Joomla testing on local machine

[limessl]

I'm working with a joomla install and at the moment I've been testing everything on what will be my live site - only problem is that when it does go live I'll lose that function.

I'd like to replicate the site on my local machine but I have no idea how I'd go about doing it. Can anyone help?

ps I have a component that is linked to my domain, but will work on 'localhost' as a domain as well, so that's a definite requirement.

[Raw Rob]

You need to install Apache (web server), PHP and mySQL (or whatever combination you are using for your live site.)

You can get a ready packaged version which installs all three in one go, but it is usually recommended to install them separately, which is not too difficult.
Apache http://httpd.apache.org/
PHP http://www.php.net/
mySQL http://www.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/

If you have got multiple sites you want to test locally, you can set up local domain names in Apache (called VirtualServer) eg for my domain funkyraw.com I have a domain set up on my computer only funkyraw.l

Rob