Setting up a Testing Server

Monday, October 01, 2007

After a recent decision to learn PHP, I found myself in a predicament: It takes far too long to upload each minutely changed file to the web just to test a small change. So, I decided to set up a testing server in my studio.

I used an old Dell XPS (933MHz PIII, 128Mb RAM, 40Gb HD) as the platform, installed Windows 2000 Pro on it, and downloaded the amazing XAMPP Server-in-a-Box (Apache, PHP, MySQL). The installation went smoothly, and I was soon up and running. After installing a wireless USB dongle, I connected the computer to my home network. I then went into the XAMPP install folder and changed the share permissions of the "htdocs" folder to allow network control, which is the internet folder for XAMPP.

Next, came what appeared to be the most difficult part of the operation: connecting the MacBook to the server. My experience with connecting two Windows XP boxes to each other and getting the permissions, firewalls, and access controls to be friendly made me dread the thought of inter-OS sharing. Actually, this part ended up being the easiest part of the entire process. If Macs integrate better on a Windows network than Windows computers do, Microsoft definitely has a big problem to deal with.

After connecting the two computers via wireless router, I proceeded to download and install WordPress in a folder on the testing server. I'm planning to learn how to create WP templates, and this should be a much faster and easier way to do so...

I have not yet connected Dreamweaver to the testing server, but I plan to do that the next chance I get... I'll write more about this once I get a chance to use it a bit more.

Till then...

Labels: computer, software, website

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