Dedicatedserverhosting.com was designed to give you an in-depth look at managing your dedicated server, along with helpful resources to purchase servers, upgrade, or decide what kind of server is right for you. That often includes defining lesser known dedicated server terminology that you are probably unfamiliar with.

One such term in the server realm is “SSI”, which stands for Server Side Includes.

What are SSI?

SSI are directives that are placed inside normal HTML webpages and which can be evaluated on the physical server as your website loads and serves the pages.

What can SSI Do For Me?

SSI can add another layer of dynamic content to your existing HTML pages without having to go through the serving process via CGI or other dynamic website technology. This eases the strain on your website, allowing for faster loads and more dynamic retrieval.

One word of warning about SSI, though – it is best used for loading small pieces of your site, like the current time, etc. However, if you are looking for a solution that will assist with larger portions or applications, SSI will not really do the trick.

Overall, SSI can help balance your dedicated server hosting by easing the load of running small parts of your site.

By now you have already installed Apache onto your dedicated server. Now, let’s configure Apache to run with PHP4 or PHP5, whichever is your preference in scripting.

For PHP4, it’s as simple as apt-get:

apt-get install apache2 php4 libapache2-mod-php4

Since PHP5 can be automatically installed if you don’t specify the package ‘4’, you can do that or apt-get:

apt-get install apache2 php5 libapache2-mod-php5

To test and ensure that you are now hosting with PHP4 or PHP5, create a test file called test.php in /var/www folder with phpinfo() function as follows:

nano /var/www/test.php

php phpinfo();

Now, just point your web browser to http://ip.address/test.php and you’ll be able to see your php config and default settings. If you don’t, check with your dedicated server administrators or web hosting provider.

From there, you can also edit necessary values or setup virtual domains, enable CAPTCHA, and more.

LAMP web hosting is probably the most popular and affordable server setting for webmasters these days. If you aren’t already aware, LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL, and PHP and defines how your dedicated server will run – it will be Linux hosting with an Apache server, MySQL databases, and PHP development.

The first step to create a LAMP server setup is to install Apache on your Linux machine.

1) Download Apache from Apache Software Foundation.

2) Uncompress the archive using gunzip and tar and replace apache_1.3.11.tar.gz in the example here with the name of the current live version you just downloaded:

gunzip < apache_1.3.11.tar.gz | tar xvf –

This should create an apache_1.3.11 directory.

3) Move into the new directory you just created and use cd apache_1.3.11.

4) ./configure in the root so that your screen appears as such:

# ./configure
Configuring for Apache, Version 1.3.11
…
Creating Makefile
Creating Configuration.apaci in src
Creating Makefile in src
+ configured for Linux platform
+ setting C compiler to gcc
+ setting C pre-processor to gcc -E
+ checking for system header files
+ adding selected modules
+ checking sizeof various data types
+ doing sanity check on compiler and options
…
Creating Makefile in src/modules/standard

5) make so that your screen looks like this:

# make
===> src
make[1]: Entering directory `src/httpd/apache_1.3.11′
make[2]: Entering directory `src/httpd/apache_1.3.11/src’
===> src/regex
…
[several lines later]
…
gcc  -DLINUX=2 -DUSE_HSREGEX -DUSE_EXPAT -I../lib/expat-lite

make[1]: Leaving directory `src/httpd/apache_1.3.11′
<=== src
#

6) Install your new Apache with # make install and you’re done!

Now you are welcome to start Apache to make sure it’s working if you’d like.

As root, type /usr/local/apache/bin/apachect1 start and your browser at your brand new web server at yourdomain.com. If you see the Apache standard “It worked!” homepage, you are set.

Received an e-mail from a fellow the other day asking about WordPress installs on a dedicated Linux hosing account…

I want to do multiple WordPress installs on my dedicated server.  Is there an easier way than just doing each install one by one, especially if I will have multiple users?

Sure there is, give WordPress MU a shot.  WordPress MU, or multi-user, is designed to do exactly that. It is most famously used for WordPress.com where it serves tens of millions of hits on hundreds of thousands of blogs each day.  This would be the perfect tool to use to setup your own set of hosted blogs.

Some sites already using this include:

• Newspapers and magazines, like Le Monde.
• Universities, like Harvard.
• Blog networks
• Niche-specific blog hosts, like Edublogs

For more information on WordPress MU and how to grab a copy of it to install, be sure to check out the official web site.

Even if you have hosted on a dedicated server before, you may not know all the dedicated server terminology out there. One of the downsides to technology is one of its best features as well – it is ever-changing. This means that what you knew yesterday won’t be the same as what you’ll need to learn tomorrow. So here are some helpful dedicated server terms you should know when choosing a reliable, affordable dedicated web host.

Access – Microsoft-based applicable that helps you create, edit, and maintain databases. If you’re a web developer running in the Windows environment, this is what you use to manage online MS SQL databases.

Apache – The most common Linux web server in the world. Okay, I’m being melodramatic but it’s incredibly popular and very powerful, secure, and best of all free!

