Like any other webserver: to publish anything you wish on the Internet. With this webserver (and with a little work) you can have your own Internet website wich can be accessed by anybody. An ideal solution for small companies who would like to be on the Internet at low cost or for anybody who would like to share photos, videos or other content with the public.
Nothing. It is totally free. You don't have to be suprised. It's true that there is no income from selling the product but Skiltor Ltd has many benefits from it: first of all it is a very good advertisement (without cost), secondly it is very common among customers that they ask for support or some customization. So the software itself is for free, you only have to pay for extra services required. The sotware is only a tool, required for bringing you high quality services. Like when building a supermarket: the investor often builds brand new roads between the supermarket facility and the town nearby. The road then can be used by anyone, the investor doesn't bill for it. He only helps the people to reach the supermarket by building roads.
Very few things:
The router is that tiny box that has the network cable from the Internet provider ends in. From there the Internet wire either goes continously to the computer or through a radio connection (WiFi) to a laptop. The router plays an important rule in the network: it not only distributes the Internet connection between computers on the local area network (LAN) but it acts like a hardware firewall. It prevents illegal access of LAN resources from the Internet. This is very important because to run the Skiltor server you have to (partly) disable this function so anybody on the Internet will be able to access published data on the Skiltor server.
Virtualbox is the server virtualization solution of Oracle co. With it you can turn your computer into multiple ones using the same hardware at the same time. The "Skiltor Web Server" is a pre-installed and configured complete computer. This computer is run by VirtualBox software in a way that leaves the main (host) operation system almost untouched.
To install and configure an Internet web server (to make it secure and hacker-proof) is a very hard task for even a high qualified specialist. This is the main reason why web server hosting at home is not a common practice (yet), although there is a requirement for it. Most people doesn't even know how this technology works - how to start. We know how to install a complete web server machine, we are able to do it and present it to our customers. To get a hard drive, install the server onto it and give it to the customer saying: "Here is your web server, use it happily!" is not a good method although. Not mentioning that it would cause our company a financial fail it is impractical in another way too: it is not expectable from customers to be computer experts who are able to install an extra hard drive into their computers. VirtualBox provides a good solution to this problem: we can store the contents of an entire hard drive in a file which can be easily transferred to anyone. This file then can be used by Virtualbox as the hard drive of a machine an can run the system installed on it. All this can be done simultaneously with the host operating system. This way several computers can be run on the same computer hardware without disturbing each other. To add a vdi file to VirtualBox does not require extra skills, it can be done with a few clicks. Anyone can do it.
With version 4.0 VirtualBox is free too. All the features that require payment (like the USB support for example) are moved into a so called "Extension Pack". Fortunatelly Skiltor Web Server does not require those features. Details: WirtualBox Editions)
The Skiltor Web Server is not a software actually but a complete computer installed and configured by specialists. This virtual machine hosts the operating system, the web software and several other components required. The vdi file contains the entire contents of the hard drive of this computer. (Thus the name: Virtual Disk Image.) Therefore whoever installs the Skiltor Web Server will not get a software only but a complete machine running a complete Arch Linux operating system (without graphical user interface) and an Apache web szerver. (And a lot of other stuff required by them.)
Linux, because we (and a lot of people) think that Linux is the ideal server operating system because it is designed to be server operating system. Relatively small, quick, secure, stable. Period. Oh, and it is for free.
We choosed Arch Linux out of the large variety of distributions because it's philosophy exactly matches Skiltor Ltd's: "Keep it simple!"
That strange language is Hungarian. It is a lot of work to make screenshots and include them in the text, so it is only done once. Skiltor Ltd's free products are mainly for helping Hungarian small and micro enterprises therefore the screenshots are taken in Hungarian to make it easier for Hungarians to use the guides. (If anyone takes the same screenshots and converts them into the same format and size as the current ones it will be welcomed and published. This is an open source project.)
Translation of Hungarian install guide is still on its way. (This is a Hungarian product for helping Hungarian enterprises. Foreigners may use it for free too of course but the internationalization is a low priority process. Sorry.) Please see the screenshots in the Hungarian version for guidelines.