In this post we will explain how to deploy any BitNami Stack in your own computer and how to publish and access it from anywhere. You can use a BitNami Stack to share documents with Alfresco or Knowledgetree, manage your client relationships with SugarCRM, your own blog using Wordpress or Roller, create your webpage with Drupal or Joomla, your development bug tracking with Subversion, Trac or Redmine and more with different Open Source applications. In this case, we will create a photo album with Gallery to share your videos and photos directly from your computer, so you can avoid having to upload videos to an unknown server and and be able to save as many photos as your computer has space for.

To access to your application from anywhere, you need a public IP. Your internet service provider (ISP) will give you this IP when you access to internet. You can check your IP at http://www.whatismyip.com/. The problem with this IP is that it is difficult to remember and your internet provider may change it often.


To avoid this problem, there are several service providers on the Internet which allow you to associate a name with an IP address. This name is called a “domain name” and the Internet DNS servers are in charge of converting the web page “www.example.com” to a public IP address such as “208.77.188.166”.


One of the most popular services is dyndns.org. You can get a free account and a domain name similar to this: yourwebpage.dyndns.org. Remember your domain name to give it to your friends :)

As you can see in the screenshots, it is really easy to create your free account and your Hostname.


Now it is time to configure your network. Simplifying things, there are two ways to connect to the Internet: using a modem or a router. If you have a modem, your computer uses the public IP given to you by your Internet service provider so you only can connect one computer to the Internet. If you have a router, you must configure the network so that you can access it from anywhere. The router uses the public IP and gives your computers private IPs, so you can connect several computers to the Internet because the router translates public IPs to private IPs.


In this case, you need to configure your router to redirect external requests to your server. Normally, the router has a configuration panel where you can modify the properties. You should add a NAT entry (Network Address Translation) to your router so it knows where your server is enabled. For that, you need to know your private IP and the port where is your Stack running (usually 80 or 8080).

Once you have a DNS and the router configured, install the BitNami platform to run BitNami-packaged applications. Download BitNami AMP Stack for your platform (WAMP for Windows, LAMP for Linux, MAMP for OS X and SAMP for Solaris). Once downloaded, double-click on the installer to start the installation wizard, which will ask you a few simple questions and then do all of the installation and configuration for you.

When the installation finishes, you can access the main BitNami web page at http://127.0.0.1 or at http://yourdns.dyndns.org. It is possible that your router will not let you access it from your own computer using your DNS name. In this case, you can use a free public proxy server to confirm that you can access from other computer to your BitNami Stack. For example, go to www.zend2.com and then write your DNS name. If everything is working properly, you will be able to see your main BitNami web page.

Now, install the application on BitNami that you would like to run. Be sure to download the Module, rather than the Stack, for the application you want to install. The Module will automatically install and configure the application to run on top of the BitNami Platform that you installed in the previous step. In this case, we have decided to install Gallery to share our photos and videos with friends.

Three more clicks and that is all – Gallery will be installed, configured and ready to go! To learn how to use Gallery itself, visit the Gallery project website. Do not hesitate to post any question or suggestion in our forums, we will be glad to help you. Enjoy your own video and photo server!