Hello friends.

In this article we will install local server to your computer for subsequent development and configuration of sites on it.

To do this, we will use a program called Denwer. Its installation is simple and does not require any technical knowledge. Moreover, the installation process is accompanied by prompts.

How to install a local server and whether it is needed at all, read on. Let's start by looking at the importance of a local server.

Do I need a local server?

For beginners, I’ll start by defining the concept of “local server” - this is a server (hosting) that is located on your computer (not on the Internet) and allows you to create and configure websites on it.

I believe that it is necessary to create and further configure the site on a local server, so that then in one fell swoop you can place a fully functional site with all the settings on the Internet. And then immediately fill it with content.

This is what truly professionals in website creation do. Even if we look at people who constantly work with creating websites on various engines, we will see that almost every one of them first installs the site on a local server, then configures it, and only then transfers it to real hosting.

As an example, I’ll show you the menu from Sergei Patin’s course "Joomla 3 - professional website in one day". Look at the sequence in which the website is created.

As you can see, from the very beginning the site is installed locally, configured, and at the end the completely finished resource is transferred to hosting.

Placing a website on the Internet and then setting it up when you need to promote it is unwise.

What if you already have a website? Do you need a local server?

Let's imagine the situation that you already have a website and you are a very avid techie, that is, you like to always delve into all sorts of technical issues and constantly experiment with something.

So, you already have a website and there are already some visitors on it. Although not a large number, they exist. Put yourself in their shoes.

You go to a website and constantly see that the owner of the site or blog is constantly changing something. It changes the location of blocks on the site, the structure, and sometimes the design is new every day. Would you like this? So visitors wouldn’t really like this situation.

Developing, setting up websites, as well as creating designs on a website that is already posted on the Internet is, at a minimum, not professional. Not to mention the fact that it has a very adverse effect on his development and approval in the eyes of search engines and your audience.

Therefore, you need to do all such things on your own local computer.

Now we will start installing it, after which you can install your site on your local computer and do whatever you want with it. Visitors will not see these frauds, because... This is your personal computer and no one has access to it. And after you bring everything to its final state, you can easily transfer it in a completely finished form to a real website.

By the way, I also talk about the importance of a local server when creating a blog in my mind map “Plan for creating a quality blog from Konstantin Khmelev,” which you can get by leaving your 1st comment.

Let's move on to the installation process itself.

Install a local server on your computer

The local server is a program. Therefore, you need to download it. We will use the Denwer web server for this.

Go to the official website program and click on the big button.

After clicking, you are prompted to select the program version. Choosing a version old PHP 5.2 and press the button Download.

In the next window we need to enter the data where the link to download Denwer will be sent. Enter your real data and click on the “Get download link” button.

After clicking the button, you will immediately receive an email with a link to download the program. The sender and subject lines of the letter will be as follows (see screenshot below).

After downloading, in the location where you saved the program you will see an installer that will look like this.

To start installing the local server, run the installer.

It asks us if we want to install the base package? We agree.

The unarchiving of the data will begin and will proceed very quickly.

After unpacking the data, the installation of the local server will begin, which will be carried out on the command line. Immediately when it starts, we will be asked to close the browser.

Automatically, when the command line appears, the browser will open with a message that you must close the browser to continue or cancel the installation.

You should also close other browsers if the command line installation will not continue.

After closing all Internet browsers, installation will continue. You just need to follow the prompts that the command line gives.

To continue the installation, press Enter.

I'll install it in another place. In my case it's a disk E folder host.

In the next step, press Enter again.

The next step is to select a virtual disk letter. By default, the program prompts you to select drive Z, since this letter is the last in the English alphabet and it is unlikely that any drive is occupied by it.

I'll leave it like that. You can enter another letter, but make sure that no drive is occupied by it.

After selecting and entering the letter, press Enter to continue installing the local server.

After copying is complete, you must select the Denwer launch option.

There are 2 launch modes, but the program itself recommends choosing option 1. That’s what we do. Enter the number 1 in command line and press Enter.

