Usual servers
What you can have is an own real server machine (RealServer) - often called root server, you can have a virtual server (VServer) shared on a real machine - also called virtual root server, or you can have a WebSpace of an isp (internet service provider) as shared part of a real or virtual machine. It is only a matter of costs what to have. Because most users run phpWebSite with the cheapest solution available - the WebSpace -, let first tell about the properties of WebSpaces.
1.2.WebSpaces
WebSpaces consist of resources from a server systems to share, like processors, memory, hard disk capacities and some more. The hardware resources are made available to let to some or more users.
The server machine has an operating system, has a WebServer software, has a DatabaseServer software and the script language Php. The software resources are also made available to the users and are shared, too.
Operating systems
In most cases, a kind of Linux systems is used. That is openSource, is stable, is robust, may be configured with lower resources, and thus, is cheap. Others are Unix systems and WindowsServer.
Web servers
A webServer is a server software to home and control the content intended to deliver to the world. A webServer communicates with the HTTP protocol, while the content to transmit most consists of data embedded in HTML, a markup language.
One famous webServer software is Apache, that is OpenSource, is probably suitable for all needs we can imagine, but has very high complex configurations. With good reasons, Apache is the number one in the world. Beside Apache, there is a lot of WebServer software available for Linux and Unix systems. And also, there is the IIS (Internet Information Server) from Microsoft, running only with Windows operating systems.
Probably most WebSpaces offered world wide are Linux/Apache systems and Windows/IIS systems.
Database servers
DBserver software simply homes and controls databases. There are a lot available and the costs range from very cheap to very expensive. One of the most popular DBserver worldwide is mySql. mysql is OpenSource, is available for all major operating systems, is very heavy growing in functionality and more and more a serious competitor the the major brand database systems.
Most isp's use mySql because of flexibility, functionalty and the costs. Together with Linux operating systems and with the Apache web servers, mySql is sure the number one in the world.
Php
Php is a scripting language to active produce Html content. Very much content management systems use Php. Php is OpenSource, not too difficult to programming with and works very well together with Apache and MySql. The are two major release ranges: version 4 and version 5. Actual, of course, is version 5.
Alternatives to Php are a lot. Perl may be one, Ruby, and others. Microsoft has Asp for Windows. But Php, available for all major operating systems, is most popular and very flexibile is the combined mix of operating systems, web servers and database servers.
Isp control
To put these all together in shared environments and bring that to the users, software should aid in this matter. The Isp's have software for that reason, some popular are cPanel and Plesk. But there are also more, and some Isp's use an individual own. An impressed OpenSource software of that kind is ispConfig.
The major role a webSpace user is affected in all that mentioned, is the set of configurations an Isp has desided. Let now explain some important usual possibilities.
eZine
