Making my own Virtual Server to install IIS, PHP, MySQL?

gord · 14 Apr 2009 at 15:13

Hello all,

I am about to embark on a project that will require knowledge of configuring servers along the lines of IIS, PHP, MySQL etc. The only thing is I really need to dummy the installation procedure I have written and make sure it works in at least one environment.

Can I use some sort of virtualisation software to make a development area that I can screw around with.

Any help is much appreciated.

Cheers.

Pho · 14 Apr 2009 at 18:29

You just need Virtualbox + a Windows/Linux/Mac ISO/CD.

With Virtualbox (I assume it's the same for other VMs) you can snapshot the drive, completely destroy it and roll-back to the snapshotted state easily (good for re-testing your installation without having to format)

gord · 15 Apr 2009 at 09:04

Cheers, will try it out.

Stelly · 15 Apr 2009 at 09:40

I would try VMware's free Virtual Server product myself

Stelly

K.C. Leblanc · 15 Apr 2009 at 20:34

Stelly said:
I would try VMware's free Virtual Server product myself

Stelly

VMWARE server is good, but you can't do multiple levels of snap shotting, which you can with Virtual Box.

If you're only going to use it for one task I think you get a 30 trial of VM Workstation.

Moredhel · 15 Apr 2009 at 20:52

I use Virtual PC at home, it's free, tiny, and the networking is much nicer than virutal box's.

It supports undo disks, when you close the VM you can choose to keep or discard the changes you've made. When you've made changes you want to keep permenantly you can then commit the undo disk, so changes you've kept will be permenantly put into the VHD.

The VHDs can also be mounted as drives in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.