• launch;
• stops;
• reboot.

We need these labels. Therefore, enter the letter Y and press Enter.

This was the last step in installing the local server, after which the browser will automatically open with the message “Denwer installed successfully”, and it will also be written that Denwer works with the same ports as Skype.

Therefore, if you have Skype installed, then do what is written in the browser window.

It will also create the desktop shortcuts that we wanted so much.

1. Start Denwer - start Denver;
2. Stop Denwer - stop;

All. Our local server is installed. Now all that's left to do is check it out a little. Launch and see if our virtual disk, which will act as a local server, actually starts.

Before we launch, let's go to the directory where we installed Denver and see what's there.

Since I installed on drive E in the host folder, now there should be such a folder on my drive.

The way it is. And inside the folder there should be the Denver files themselves. We go inside the folder, where we should see the following picture.

There are files. This means everything was successfully copied during installation.

Now let's check whether Denwer itself starts. Let's use the shortcut to launch.

After launching the shortcut, 2 command lines will quickly flash. When they disappear, 2 shortcuts will appear on the taskbar.

If such shortcuts appear, then Denwer is running. A virtual disk with the letter Z should also appear in my case. In your case, with the letter you assigned. Also, this disk should be named similarly to the disk in which you installed Denver itself.

As you can see, there is drive "E", which I installed in, as well as drive "Z", which appeared after launching Denver. They have the same names. Both discs are titled " Local disk". Only the letters are different.

If we go to the virtual disk (Z), we should see the same files and folders in Denver that we looked at earlier.

All friends. This completes the installation of the local server. Now you can start creating a website on it and do any manipulations with the site.

In the next article I will show. You will also find a detailed article with images and a video tutorial there.

By the way, about the video lesson. If someone doesn’t understand something from the text version, then here’s a video lesson that I specially recorded for you.

With this I will say goodbye to you. I look forward to your comments and any ideas for new blog articles. If something doesn’t work out or you have any questions, write them in the comments.

All the best.

Best regards, Konstantin Khmelev.

Hello, dear readers of Habr. With this material we begin a series of publications on how to build VPS hosting from scratch based on the RUVDS White Label API.

In this introductory publication, we will tell you what you need to do first in order to start making your first profit from your own VPS hosting as soon as possible, how to do it relatively quickly and how feasible and profitable it is. If you decide to create your own VPS hosting from scratch, but you do not have your own infrastructure or do not have the funds and time to create it, welcome to cat.

Do you need a website

To organize your own VPS service, you will first need 2 things - a website on which you will offer VPS server rental services and a service provider that will provide you with favorable partner conditions for these purposes, its infrastructure and a reliable API with extensive capabilities. What is an API? This is an interface using which you can provide your clients with all the same server management capabilities that your service provider provides to its clients.

Integrating a website with your VPS provider via API will be much cheaper and faster than creating your own cloud infrastructure from scratch, since in this case it “takes care of” many issues: you don’t need to worry about the availability of a sufficient amount of resources from the provider, , how to organize a wide and fault-tolerant channel for accessing the Internet from virtual servers, how to collect and store data on the use of resources by servers, and so on.

Now about the site. There can be many options here, we will list the most common:

• you are the owner of a website that offers related services (domain verification/registration, DNS server rental, remote server administration).
• you create your website from scratch using a popular CMS and plugins for it.
• you order a website from a web studio
• enter your option

The first is the best option, since in order to add a new VPS server rental service, very few modifications will be needed: you won’t have to write many of the things listed below from scratch. When creating your website from scratch, the launch time frame can change significantly for the worse. You will need to implement all the components from the list below yourself (or use third-party implementations, having previously tested and adapted them to your project). We recommend using the third option only if you lack the necessary knowledge on creating websites or if it is impossible to make your website the way you want.

Let's start

What should be implemented on this site?

Registration, user authentication/authorization, password recovery, feedback form.

