You are on page 2 of this tutorial. If you stumbled upon this page somehow, navigate to the page which you wish.

Let's get on with it.

Step 2 - Installing APACHE
Okay. Open up the Apache installer (apache_2.0.50-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi) and whiz by the common options they throw at you, up until you see a weird box little like this:

[ this is what your form should look like with the correct information ]

Replace 'network domain' and 'server name' with 'localhost', and the 'administrator's email' you can fill in with whatever you please. It is highly recommended that you select "for All Users, on port 80" because the tutorial is constructed that way.

What we just did was tell Apache that our server's DNS (Domain Name System) is 'localhost'. Localhost is your internal IP (Internet Protocol), 127.0.0.1, that only you can access and kind of works like www.kirupa.com, which points to the IP 64.207.129.18. We are going to install Apache our root folder 'Web', which will use 'http://localhost/' as a pointer. Sounds confusing? Well, that was the most confusing part of the tutorial!

Press next, and continue on to the install directory tier which you must change from C:\Program Files\Apache Group\ to C:\web\. Please note again that we are only using Drive C as a reference and can be installed anywhere. This tutorial is optimized for Drive C though.

Setting up APACHE

1. Click the Apache icon in your task tray (purple feather with the 'go' button) and you should see a green light menu, denoting its successful install:

 
[ green light! ]

And of course, the install is a no go if you get:

 
[ red light :/ ]

2. Lets do a quick-edit to the config file. Open up C:\web\conf\httpd.conf and search "LISTEN 80". Replace that with "LISTEN localhost:80" so it will focus the connection on port 80 (web-browser default) only for you. Now that's dedicated!
    
3. Next, search "localhost" until you find "ServerName localhost:80". Make sure it is set so, because without our pointer 'localhost' the website cannot be accessed.
    
4. Now we test it. Open a browser and type http://localhost/
   If you get that page as seen in the intro of this tutorial, then you are set.

Note - Web Server for the Entire Local Area Network

If you would like to make your web server available throughout your entire LAN, then just navigate yourself to Start->Run->cmd and type in "ipconfig". You should get something like: IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.3 now hop back to step ii and make it "LISTEN 80" instead of "LISTEN localhost:80" and in step iii remove 'localhost:' from "ServerName localhost:80". For example in my case, it will be "LISTEN 80" and "ServerName 192.168.1.3:80". Go and try, type in http://yourIP/ from another computer in the network.

Nice work. Lets advance to the final stage.