On the VXTIndia blog there's a recent post that gives you a very complete guide to setting up a VPS server running Ubunut with all of the software you'd need to get a (more than) complete server up and running.

Every time you purchase a new Linux VPS, you need to go ahead and set it up for use. Even though we manage to do one server a month, we always seem to forget one thing or the other. So we decided to write down the things that we do. I thought it would be a good thing to share it with everybody as well, so that we could get a few comments about what we're doing wrong, and people who do it the first time can probably pick up a few things from here.

Steps and software involved in their process include:

• Updating to the latest Ubuntu packages
• Creating other users for the system
• Installing the web environment (including PHP, MySQL, phpmyadmin and Apache2)
• Minin for monitoring
• Configuring IPTables
• Installing Fail2Ban

All of this comes complete with the additions you'll need to make to configuration files and the commands to get everything installed (via aptitude).

Stuart Herbert has decided to get in on the action and enter himself into the WinPHP Challenge (as sponsored by Ibuildings).

Generally, folks choose to deploy web-based applications on Windows Server because they already have Windows Server. Selling them something that will only work on Linux is a tough sell, so a competition like this that seeks to show off how well PHP works on Windows should be another small step forward for all those small ISVs like Box UK who want to sell products written in PHP - provided Microsoft actually do something marketing-wise with the results.

His idea is to build a PHP/.NET tool that can act as a web services gateway. He's already started development and blogs about getting the environment all set up - Windows Server 2008, IIS7 and PHP 5.2.9 For Windows.

He's made another post with an update on his status - finishing out the development environment with PHP up and running, setting up a database, picking an IDE (Visual Studio) and setting up a version control system (git).

In this post he takes about what he's trying to achieve with his application and some use case examples and in this other post some of the feedback he's gotten about his dev environment.

As a reminder from Ibuildings and Microsoft, time is running out for you to register for the 2009 WinPHP Challenge - the deadline is April 17th!

PHP is the language that runs the web, however, for a long time; PHP had a reputation of poor performance on Windows. Thanks to the hard work of the PHP Windows team and help from their friends in Redmond, Windows is now a first class citizen for PHP deployment as well as development. We asked two of the Core Windows PHP developers what they thought about the progress that PHP had made on Windows.

The contest is easy - make a brand new PHP application (not a port) build on a Windows and IIS7 setup. All needed licenses, software and hardware - each contestant gets their own Windows Server 2008 VPS to work on - that'll be used for the competition. Applications will be judged on originality, how complete they are, how/if they use Windows features and how well they're documented.

The contest will run from April 17th through May 31st to give you plenty of time to develop your application. You can find out more about the contest and register on this page off the Dutch PHP Conference wiki (the registration link is up there near the top).