All hosting providers without exception have this. Your future client must be able to register, recover his password if he loses it, have Personal Area on the website with up-to-date information about its balance, purchased servers, etc. Also, he must be given the opportunity to report the problem to technical support. In order to avoid mass registration of “fake” accounts, we recommend not neglecting additional security measures, such as captcha on forms, and also maintaining the maximum amount of available information about the user, which can help if any violations are detected on his part. In this case, there are many ready-made solutions that require minor modifications. If you plan to create your website based on a CMS, then the above-described functionality is either implemented to some extent or can be easily connected using plugins.

Client personal data management

It should be implemented to some extent, but you can do without it. This functionality does not block the launch of your service.

Client server management

What should be on a given page of your site depends on how much you want to use the available functionality of your service provider and how much control over the server you will give your client. For example, you can create a dedicated server for him after depositing the required amount on the balance and his written request to technical support, or you can provide him with a full-fledged configurator for fine-tuning the server’s characteristics, as well as interfaces for changing the configuration during operation, obtaining server load statistics, various options like reinstalling the OS and so on. The launch speed of your VPS hosting will vary significantly depending on the option chosen. We will consider this issue in more detail in the following articles from this series.

Possibility of using a trial period

Obviously, for the initial promotion of your new VPS hosting service, you will need to implement the possibility of using a test period. This is necessary so that your client can decide for himself whether the price you advertise for VPS rental corresponds to the quality of the services you provide. What should you consider when implementing? First of all, you need to select the number of days. You should not make the test period too long - clients who simply want to get a free server for a certain period will register on your service, and after the test period ends, they will register a new account and try to use the test period again. In order to protect you to some extent from such clients, you definitely need to learn how to identify them. This is especially important at the initial stage of development of your service, as for each such client you will receive less potential profit. You should also take into account that a long test period will not be very beneficial for you, since there is no test period on your affiliate account, to which all the servers you create are linked.

Billing

How will clients top up their balance and buy servers? Of course, we will need another very important component, billing. What do we include in the concept of “billing”? Of course, it includes creating/editing current tariffs, interfaces for accepting customer payments, internal payment processing mechanisms, creating promotions/discounts, and monitoring tools.

You should approach the implementation of your own or the integration of third-party billing into your project especially responsibly, because the ability to purchase a VPS server on your website (read your first money) directly depends on the performance of this component. To quickly start accepting money from the most popular payment systems, we recommend that you use payment aggregators. Why? Firstly, integrating with one aggregator is much faster and easier than integrating with each of the payment systems it provides. This is due to the fact that each payment system your own interaction protocol, which needs to be correctly implemented and work with it unified within your system, which is extremely labor-intensive. Secondly, you have one interface that provides most of the necessary functionality for working with customer payments - this is the aggregator’s personal account. Of course, you will have to pay an additional commission for all this, but in our opinion, this solution is optimal when creating your own VPS service.

Of course, before integrating with a payment aggregator, your site must meet certain requirements. As an example, we can cite the requirements of the payment aggregator paymaster:

• the site must be completely filled with information and function;
• the site must consist of more than one page;
• the website must contain information about the goods and services sold, as well as the cost of these goods and services;
• the site should not be hosted on free hosting;
• goods and services offered on the site must not contradict the current legislation of the Russian Federation and international law;

Also, it is worth paying attention to the fact that the list of payment systems is usually much wider if you enter into an agreement as a legal entity. In some cases, connecting certain payment systems may take quite a long time, since your site must meet the requirements of each payment system provided by the aggregator, and the verification procedure is carried out on the side of the payment system.

Financial aspect

We have come to one of the most important aspects (if not the most important) - financial. Working with your VPS service provider should be profitable. Let's consider why it is profitable to organize a VPS server rental service by choosing RUVDS provider as a service provider.

Let's take the most popular VPS configurations based on operating system Windows Server 2012 R2 and provide some data that we obtained when analyzing the VPS services market in Russia as of February 2016:

Configuration	1	2	3	4	5
Number of processors	1	2	4	6	8
Volume random access memory, GB	1	2	4	8	16
Disk capacity, GB, HDD	20	40	120	300	600
Number of IPv4 addresses	1	1	1	1	1
Current configuration price
When paying monthly	300 rub.	600 rub.	1400 rub.	2980 rub.	5720 rub.
When paying annually	2880 rub.	5760 rub.	13440 rub.	RUB 28,608	54912 rub.

