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Introduction to Webserver Assignment

In this section of EdTech 552 (Introduction to Network Administration) our focus has shifted from simple networking concepts to applying concepts to setup a web server. The main objectives of this section are to apply DNS and routing concepts to network a web server to our local network and through Dynamic DNS services to the World Wide Web. We will also learn introductory skills in Apache Server, MySQL, and Php to establish our server. The following pages will discuss the steps I have taken to complete these objectives, any issues I have encountered, and my conclusions at the end of this project. I have also added two pages on additional applications that I have installed on my web server (Joomla and AjaXplorer). Home

Justin's EdTech 552 Site 2013

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Overview
To begin the implementation of my web server, I acquired an older PC so I was not running an open port to Print my office PC. The specifications on this PC are Dell Optiplex GX-260 running Windows XP Pro with a Pentium 4 processor, 1 GB of RAM, and an 80 GB Hard Disk Drive. After setting up this computer and running the updates, I installed WAMP from http://www.wampserver.com/en/.

After WAMP was installed, I changed the ip address of the computer to a static address, put the WAMP server online, and tested accessing the server from other computers on the network.

The next step was to go to the No IP website (http://www.noip.com/) and sign up for service and download the

client on my server PC. This will enable computers outside of my local network to access the web server (because my service provider only provides dynamic IP addresses to home customers).

The last step to allowing access to my server from outside my local network was to open a port on my router to allow traffic. I have a Linksys E1000 router which I set to port forward port 80 to the internal IP address that I assigned to the web server.

At this point my web server was set up and able to be accessed from outside of my network. The next steps of this project will be adding additional application(s) and content to the web server.

Adding Joomla
For my forward facing website, I decided to use the open source content management system (CMS) Print Joomla (http://www.joomla.org/). Instead of posting static html web pages, Joomla can make it easy for multiple users to contribute to the content of a web site and also provide an easy user interface for those people who do not know the basics of html.

After Joomla was downloaded, the files needed to be unzipped and put into a folder in the www directory on the WAMP server. Joomla setup begins when you access the folder from a web browser.

When I performed the install I chose to have sample data installed as well (since this is the first time I have used Joomla). With the sample data installed, it made it easier to see what pages (or articles) were referenced in menus and how the system actually worked. The only issue with using sample data is that there are many articles that I chose to "unpublish" or delete so I wouldn't have a bunch of pages active that I would not be using.

I then needed to create the menus that I wanted for my site.

Finally, the last thing I needed to finish my Joomla site was to add the content for each of my pages (actually in

the Joomla language, these pages are all individual articles that I chose to display one at a time). Editing the articles was easy to do and Joomla has a pretty standard user interface for editing web content. The only snag was that I needed to upload all of my pictures into the media manager before inserting them into the article. All of the pages (articles) in this site are constructed using this interface.

Adding AjaXplorer
While I was looking at opensource applications that would be appropriate for my web server, I came across aPrint product called AjaXplorer (http://ajaxplorer.info/). This product peeked my curiosity as I am an avid Dropbox, Google Drive, and Skydrive user. This application is very much like these applications AND it is licensed so that I can install it on my own server and control the size of my cloud storage. With AjaXplorer, you set up users and it has a very common interface (similar to many other cloud storage applications). There are also extensions that you can add into many popular CMS packages to incorporate AjaXplorer and even a client (in beta) to install on a local machine so that certain files automatically synchronize with the files in your AjaXplorer account. With all of these benefits, I also installed this package on my web server.

Once the package was downloaded, I simply needed to unzip the file and place the folder in my www directory on the WAMP server. The setup was very easy. I just used a web browser to access the folder and logged in using the administrator credentials. (see below)

Once logged in as an administrator, I could create user accounts and repositories. You can tie any user account to specific repositories or allow users to have access to multiple repositories. For example, you could set your users up to have a private repository of documents and a repository that is shared between a specific group.

I then set up a sample repository and a sample user so that anyone in the class that is interested could access this application. You will notice in the screen shot below that there is one document in the sample repository and you have access to share the document, download the document, upload new documents, and/or add sub directories to the repository. The log in information for this sample repository is ... http://jkeelweb.no-ip.org/ajaxplorer/ Login: Sample (case sensitive) Password: EdTech552 (case sensitive)

Issues
Most of the installation and setup of my web server went smoothly with the directions provided in the lesson Print and the YouTube videos that were referenced. Having said that, I did have two main problems that I needed to overcome.

Problem 1
After installing WAMP on my PC, the icon would not change from orange to green and I could not access "localhost" from a web browser on that PC.

Solution
After searching many forums, I located a solution that fixed my problem. My PC was lacking the C++ redistribution package so some of the services in the WAMP installation would not start. I downloaded the C++ Redistribution package from Microsoft. After a restart of my PC, the issue was resolved.

Problem 2
When I decided to install Joomla as my main page on my web server, I needed a way to tell a PC that was trying to access my webpage to go to jkeelweb.no-ip.org/jlaweb instead of going to the default index page at jkeelweb.no-ip.org.

Solution
After comparing two solutions that I found by performing a Google search, I chose to use the default index page to redirect to the page that I wanted to load. In the body of the index page there is now only one line of code <META HTTP-EQUIV=Refresh CONTENT="0 URL=http://jkeelweb.no-ip.org/jlaweb"> This line will automatically redirect the default index page to my Joomla page.

Conclusions
I will say this is probably the most fun I have had in any of my graduate courses! Up to this point, my only Print networking experience has been my small home network and a small business network that includes about 8 computers and three printers all in a wired network. I have never done anything with networking any content or applications that would be accessed by a client outside of a local network. Through this project I learned about setting up a computer with the appropriate software to act as a web server, how to secure the network with port forwarding, and how to overcome the obstacle of not having a static IP address from my ISP. I also learned how to install additional web applications on my web server, how to set them up to access from "the outside world" and how their folders and directories are set up on the web server. I think php and MySQL environments can facilitate teaching and learning in a variety of ways. There are so many applications that are open source and free that can be installed on this environment that the applications are almost limitless. These systems can be used for facilitation of courses through a LMS (like moodle); dissemination of information on static web pages, Blogs, Wikis, or CMSs; and/or sharing and collaboration using applications like AjaXplorer or BigBlueButton (this is a virtual classroom environment that my institution is also investigating). The value of the php+MySQL environment is the flexibility to be used in numerous ways to be able to share information in a user friendly application. In conclusion I will say that now that Pandora's box has been opened for me, I can't stop exploring all of these cool web applications that I can install on my own web server!