Setting Up A Web Server

For HSU students, you can use your "public_html" file on your "U" drive for all your web projects as this folder is already served up on the web through a web server. The web server is UNIX based which is case-senstive so you'll need to be careful and make sure all the letters in your URLs are the correct case.

Setting up a Windows Server

Microsoft provides Internet Information Server (IIS) with all its MS-Windows operating systems. All you have to do is follow the online instructions to setup your local machine as a web server. Other folks won't be able to access this server because you won't have a "static IP address" but you can still use it by just putting "localhost" as the domain name for your URLs to your web pages.

To install IIS, just search for "Install IIS" in a search engine and include the operating system version you are using. For CanvasMap, you don't need to worry about complex security configurations or turning on extra features in IIS, just install the basic, default, configuration.

Once you have IIS installed, just copy your web pages to your "C:\inetpub\wwwroot" folder that the installation process will create on your computer.

Note: Don't put any executable programs in this folder as it is actually accessible from the web if someone discovered your IP address.

Setting up a Python Server

Python includes a tiny web server (HTTPServer) that you can use for development. This is very handy for laptops and other computers that may not want to use IIS. This should also work on Macs and UNIX computers.

Setting up Apache

Apache is the most common web server for UNIX (and thus Macs). I have set it up in the past and it took some work as there are large configuration files to work with. Its is probably easy to install in its default configuration but I have not tried it in years.