In order to estimate your potential earnings, we present the gain in price of configurations compared to the average price of competitors:

Also, do not forget that we have expenses for paying commissions for transfers and withdrawals to payment systems.

The current discount for creating servers using the API is 10% .
How to estimate the potential earnings from one server of a given configuration, purchased for a month? You can use the following formula:
Earnings = Current. price RUVDS * 10% + Difference with the average configuration - Expenses for payment of commissions.

Calculation example for configuration 3:

Earnings = 1400 * 0.1 + 794 (rounded down) -240 = 694 rubles.

This is earnings from one server. When your clients purchase 25-30 servers of this configuration, you will earn an amount of earnings already in 20 thousand rubles per month.

In the following articles we will tell you in detail about the capabilities of the RUVDS White Label API, discuss how to choose the optimal tariffs for your VPS hosting and on what conditions you can earn money.

What is shared hosting?

Recently, the vocabulary of an ordinary Russian person has been flooded with a huge number of new words, mainly borrowed from the English language.

How to create hosting?

For example - hosting. Even regular Internet users cannot always clearly explain what this mysterious word means, although in fact everything is quite simple.

Word hosting comes from English host, meaning: main device, owner, innkeeper. The last term comes closest to the correct interpretation of the word hosting as used on the Internet.

Why do you need hosting?

Let's say you created a website locally on your computer. Now you need to post it on the Internet so that not only you, but also other users can admire it. How to do it? You can display a site on the World Wide Web directly from your computer, but this is quite labor-intensive: the site will disappear when the computer is turned off, and the Internet must be high-speed - otherwise the site will slow down.

To solve this problem, servers were invented that can support several thousand sites at once. The service of hosting a website on someone else’s server is virtual hosting . It is suitable if the site is small (about 20-50 MB), otherwise for its smooth operation you will need your own separate server (physical hosting).

What is hosting like?

Hosting can be either paid or free. You can publish your page on some special sites completely free of charge (for example, http://narod.yandex.ru/), only the name of the site will be three-level: ivanov.narod.ru, petrov.narod.ru, etc.

If your website was created for commercial or representative purposes, it is better to register a domain and buy website hosting; it is not at all expensive, and the result looks quite solid.

What services does hosting include?

Hosting services usually include a domain name, program execution, database access SQL data and email attached to the site (for example, [email protected]).

That's all, I hope now you understand what virtual hosting is and why it is needed.

Business idea

Server for rent or VPS

If your business is related to sales or has an information component, then sooner or later you will have to think about posting information about your products and services on the Internet.

Even structures far from IT, such as law firms, post information about themselves on the World Wide Web.

However, if you can use free hosting to host a business card page, then, for example, for a successful online store you will have to purchase either a VPS or a real hardware server.

When choosing a location, it is necessary to take into account many factors, for example, in which country the data center is located.

How to create your own hosting from scratch

Since most of your clients live in Russia, the server should be located right there; however, recently Russia and Germany have been connected by very good and high-speed communication lines.

VPS is virtual server, several virtual servers are launched on one “iron” server, each of them can work independently and not depend on the others. This approach can significantly reduce rental costs, however, VPS performance is much lower.

Using VPS allows you to reduce costs, besides, the price of a virtual server depends on the resources allocated to it, you can rent an inexpensive server, and then, if necessary, you can switch to more expensive ones tariff plans, with increasing resources.

In the future, when the VPS capacity is no longer enough, you can move on to renting a real server. As practice shows, this does not occur until the number of people visiting your Internet project exceeds 10,000 per day. And such a number of visitors is a very large number! Not every online store has such popularity in just a week!

