---
title: "Setting Up A Local Server"
---
A web server is a special piece of software that listens to requests for files and then serves them very quickly to the computer which requested them. To emulate how our site will work on a production server, we need to have a similar set up on our local machine.

## Starting a Server

:::stepper
:::step "Open CommandBox and navigating to your class repo"
In Commandbox, in the top folder of your class repo,  type `server start`. Wait a minute while the web server and the BoxLang server are configured. A browser will open and you’ll see the main page of a website.
:::
:::step "Look at the URL Bar and notice the IP Address and Port"
Pay close attention to the address in the address bar. It will look something like `http://127.0.0.1`. This means that the page is being served off of a web server on your machine over the IP address `127.0.0.1`. This is a special IP address which always refers to the local machine no matter what. After the IP address is more information with a `:##### (a number)`. This is very important to include. If you just type in `http://127.0.0.1`, you will not get this site. You might want to bookmark this address or simply remember that you can go back to CommandBox to type `server open` to open the browser again.
:::
:::step "Try Stopping the server"
You can stop the server by typing `server stop` and enter in CommandBox from the same folder in which you started the server. This last part is important. If you type server start in a different folder, a new server will start on a different port and you will have two running at the same time. This is very handy if done deliberately but can be confusing if it isn't.
:::
:::step "Start it up again, we're going to need it"
In CommandBox make sure you are in the same folder and type `server start`
:::

IMPORTANT: The installation we did with CommandBox is on YOUR computer and can not be seen by anyone else without additional configuration.