[WEB4LIB] learning to deal with a server

[Andro Gagne]

Gillian:

         At 12:45 PM 5/23/02 -0700, you wrote:

>This may be an off-topic question, but....
>My library is soon going to be acquiring a server to host a website and
>databases. I will be in charge of said server, based on the fact that I now
>manage our online database subscriptions and teach computer classes. Our
>current website is managed by the city as part of the city site, so I have
>no experience with it.
>
>I know nothing about servers and hosting websites; I barely know any HTML. I
>am interested in recommendations of books, websites etc... that I can begin
>studying NOW so that in six months I am ready for this project.
>
>What resources would you recommend?

         The best way to get started would be to have an ordinary desktop 
or notebook computer set up ahead of time as a test server with the chosen 
server software installed by your city's network administrator or Webmaster 
and connected to either an intranet or the Internet.  (You'll probably want 
the city's network administrator, the city's Webmaster, or some other 
experienced Web developer to help you with IP address and domain name 
issues.)  An alternative would be to rent some Web hosting space from an 
ISP for a while if your Webmaster is able to find a hosting plan which is 
on the right platform and set up the way your real server will be set 
up.  If you have a choice as to which server platform you'll be using, a 
UNIX/Apache (or Linux/Apache) server seems to be the preferred choice of 
most experienced Web developers, as it has a reputation for being a stable 
platform and a platform which gives hackers fewer security holes to 
exploit.  It is a command line environment, but if you've had any comfort 
at all with DOS in the past, you'll probably find that UNIX and Linux 
commands really aren't that difficult to learn.

         Regardless of the platform chosen, you should be allowed to take 
time to try setting up a test site on the test server in advance of the 
real site's implementation so you can become familiar with how it 
works.  It's not that difficult to set up the Web site once you have the 
server set up.  The part that becomes a bit tricky at times is learning how 
to set up directory and file permissions on the server.  With Windows 
platforms, there's the additional need to keep up to date with the security 
patches which Microsoft publishes on its Web site.  If your server will be 
either a UNIX/Apache server or a Windows NT (or 2000)/Internet Information 
Server, I'd be happy to give you some resource recommendations and some 
how-to tips off-list.  Send me an e-mail off-list if you're interested.

Best regards,

Andro P. Gagné
Andro Gagné Web Design