All by yourself and with your own hands

Anton comments:

I think that today it is more practical to rent a VPS than hardware servers.
It’s better to take pieces of hardware when VPS completely fail, when traffic exceeds 30,000 per day. Until then, VDSka will do just fine

Artem comments:

Well... It’s quite possible to rent several inexpensive hardware servers and sell shared hosting services from them.
Sevak can be rented for 30-40 euros, hosting for 10 sites - 6-7 euros. You can run 20-40 clients on one server, the profitability is quite decent :)

Anton comments:

This is only if you administer it yourself. But you will have to monitor the servers 24x7. If your hosting goes down at least a couple of times a month, your clients will quickly flee. 🙂

LiOiDa272727 comments:

I rent servers on the site. I’ve been using it for half a year. Works great. Transfer speed 100 MB. Renting in Europe

CS 1.6 Creating/Configuring/Raising a server

Preface

Hello to all SteamCommunity users. It’s been a long time since I wrote any guides, tutorials, etc. After watching the latest guides about creating a server, I decided to write my own guide that will REALLY help both beginners and experienced CS 1.6 server administrators

Initial information about creating a server.

Installing Metamod/Dproto/AmxModX

——————————————————————————————————————————-Hosting: All these modules are in the panel server management. BUT! Some hosting sites have old, slightly outdated modules. Links to the current ones will be provided below.————————————————————————————————— —————————-Computer: All modules, plugins, configs and other goodies must be installed manually. This is one of the disadvantages of having your own server on your computer. But if you have dexterous hands and normal brains, you can do everything within 25 minutes. Let's get started: First of all, you need to install Metamod.

HOW CAN WE DO THIS?!?!?!?!?!Download current version Metamod (All OS) Download the Liblist.gam file (for Metamod to work correctly) Download the current version of AmxModX (Linux) Download the current version of AmxModX (Win32) Download the current version of Dproto———————————————— ————————————————————————————Installing Metamod: Unpack the archive. We see the addons folder. We throw it into the cstrike folder. Now it needs to be launched. Open the liblist.gam file / look for the line: gamedll “addonsmetamoddllsmetamod.dll” (If you have Win32, do not touch anything, if you have Linux, replace metamod.dll with metamod.so) Place the liblist.gam file in the cstrike folder. Metamod installation is complete .————————————————————————————————————————————— Installing AmxModX: Unpacking the archive .We see the addons folder. We throw it in cstrike. Go to addons/metamod/plugins.ini - and add the line win32 addonsamxmodxdllsamxmodx_mm.dll (if you have Win32, then we don’t change anything 😀, if Linux, we write like this: linux addonsamxmodxdllsamxmodx_mm.so) AmxModX installation is completed.—— ——————————————————————————————————————————— Installing and configuring Dproto: Unpack the archive. We see the amxx and bin folders. We only need the bin folder. Go to bin and see 2 Linux folders and Windows. We go to addons, create the dproto folder, take the file we need and put it in the folder. Then we go to addonsmetamodplugins.ini and add the line: win32 addonsdprotodproto.dll (If you have Win32, then we don’t change anything, if Linux, we write like this :linux addonsdprotodproto_i386.so) There is a file in the archive called dproto.cfg, did you find it?

Great! This is a server configuration file and its protection. Download the current Dproto config. After downloading, open it and edit the line Game_Name= This is the name of the game in the player’s search engine. You need to write without spaces! Save the file and throw it into cstrike. Dproto installation is complete. ————————————————————————————————— ——————————Don’t forget to check that the server is working and all modules are running before further installation.