Co-Location – If you want to own your own dedicated server but aren’t confident that you can host your site using your own internet connection or power supply, co-location assures you own the hardware (the server) and the web hosting provider supplies the rack to store the server and the internet connection to keep your website up and online.

IIS – IIS stands for Internet Information Server and is Microsoft’s branded server software. Just like Apache is the most popular web server for Linux, IIS is the #1 choice for Windows Dedicated Hosting.

Load-Balancing – If you are running a website like Myspace, Digg, or Facebook, odds are you already know what load balancing is. If you plan to create a website like this, you need load balancing 100%! Load balancing merely means distributing the traffic and resources evenly across two or more dedicated servers to increase and optimize performance.

Managed Hosting – The best idea for new dedicated hosters, managed hosting assures that your web host will take care of technical support, setup, maintenance, and monitoring of your dedicated server.

RAID – Also known as Redundant Array of Independent Disks, and if you say it that way, it sounds more like what it is. Basically, RAIDing your dedicated server will help you store data across a number of hard drives. If one disk fails, the other will restore the site or database so you don’t lose data.

Telnet – Just like SSH, a command line interface that allows you to communicate across your web server.

Upstream Provider – A large ISP (internet service provider) that provides dedicated web hosts with reliable internet access. However, the word ‘upstream’ actually can mean how fast or reliable the data connection is between two ISPs.

Apache, or sometimes known as Apache HTTP server is one of those magical things that make the web go around.  If your server hosting was a picnic at the park, then Apache would be the blanket under that picnic meal. 

It is used to serve static and dynamic content from a server on the web.  Many of the Web’s applications are designed with Apache in mind or thanks to what it provides.  It is the web server component also of the popular LAMP (linux, apache, mysql, perl).  The biggest competitor to Apache is Microsoft’s IIS or Internet Information Services as it is sometimes called.

There is some debate as well on how Apache got it’s name.  Some people say it was named after the Indian tribe with the same name and others say that it was due to the project’s roots as a set of patches to the codebase of NCSA HTTPd 1.3 - making it “a patchy” server.

Blog Web Hosting is possibly the fastest growing type of web hosting these days. Because blogging helps with SEO (search engine optimization), builds resources and content, and draws customers and audiences to explore and offer their opinions, link back, and more, corporations are using blogs for their websites as content management systems, even as individuals continue to grow the blogging community with daily unique content about their hobbies and personal lives.

This puts b2evolution web hosting in the forefront of the industry, as b2evolution provides quality open source (free!) blogging software for your website!

b2evolution is actually an advanced blogging tool that is great for beginners and experienced webmasters alike. Similar to WordPress, b2evolution includes all kinds of traditional blogging tool, like posting categories, tags, comments, skins, and content management, but also combines that simplicity with a sophisticated yet easy-to-use interface with features like file and photo management, multiple blogs, and detailed user permissions and groups.

On your dedicated server, you just need to find a reliable dedicated web host and use a LAMP-based configuration (i.e. Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/PERL/Python).

Like Ruby on Rails and Web 2.0, LAMP has become one of the most popular and trendy keywords for software and application development these days. But, do you know what LAMP stands for or what it means as you choose a dedicated web host? LAMP is actually incredibly important to application servers, web servers, and software distribution, so if you are planning to purchase a dedicated server for exactly these purposes, you should definitely research this solution stack.

So what is LAMP?

LAMP stands for the solution stack of free, open source software that produces dynamic websites and allows for web server, application server, and easy software distribution. LAMP is actually an acronym for the open source software that it comprises:

L – Linux: the operating system on which LAMP can be hosted
A – Apache: the actual web server
M – MySQL: the database system used for database management
P – PHP, Perl, and Python: the programming languages that can develop the software

Each of these four technologies can be utilized separately, but together, they provide dedicated web developers the chance to dazzle. More importantly, they are more than likely bundled together anyway, as Linux, PHP, and MySQL are almost 100% of the time found beside each other, and the Apache web server is one of the most popular choices.

There is an extremely low cost associated with LAMP web hosting, as all of the LAMP solutions are completely free. The only real cost is the hosting account itself or dedicated server hosting you purchase.

There are many different dedicated server and web hosting technologies available to use when building and accessing your website. Probably the most popular free tool for database web hosting is MySQL.

So what is MySQL Web Hosting?

MySQL (pronounced My-Ess-Queue-El or My-See-Quel) is an open source or free database software, providing ease and speed to its resource base. MySQL boasts over 100 million downloads of this extremely familiar database software, and for good reason – most web hosting companies these days utilize MySQL for their databases and offer it free to their customers for database management as well.

The popularity of MySQL web hosting really came into light as a new application pack for technology was devised called LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP/Perl/Python). This, coupled with the fact that MySQL can be used on Linux as well as Windows and over 20 other platforms, makes MySQL hosting a huge choice for developers and webmasters in the dedicated web hosting and shared hosting fields.