Starting From Scratch

[Viper114]

So, it seems our business is needing to move to a new hosting service, as our current service, a local company, has kindly asked us to get lost because we're getting to big for them. After doing a lot of discussion and research, we've found our next service, but before we can simply move over, I need help.We've decided to go with Amazon's EC2 service, which some other local companies have praised for their pricing and services. From what I've gleamed by reading what they have on their website, they'll basically provide us with an "instance" that's almost like having a virtual private server, completely configurable how you want it to be, and you pay for how much service is used over time. So, after getting the service set up and running, it's just standard practice of setting up the server as per the Operating System chosen, and then setting up the domain name afterwards.And that's what I need help with. Truth be told, I have NEVER done this kind of thing before. Not once have I ever made my own web server for whatever reason. But I am willing to learn so I can understand how it's done (and I actually want to do it myself), the question I have is what can I read so I can learn how to do it? I'd like some help finding a guide that guides someone how to do it from scratch even though they've never done it before (like a For Dummies guide almost), so then I can read it at my leisure and follow at my own pace. I've tried Googling for such a thing beforehand, but I really haven't found anything that can properly guide me. It doesn't even have to be an internet article, it could be a actual book that I can buy, too.Luckily, I also have a testing ground to perform it on before starting up with Amazon. I have access to a Debian-based computer that I'm willing to practice with so that I can ensure that the website works properly, and then mimic what I did there on the Amazon service so it won't take as long. So a guide that is based on Debian would be preferable, but not essential.If someone can help me find something so I can start this server from scratch, I thank those people in advance for their help.

[boen_robot]

I've tried to play with Linux OSes myself, and... I don't want to talk about it! ... no... I mean, it was a pain, and I'm sure it's still going to be if I try it today. I strive to avoid Linux as much as possible.The site HowtoForge helped a lot in my journey, but if you need anything that's not covered by the guide (and I needed plenty), chances are you won't be able to do it or will go over so much pain in doing it that you'll forget why you needed it in the first place.A much easier way is to use Windows Server 2008 (R2). Even if you are to use the Server Core edition, translating GUI commands to command line equivalents is usually easy to do (with an appropriate MSDN page opened...). The only problem is that the hosting is usually a little more expensive than an equivalent Linux based server due to the Windows license fee involved.

[Viper114]

I don't hate Windows based servers, but unfortunately I have tried seeing if our website will work on such a server with a different hosting service (which we ultimately decided to not go with) and it's just not possible. The website was designed by the previous IT tech to work on a Unix based server (mainly due to how the website read the file paths), so I need to try and keep it consistent without needing to rewrite the whole website, which is why I have to choose a Unix OS for the Amazon instance. Have to play with the hand I'm dealt.

[boen_robot]

Unless he used absolute UNIX paths (starting with "/"), which would be a bad practice anyway, you wouldn't have much (if any) problems with Windows. PHP automatically translates paths to the appropriate Windows equivalents... or at least its stream aware functions do that. You should actually try to see if the app works, just in case.Worst case scenario - you can do a search&replace for replacing every

/

with

' . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . '

(use " instead of ' if that's what the IT tech used around strings)

[Viper114]

He did use absolute Unix paths. He was a Unix aficionado, so that's how he built the website. And changing that would require a lot of effort to make it work on Windows, which would make it easier to just do it for Unix instead.

[Viper114]

I've gone through and followed a guide that I found to ensure LAMP was installed on Debian. Everything appear to install fine, but beyond that I can't seem to find any guides on what to do next. Everything I can find just details a whole bunch of languages and packages that web servers COULD use and how to set them up, but that's it. I need something more comprehensive so the stupid (like me) can keep going, making sure the website is placed in the right location and other such details. But I just can't find such a thing...

[boen_robot]

Yep... that's exactly the point I reached before giving up. If you go any step further, consider yourself "done with the hardest part".

[trinistorm]

I've been playing around with Ubuntu Server 10.4 for a while now and as far as documentation goes you really have to make time to gather your resources. Here are a few links I've gathered mostly dealing with securing the web server though. Apache Foundation's <- Here you can get tips on using the configuration files.http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/s-wssec.html <- Security ConsiderationsW3 <- Security ConsiderationsThese ubuntu wiki's may also be used as guides as Ubuntu is Debian based.This book is not entirely about LAMP but has a section on it that was useful to me.You may also check out some of the O'reilly books including, "The Apache Cookbook" and "Apache The Definitive Guide". I hope something hear will be helpful to you.

[Viper114]

Well, I will check them out and see what I can gleam from them. Thanks.But any more help people can provide is still appreciated.