Setting up Server.cfg and AmxModX

Before starting the server, we need to configure it a little :) —————————————————————————————————————— ——————Setting up Server.cfg Download server.cfg We are looking for the lines: hostname “Server name” sv_downloadurl “Site from where additional files will be downloaded” (if the server is hosted, look for the link in the control panel or contact technical support) (if the server is on their own computer, then to prevent people from downloading one or two files for 5 minutes, you need web hosting. The simplest) sv_contact “Your contacts” rcon_password “Password for managing the server” (must be changed) The rest of the cvars in the config can be changed using Google :) —————————————————————————————————————————————— Setting up amxx.cfgHere I will tell you in more detail about some quarrels.amx_show_activity - show admin actions to other players 0 - disabled 1 - shows without admin name 2 - shows with admin nameamx_scrollmsg - show messages at the bottom of the screenExample: amx_scrollmsg “Welcome to %hostname%” 300 ( 300 is the frequency of message display in seconds) amx_imessage - display messages in the center of the screen Example: amx_imessage “Welcome to %hostname%” “message color in RGB” amx_client_languages ​​- allows the client to change the language. It’s better to set 0. Also, all cvars that are in your plugins can be specified in amxx.cfg or changed through the plugin source. ———————————————————————— —————————————————————

Installing plugins

The easiest part of setting up a server is installing plugins. —————Files with the extension .amxx are thrown into addons/amxmodx/plugins/Files with the extension .sma are thrown into addons/amxmodx/scripting/Files with the extension .inc we are thrown into addons/amxmodx/scripting/incuide/Files with the extension. txt we throw into addons/amxmodx/data/lang/Files with the extension .cfg we throw into addons/amxmodx/configs/—————————————————————————— ———————————————————All plugin settings and variable settings are usually located in the .sma file. In addition to editing the .sma file, you can specify the cvar and value in amxx.cfgExample: amx_primer 3 Enabling the plugin: Go to addons/amxmodx/configs/ look for plugins.ini Open it and enter the name of the plugin Change the card or restart the server.——————————————————————————— —————————————————— ATTENTION! plugins no source you download to your fear And risk!

Protecting the server from cheaters.

Uuuuuhhhh, everyone must have been annoyed by the little guys who download software and don’t let them play normally? Or even worse when guys under 25-30 years old download cheats and interfere with the normal game.————————————————————————————————— ————————————Oddly enough, there are already many ways to protect against cheaters, like regular plugins.amxx to .exe files. The most relevant are the following methods of protection against cheaters: Alias ​​checker by mazdan - detects and punishes people with different scripts. That is, it is caught by some software, for example KzHack and CDHack. AimDetector by mazdan - The best protection against cheaters with AimBot’om, SpinHack’om and other nasty things. All anti-cheats except this one are either outdated or don’t work at all. At correct setting not a single cheater will be able to play on your server.Metamod WHBlocker - tired of cheaters who kill through the wall? Pfft... install this module and you can forget about all the vh’ashniks. Blocks Wallhack similar OpenGL32 coordinate and sound ESP cheats. This is the best WHBlocker! SpeedHack blocker - this module BLOCKS any type of speedhack and punishes. That is, there is protection against frequent nickname changes. For more correct operation of anti-cheats and protection of ban bypass, I recommend using the ban system: FreshBans and the CS:Bans Web interface———————————————— —————————————————————————————

Creating a website on a virtual server. Server on local computer.

Before starting to create their own website, novice web developers are recommended to try their hand at a local machine ( personal computer), this requires the DENWER distribution, which can be found on the developers’ website www.denwer.ru

Gentleman's Web Developer's Kit (DeNVeR)

The software is emulation of a virtual server on a local computer, at home as a replacement for web hosting, without the need for an Internet connection. You can create a website on any CMS platform (or without a CMS) in a matter of minutes, fill it with content and debug the configuration. With subsequent transfer to hosting or to the server, respectively. The virtual server contains all the most necessary components: Apache, MySQL, phpmyAdmin, SMTP server + the ability to connect additional extensions. Distributed free of charge - in Russian.

Why do you need a local server?

• Firstly, for the development of the site, the possibility of initially filling it with content and optimizing the site structure.
• Secondly, it’s a way to check the site for errors and debug the configuration.
• Thirdly, how backup site and subsequently saving site data and SQL databases to a local server.

