As I mentioned previously, I run many sites on my web server. Yesterday I decided to clean up some sites that their owners had neglected or not used. One such site was running Apache Tomcat Java Server, which I did not care to leave running. Now I, like many users of commercial hosting plans, pay for cPanel/WHM which includes a myriad of options/configurations/settings to do almost everything on the server. Back in 2007, I had used the cPanel Addon to install Tomcat.

After using shared hosting services on Linux servers for the past few years, I was thinking about experimenting with a VPS (virtual private servers). Currently shared hosting services are highly competitive. If you shop around you can find great deals to host a simple website most with a comprehensive feature set. However these are all very limited. My basis for a VPS was to acquire a server that had room to grow but yet more manageable and more affordable than a dedicated server.

EDIT (Dec 19, 2005): I have written a formal guide on PHP4 on FC4. As a followup to my previous post about PHP4 on FC4, I decided to abandon PHP5 altogether. I spent some time to try and get the PHP4 src.rpm from FC3 to compile correctly in FC4. As it turned out neither the GCC4 nor the GCC3.2 included in FC4 would compile everything properly. So I decided to try GCC3.

One of Linux’s many strength’s is its highly suitable web hosting options. Primarily Apache web server on Linux with various open source applications can provide cheap solutions for hosting needs. The most commonly used hosting option is Virtual Hosting through Apache. With a simple setup, hundreds of unique websites can be run with 1 single server machine. For about $100 (US) a year, you can get a good set of features from most providers.

EDIT (Dec 19, 2005): I have written a formal guide on PHP4 on FC4. One of my biggest difficulties with using Fedora Core 4 was that it packages PHP5 with the Apache webserver. Any experienced person should know that Fedora Core is probably a terrible Linux Distribution to be using for a large scale Web Server on the Public Internet. However, it may be sufficient for home or Intranet usage.