we are looking to buy a dedicated server. but, the host company what we have opted does not pre-install the LAMP env and Zend Optimizer. So, Looking for a Step by step installation instruction for installing. However, we want to goahead with nginx webserver instead of apache. would it be preferable for high traffic website? If we opt for nginx, the administration is similar to apache or it is totally different? Apart from the above env we are also looking to isntall openssl and firewall too, to make the server secure enough to handle the attacks. If we opt for CPANEL, will it help? Can someone guide us in Necessary & compulsory steps while installing and handling the server.
cPanel is a really power control panel system focused on shared hosting. It makes it a lot easier for non sysadmins to control the server but if you want flexibility you are out of luck - you are stuck using the programs it offers you for things like web traffic, mail server, FTP, etc. For the web server it only allows you to use Apache, unfortunately. Nginx is designed to handle a lot more traffic than what Apache can. You still configure and control it via the commandline, but it's configuration commands are completely different and it doesn't have as large a feature set as Apache (as it's designed for performance). Also, as Apache is far more common, there is a lot more help for it. Thus, unless you know you're going to be getting a lot of traffic very quickly, I'd suggest sticking with Apache and switching to nginx when you need to. This is a lot of info to type out Are you wanting to do the whole setup by yourselves?