DENWER includes:

• Installer (installation on a flash drive is also supported).
• Apache, SSL, SSI, mod_rewrite, mod_php.
• PHP5 with GD, MySQL, sqLite support.
• MySQL5 with transaction support.
• Template-based virtual host management system. To create a new host, you only need to add a directory to the /home directory
• Startup and shutdown control system for all Denver components.
• phpMyAdmin is a MySQL management system via a Web interface.
• Sendmail and SMTP server emulator (incoming letters are placed in /tmp in .eml format); Supports work in conjunction with PHP, Perl, Parser, etc.

The distribution does not leave entries in the registry and does not affect important system files, does not clog the system and is tested in practice.

Apparently, many users of computer systems of any type know that you can create a local server on your computer yourself in a matter of minutes. True, not everyone has a clear understanding of the basic methodology for carrying out all the steps. So let's try to give at least partial information on how to create a local server and adapt it to your own needs.

The concept of a local server

In general, initially you need to clearly differentiate the local servers being created by type. In addition to the most commonly used web servers, you can create and configure game servers, proxies, and even DNS servers yourself. Everything depends only on what specific function will be assigned to one or another component.

However, in most cases, all these components have one thing in common: they are created initially on local machines in the first stages without being placed on a remote hosting, which allows them to be configured and edited directly on their own computer terminals.

Now we will try to consider questions regarding how to create and configure a local server on a computer, depending on its type and purpose

Software selection

Basically, the choice software- a personal matter for each user. It is worth noting here that if, for example, when creating a local web server, only hypertext markup languages ​​like HTML or CSS are used, there is no point in installing additional software packages, since any Internet browser “understands” them perfectly.

It's another matter when, in quality additional components there are scripts written, say, in PHP. Once you use them, the browser can no longer cope. This is where specialized software comes in handy. As for proxies, DNS and game servers, the situation here is also ambiguous. Somewhat later we will consider the most simple applications to create and configure them, but for now let’s focus on the main issue regarding standard local web servers.

How to create a local server: installing and configuring the Denwer package

If you decide to start creating a local server for subsequent hosting on a remote hosting, naturally, you will need some kind of tool. Most often, when searching for appropriate software on the Internet, users are redirected to download the Denwer software package, which is a domestic product and is also quite simple to understand and work with.

It contains all the necessary tools like Apache, PHP, MySQL, phpMyAdmin, sendmail, etc. The only drawback is that you will additionally have to install special engines, like in the simplest version.

So, creating a local server begins with launching the installation EXE file (naturally, as Administrator). A window similar to DOS mode appears. Follow the installer's instructions. First, we select the storage location for the server data, then we assign the letter and operating mode of the virtual disk (in principle, the proposed parameters do not need to be changed). This completes the installation. Now the local server needs to be checked for correct functioning.

Performance Testing

At this stage, we launch the created server, and enter http://localhost in the window of any Internet browser. If the program is installed without errors, the browser will display a message stating that everything is working.

If you scroll down the page, you will see the main links where you can conduct a full test of the local server.

Encoding issues

Sometimes you can encounter an unpleasant situation when the sent message Email looks like a set of incomprehensible symbols. This only happens because the program is initially designed for UTF-8 encoding. It can be changed quite simply, for example, to KOI-8R or something else.

Installing a local server: additional engines

Now another important point. A local Windows server cannot do without special add-ons called engines (WordPress, Joomla, etc.).

First, in the www folder, located along the path \home\local host, in the main directory, create an arbitrary directory. After that, enter the path http://localhost/ in the address bar of the browser and check what exactly opens. If it opened everything is fine. Copy the engine files to this directory using any file manager(at least the same “Explorer”) and enter the address again. The Installation Wizard window appears, where you just need to follow the instructions.

Database addition

Now the local server must attach the special databases. For this purpose, the phpMyAdmin service is used, which is entered by entering http://localhost/tools in the browser address bar. First, the section for creating a new database is selected, and a name is given to it (any name is possible, but it is better to indicate the same one that was used for the folder in the previous section).

Then we return to the main page and configure the privilege settings (create a new user, specify the login and password, use localhost as the host and tick everything that is in the window). All you have to do is press the “Go!” button. and wait for the process to complete.

