How To Build A Web Server In A Virtual Machine

Building your own web server is cool - but oftentimes it requires you spend weeks checking out tutorials and how-tos.  What ends up happening is you find something that looks like it’ll work, get half way through it, and then see it isn’t what you need!

This tutorial is going to show you how to set up a complete server inside VirtualBox, Sun’s virtualization software.  You can do it on Windows or on your Linux machine without having to wipe out your existing operating system or have to dual boot.

It’s going to consist of two videos - one demonstrating how to set up Ubuntu on top of VirtualBox and the other running Putty and EHCP.  EHCP is responsible for setting up PHP5, Apache, Webmail, Email and all the other libraries you’ll need to run a fully functional web server.

Here’s what you’ll need.  The videos are below this little list!

• Download and burn a copy of Ubuntu Server
• Download and install VirtualBox
• Set up VirtualBox for running Ubuntu
• Install Ubuntu by booting up your virtual machine instance

• Install Putty on your Windows machine
• Login to your server using Putty
• Run the EHCP install
• Navigate to http://your.ip.address/ set everything up like a normal web hosting control panel!
• Start adding sites through ftp and phpmyadmin!

And here are the videos that show you how!

• How To Install Ubuntu Inside VirtualBox
• How To Set Up Your Virtual Web Server Using EHCP

Let me know your questions!