i would like to know howw to set up my own web server using redhat linux (9)
i have installed the server version and i own my own www.co.uk domain
any hlp wwouldbe very much apreciated
;)

all you need for a web server is a computer running a web server process, and not much else.

I am going to let you know that running lots of services on your redhat 9.0 machine may get you hacked, so you might wanna disable services you're not going to use... you might wanna install and configure a firewall as well, if you didn't already during the RH9.0 installation.

From this point on, i will ignore security, as that is an entirely different topic, and i will talk about getting a web site up and running.

OK...

basically, if you installed the server version of RH9.0, you should have the httpd daemon installed... it's probably not configured yet, but it should be installed.

You need to configure it either by running the httpd configuration gui, or by editing "/etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf" by hand. it's not thet difficult to edit this file by hand, but i suggest the gui until you are more familiar with it. If you do still wanna edit it by hand, be sure to note the location of the DocumentRoot and remember to place your web site files there. You may change the DocumentRoot as well, but if you do, be sure to change the other directive in the file that relies on DocumentRoot... it should be just below it by 20-40 lines or so.

Once you have the document root set, set the domain name and server name as you want it to be displayed.

If you are using virtual servers, configure the first one as you wish. If you are not, just configure apache the obvious way. Whether you are using virtual servers or not should become apparent in the GUI, or in the document... virtual servers basically let you run several web sites from one httpd installation.

Once you think you have it all running, type "service httpd stop" and then "service httpd start". If it starts successfully, then visit http://<your_machines_ip>/ to see if it works.

If it does, then you need to then get the machine visible to the outside world 24 hours a day, this *may* mean you have to forward a port (80) from your internet router through to your machine, if you have broadband and some kind of router.

Once you can visit your internet-visible IP address from another machine at another location and get your web site appearing, you can begin to configure your web address to point to it.

You basically need to log into the web site of the people you purchased your domain name from, and change it's IP address to your own internet-visible IP address. Then, after the given period which you are given to wait for the DNS changes to propagate, you can try to visit your web address!!

If your IP is not static (it changes occasionally) you have two choices...

- Buy a static IP address

- Obtain a free-of-charge domain name from http://dyndns.org/ and configure your machine to update the IP on that domain automatically. You then need to point your proper domain at your dyndns domain.

Any questions, please let me know!! :D