I have been running a Windows server for many years both at my own house and a Windows VPS with GoDaddy.  A Windows server is MUCH easier to manage, setup and get running.  Everything is fairly simple to do but simplicity does come with its downfalls.  Since everything can be done within a GUI (Graphical User Interface), it does limit the amount of things that can be done.

After I went to college, I started picking up more about Linux and also started setting up Linux servers.  Linux servers are harder to configure and there is a learning curve.  Most of the configuration on a Linux server has to be done within a text command line.  This can be very intimidating for some people that have never used Linux.  It takes a lot of reading a Googling to figure out exactly what to do to get it up and running.  But the advantage is that it is designed from the ground up to be fast and secure.  There is no GUI interfaces and useless software to slow down the server.

Advantages of a Windows Server:

Window specific server side scripts like ASP/ASP.Net
Windows specific database, Microsoft SQL
Ability to run Apache and IIS.
Runs virtually every popular web scripting language
Very easy to use because of the GUI interface
Easy for someone new to managing a server

Disadvantages of a Windows Server:

Requires higher system requirements
Expensive – licensing for a Windows Server is not cheap
Bloated and slower then Linux
Security Holes, Viruses

Advantages of a Linux Server:

Low system requirements
Very fast and can do a lot with very little
Cheap – No licensing costs
Built around security
Many different flavors of Linux to fit your needs

Disadvantages of a Linux Server:

Does not support ASP/ASP.Net (Linux equivelent is PHP)
No support for Microsoft SQL (Linux equivelent is Mysql/postgresql)
Big learning curve, for more experienced users
No GUI pre-installed (webmin is a great web based management tool)

In the end, it all depends on the uses of the server and the person.  If ASP or MSSQL is a requirement, I would go with a Windows server.  For all other uses, I would most likely go with a Linux Server since it is generally cheaper.  I also have experience working on them in the past.  For someone new, I would recommend playing around with both before making a decision.

So what is VPN for the people that don’t know what it is? VPN stands for Virtual Private Network and it is a way to simulate computers connected directly together even if they are miles away.  It is able to do this by connecting the machines through a secured encrypted channel.  This way you can do things like access files remotely and securely.  This also allows you to perform actions just as if you were physically connected to the network like reconfiguring your wireless router, print, etc…

So why do you need VPN access?  VPN access is used by enterprises all over so that workers can connect remotely and work from home.  Similarly it will allow you to securely access your home or remote computers and allow you to work on them.

OpenVPN Access Server is a great product that is based off of the Free OpenVPN platform.  The Access Server allows you to have 2 concurrent users connected without costing you anything!  For a typical home user, 2 users is plenty.  Most home users really only need 1 since you may be the only person connecting in.  So what makes OpenVPN Access Server unique?  It allows you to setup a VPN server effortlessly unlike the original OpenVPN package.  It basically is almost install and go.  When I setup my first Traditional OpenVPN server it took hours to get up and running, the OpenVPN Access Server took me 10 minutes max.

To get started, download the correct version for your operating system at: http://openvpn.net/index.php/access-server/download-openvpn-as.html.   For me, I downloaded the Ubuntu version and it is a .deb file.  To launch the installer, go to your command line and run dpkg -i <downloaded deb file>.  This will launch the installer and get everything setup.

After the installer finishes, it pretty much sets everything up for you and there are just a couple configurations that need to be done.  Get the ip number of the machine by typing ifconfig.  Once you have the ip address you will be able to navigate to the server setup webpage at https://<ip address>:943/server. Login as the root user and the credentials are the same as the Linux server.

After you have logged in the first thing is adding the free 2 user license to the server.  The licence can be obtained for free at http://openvpn.net/index.php/access-server/license-key.html.  It is required to create an account.  Once you have obtained the licence key click the Licence link from the menu and enter the serial number.

You are set! That is it to setting up the OpenVPN Access Server.  If you want to fine tune some of your settings, you can make modifications under VPN Settings.  When you are connecting from a remote machine just navigate to http://<your ip>:943 and it will have instructions to setup a tunnel for a Windows, Linux or Apple machine.

WordPress can be obtained by visiting http://wordpress.org/.  Download the latest version and extract the contents into your webserver’s directory.  After you have extract the contents to your webserver’s folder.  Navigate to the home directory and a page should come up stating that a configure file is required.  Click to configure your WordPress blog and input your database information (Database, server, login, password).  If you click next and you come up with the same prompt again, that means that your file permissions aren’t set correctly.

Apache usually runs on a different username to keep separate from any of the regular files.  This is so if you site gets hijacked, the hacker won’t have permissions to make changes to any vital files.  Also because of these strict permissions, it is important to make sure that any page that you host has both read and write permissions.  Wordpress requires the write permission to create the configuration files.

Now that you were able to configure your WordPress Blog successfully, it will prompt you for a Blog title.  For me I filled out “Ultimate Popcorn Blog” and my site was created!  The basic theme for the WordPress Blog will look a little bland so the first thing that I did was download a new theme for my WordPress blog.  If you visit http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/, there are thousands of different WordPress themes that are all available for free.  Once you download one, you just need to extract the contents of the compressed file into /wp-content/theme/.  After you have uploaded the theme, you can navigate to the Appearance section within your WordPress Admin page to switch between themes.

Thats all there is to creating a WordPress blog.  It is very easy and is a great way to get your first website started.  I just created my first website on my Burst.net hosting and I will be working on getting traffic to the site and I’ll keep everyone updated.  In the meantime, check out my new website at http://www.popcornblogs.com/

After some searching, I realized that it is really easy because Linux CentOS 5 comes pre-bundled with Yum.  Yum is a feature that allows you to download and install software automatically.  It will determine all of the dependencies and take care of the rest.  I determined which packages I needed and sent off my command:

yum install php php-mysql mysql-server php-gd postgres ImageMagick ImageMagick-devel

This determined all of the dependencies and installed PHP and Mysql on my CentOS Linux server!  It was so easy!!  I just needed to give Apache a reboot and php was pretty much up and running.  To give it a test, I just wrote a simple line of code in /var/www/html/test.php.

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Then visit http://yourhost/test.php If your php server is setup correctly, this should output all of the information about your php install and the different components that were installed with it.  It will give you a list of all your configurations and plugins that are enabled.

The next step was getting mysql up and running.  After the yum install, the daemon is not automatically started so you will need to start it yourself.  You can start the mysql daemon but running the following command:

service mysqld start

If everything goes well, the service should start without a hitch and it will give you a list of directions for first time users.  One of the most important things to do now is to set a password for the root user in mysql.  Again just like everything else it is just a simple 1 liner to change the mysql password:

/usr/bin/mysqladmin -u root password ‘mynewpassword‘

Thats it! After only a few simple commands in Linux, I was able to get a bare-boned CentOS 5 system up and running with a full LAMP install.  This process will take a max of 5 minutes to complete.  But for me.. I was busy googling it took me about 30 minutes to an hour.. so hopefully this will help you.