeal to get everything i wanted for a basic setup up and running, i thought i’ll share my experience with everybody. For starters, I love Ubuntu server edition (gutsy). Although i’m saying it was an ordeal, but in fact the whole setup was a breeze :)

During OS installation (which lasted for 3 hours, as i started to vacuum my old unused box …) i opted for a LAMP ( linux, apache, mysql, php) setup along with SSh, Samba and Print server to be installed. Now this takes at least a couple of hours to get perfect on a good day….. we all agree on that, dont we??

so when I finally reboot after installation is over, i login to find that everything is up and running!!

• apache2
• mod_php
• cupsd (print server)
• samba ( for ease with mounting windows shares .. can’t ignore the hated sibling)
• ssh (for logging in remotely )

note the IP address of the new born server and check from another system, if you can ssh into it. To check this, get onto a a different machine, and type:

ssh user@IP

you should be prompted for saving the secure fingerprint key, say yes, and put in the password. If you can still remember your password for the user you setup while installing OS, you are good to go. Unplug the monitor from your box and chuck the new server in a dingy (dark areas are cooler) but breezy part of you house, or as far as you network cable reaches :)

Now that we are done with getting a basic server up and running, we need to forward the internet traffic to it somehow. I have a ADSL2+ modem/router, which lets me configure port-forwarding very easily. Simply forward port 80 to this new machine. Now we want to check if our local setup works!!! In my case, before i went ahead and bought myself a sexy domain name (with my own name…. lame); i used a dynamic dns server like dyndsn.com . Just go there and register for a dynamic domain name and point it to your Static/Dynamic IP. Allow 5 minutes and enter the newly registered domain into your web-browser. You should get your default apache web page. Horrayyyyyyy

In next post i’ll tell you how i tweaked my apache to get a decent landing page plus configuring a front-ent to run/manage my torrents remotely.