So, I decided to install CentOS on a separate system in my local home (business) network. I know the internal IP and the external IP for the router. I will be working with a dynamic IP for a while, from our ISP, provided by our cable company. It's almost always the same but it's not static. When I setup Linux on my VirtualBox, I setup a domain of sandbox.dev and IP 127.0.0.1 inside the Windows host file. Inside VirtualBox, I forwarded the port 2222 to 22 for SSH and 8080 to 80 for HTTP. Then from Windows I could connect to my server with http://sandbox.dev:8080/ Now, I tried to setup the httpd.conf file on the other system running Apache to use a domain name. I followed a tutorial on the web. I did backup the file. Here are my questions: 1) The tutorial suggested that I setup a root for all websites of /www, which is fine. So, then if I wanted to setup domain1.com, I would create a directory of /www/domain1.com, does that sound right? Then I would put the site files in a html folder, perhaps? 2) How can I test this so that it would be similar to a remote production server? One, from my own local network and two, as if coming from the web? I did forward the router port for the machine with CentOS. During installation of CentOS, I identified the machine as fwwebdevelopment.com. I don't have a DNS server setup yet to map that domain to my external IP. 3) Is there a way to connect to the server on that machine, from my main desktop, using anything besides the internal IP, as in being able to browse to fwwebdevelopment.com while I am inside my own LAN? I suppose I know it can be done. Do, I need to change this in the windows host file, for it to work inside my local network, if I am using a Windows desktop to browse to the site? 4) Should I use something like dynamic dns to map a domain to my IP? 5) I want to also be able to have ftp setup. So, if I was developing for Drupal, and I wanted to do updates, I could both ftp from my desktop to the other machine and be able to download to that machine from the web. Currently, on my virtualbox installation on my machine, I cannot download files for Drupal updates because it says ftp is not configured. So, I'm asking if I setup the ftp server on that machine, can I ftp from my internal network and from the web? Thanks in advance for any help, Bruce _______________________________________________________ Bruce Whealton - Web Design/Development/Programming Future Wave Web Development: http://futurewaveonline.com Developing for the Desktop as well as for Mobile Devices - Smartphones/Tablets Call 919-636-5809 _______________________________________________________