Transferring a local server to hosting

The next step is to connect the server to the local network and transfer it to hosting so that it becomes available to users on the Internet. The “native” method of transferring data to a remote resource does not look very convenient due to many additional steps.

Setting up a local server in terms of transferring data to remote hosting is best done with the FileZilla application, with which you need to copy the files located in the above directory to the root directory of the host. This is either the PUBLIC_HTML folder or the HTTPCS section. Now it’s a small matter: we change the so-called absolute paths to folders and files and directories in the engine settings, indicate the name of the database that is supposed to be created and used on the remote host, and specify a new login and password for the host. All. This completes the work. Connection to the local server of user machines can be made through any Internet browser.

Local proxy servers

Now let's see how to create and configure a local proxy server. What is it for? Firstly, it can be used to track absolutely everything that is downloaded to a computer terminal or laptop while surfing the Internet. And secondly, this way you can save traffic if it is paid.

A local proxy server works on the principle of caching calls to DNS servers and stores, say, pictures or any other objects, and when you visit a resource again, it loads them from its memory, so to speak, speeding up access to the resource.

To create a server of this type, you will need a simple HandyCache application, which should be placed in a convenient place for quick access, since each time you connect to the Internet you will have to access it.

Before you begin, you should configure your proxy settings. For example, if you are using the Opera browser, in the server settings for HTTP you need to specify the value 127.0.0.1, 8080 for the port. Now we launch the application, go to the settings and look at the “Dialing” tab. As a rule, the program itself determines what type of connection is currently being used. Next, click the button of the same name and use the created server.

Yes, please note: in the cache settings you can specify a size of about 300 MB. In theory, this should be enough for all occasions. You can view the contents in the Cache folder of the main directory where the program was installed. And one more thing: remember, this is a regular proxy server, not an anonymous one, so you shouldn’t expect it to change or hide your IP address.

Local DNS servers

A local DNS server can be used in cases where the connection is unstable, the local network has too many branches based on TCP/IP, or you are engaged in web development and testing. In principle, the BIND program is perfect for such purposes. Although it is designed mainly for UNIX-like systems, however, it works great with Windows (we assume that the terminal does not have a server version of Windows installed, which can be configured in the Control Panel).

Launch and follow the instructions. For convenience, it is recommended to install the program directly on drive C, in the created BIND directory. Next, enter your username and password, after which we activate the installation process and wait for it to complete.

Now in the C:\BINDetc folder you need to create a file “name”.conf, which contains the settings that the local DNS server will use (the name is arbitrary and is specified without quotes). In order not to waste time, you can easily find the file you are looking for on the Internet and download it, placing it in the specified location.

Now we reboot the system, then call the command line (cmd through the Run menu or the Win + R combination), where we enter the nslookup request. If confirmation occurs, it means that the server is installed correctly and is working without errors.

Local game servers

Finally, let's look at another type of server. server for games that use online mode within a local network. Let us explain what this is using the example of the game Minecraft. To do this, you need to download the server itself from the official website of the game and use the Hamachi application. A prerequisite for correct operation is the presence of the JAVA package installed on the system with the latest updates.

To configure, we use the server.properties file, where we enter the data provided by the Hamachi application. We register the server IP address, the number of players, the use of possible game modes, etc. In the online-mode field, you must specify the value true. After that, save the changes and close the file.

Now we define the internal IP of the server, which will be used by players when connecting to the terminal on which it was created. Computers, of course, must be connected to the server itself either through local network, or via VPN. The IP address of the server terminal must be static and must be bound to the MAC address.

Login is carried out using the Minl2 application, where you specify your login and password during registration. After these steps, we leave the server and log in again, but in offline mode using the created login and password. In the settings section, select Multiplayer and enter the required server IP. All. You can enjoy the game with a real opponent.

Conclusion

Of course, these are not all the nuances that may arise when creating local servers different types, and, of course, not all programs that help in this process. Let's put it this way: these are the general and basic principles embedded in such technologies. And if you look at it, there is nothing particularly complicated here. A little time and patience - and a local server of any type will be created within 10-15 minutes.