New to private server creation

Hey guys im Nick, Im not new to wow, but new to the creation of a private server. Id like to make a server that i can play on as a gm and create things. I hosted a server in the past with some repack where i could create things and all that but it was for wrath, also when i logged out of the server it deleted all of my progress and id have to start over every time. So is it possible that there is a very self explanatory repack for wow, (cataclysm)? It would be nice if there was a way for my friends to log on to my server and play aswell, but if not its ok. Please comment with an easy to use repack and somesort of an explanation. Like i said im not good with all this. thankyou very much!

-nick