firdausaris.com

I have a pc at home collecting dust, so i decided to put it to use as a home file server and database server for my files and photos. I have a celeron D pc with 40GB Hard Disk Drive, 256mb ram, Nvidia Geforce2, Dlink Wireless Access Point, Dlink 8 port switch and an external Buffalo 160GB Hard Drive.

For the operating system, I’ll use Ubuntu Linuk 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) which was downloaded for ubuntu website. Now for the steps.

1. Installing ubuntu : The installation proceed effortlessly, Ubuntu detected my sound card ,display card and network card. the only problem is that the audio automatically sets to mute on startup. I’ll google up the solution later.

2. Internet connectivity: I connect to the internet with my Dell Vostro Laptop using Option Icon wireless modem, which I’m having problem finding the driver for linux yet. So in the meantime, I’ll set up my vostro running Windows Vista as a gateway using Internet Connection Sharing (ICS). Here are the modification I’ve made on the server:

         Dell Vostro (Gateway) : – IP – 192.168.0.1, subnet mask: 255.255.255.0

         Ubuntu (Client) : -     type in the terminal “sudo vim /etc/network/interfaces”

                                               Insert the following in /etc/network/interfacecs

                                               auto eth0

                                               iface eth0 inet static

                                               address 192.168.0.2

                                               gateway 192.168.0.1

                                               netmask 255.255.255.0

                                               network 192.168.0.0

                                               broadcast 192.168.0.255

              after that estart the networking service by typing

                         “sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart”

              test the connection by typing “ping www.google.com” . I you received ping replies then the connection is working.

3. Update Ubuntu: Update ubuntu using the Gnome Package Updater. Update everything, this should take about 2 hours depending on your connection.

4. Installing SSH Server

             sudo apt-get install ssh

5. Installing Database Server

            sudo apt-get install mysql-server-5.0

6. Installing Apache Http Server

            sudo apt-get install apache2

7. Installing PHP for Apache2

           sudo apt-get install php5 libapache2-mod-php5

8. Installing MySQL for apache Http Server

           sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-auth-mysql

           sudo apt-get install php5-mysql

9. Installing PhpMyAdmin

           sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

all done

you can test the web server by typing  http://192.168.0.2  in your favourite browser