Port forwarding with Zyxel router and XAMPP

Better late than never. I really planned to have a home-based web server so that I can explore a little bit of systems administration, just simply. I'm not really much of an administrator but it would be cool if I know a bit about this stuff. I had a little background with PHP and web development so I think I can handle it. Gladly it's not that difficult. With a little bit of installations and configuration, and we're done.

First off, install XAMPP. Download the application from their website and install. Just accept the default options and we're good to go. I got a little info with XAMPP and Lithium for further exploration here. So accessing the host where you install the XAMPP will get you the web server's default page. In my case, it's localhost and it displays the XAMPP default page. Things are looking good.

I'll give details on installation of XAMPP later in my other blog post.

And now for the port forwarding bit. Port forwarding means you forward a port to a specific server hosting whatever you want. Be it a web server or an SMTP or anything you want. This can be done in the router. I use Zyxel as this is a fee package from my ISP so I'll be dealing with it. I must say if you have a different router than I am, I cannot guarantee a reply (or any help at all). Adding a new server to forward a port to can be done in NAT section under Network. You can login and go to Advanced Wizard to view the configuration. Go to Port Forwarding tab and add the server you want to host. In my case I added 192.168.1.35 (my dev PC) and I'm hosting port 8080 for my Apache Web Server.

That's it, ask a friend to access you public IP and share info with them.

Thunderbird, the awesome emailer

I tried Thunderbird as my email application at home. When I'm at work, usually companies uses Exchange as their email server and Outlook as the client (or email application). I must say, Thunderbird is as useful as outlook (I don't really mean to offend someone here). The installation is easy and the configuration to connect to SMTP server is also very easy. With a few click, you can then use the application. For installation process, see images below.

Download the installer from their site.

When done, click the download application to run the installer. Just select the default values and hit finish when done. When launch Thunderbird option is checked, it should start after the installation.

Creating a new account is just simply clicking the "Create new account" like the image below. I have a gmail account so I don't have any problems just by entere my gmail credentials. Please check on Thunderbird's documentation for further information.

And you're done. You can now get your emails by clicking Get Mail.

Restoring .dat data to MSSQL

This is just a document in case I forgot to restore data files to MSSQL. I had this problem before when a colleague gave me a .dat files to be restored to SQL server. I had a 2008 version of the server and had no trouble restoring it. The problem is, I forgot how I did it when I had a new PC and I upgraded it to 2012 SQL server.

But this is a simple task (although I had a full day remembering how I did it and I had no luck finding the solution from google). First off, click restore, like so

I had trouble with the database whether or not to add a new database and restore the file to it, or not. Simple answer is no need. With the next image you can see that the configuration is very simple.

Just set it to device as the source and find the .dat file. It automatically displays a suggestion for the database name and you're done. Click OK and wait a couple of minutes for SQL server to restore the data.