Topic awaiting preservation: Hosting my own site

So I have a crazy idea, why not host my own site. Problem is that I am unsure of what it takes to do such a thing. Anyone know the best way to go about hosting your own site?

The Jackal: If you mean on your won computer:

1. Check with your ISP that this kind of thing is OK and within the rules.

2. Install Apache with PHP/MySQL:

:FAQ: How do I install AMP (Apache/PHP/Mysql) on my Windows computer for offline testing?

I believe tomeaglescz has done something similarish recently so he might have some tips.

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Yeah except (just ot ruin his news) he's gone out and bought himself a dedicated web-server (I think he's planning on opening his own hosting company...mind you if I could get the kind of net connection that he has I'd probably do that too)

I take then that my ISP would be the one to give me the IP address for my computer. How do I keep people from accessing other sections of my computer once it is set up?

Apache will do that for you (you specify a directory on your hard drive as the root of the server), but you'll want to have a firewall etc., just as anyone with an always-on connection would.

What brand of firewall would ya reccomend? I use Zone Alarm for my personal computer. Would this work or do I need something more durable?

Well I run a webserver and ftp server on aDSL (256) seems just fine for now, but I only use it for personal and limited client access, and hosting sigs and images for weboards. If I ever finish my ideal for my texturehunter.com stock photo site. I may decide to move to a comercial host or go with biz class cable.

The ISP will perform the DNS serving (ie. mapping the IP number and routing) for small operations. I guess one could set up a DNS server but I can't imagine what that would involve, but likely expensive.

As for a firewall.

I just bought a new router a D-Link 604 with a built in firewall. It runs about $50 US and was much cheaper solution then forking out for multi-liences for Sygate Pro or Norten on 4 machines. As I feel a litte guilty using free liences. It appears to work well enough with my FTP, Web, and Game Voice server. Most games I have tried work with very little tweeking.

The D-Link 604 is dead simple. Just use NAT to map your external IP and port to your internal IP and port. open up the port in the firewall and Ta Da, you are up and running. Severl port scans seem to report nothing indesireable. Better documentation then I expected and mostly helpful website. I tried a similar router from SMC but was very unhappy with it.

The only problem so far is Game Voice clients on the same side as the firewall when using Universal Plug-In Play with multiple client machines. In order to see the Game Voice server behind the firewall I had had to turn off UPNP or reboot all systems in specfic order starting with the server and that was fakey.

Hopefully a little tweeking I can resolve those problems or switch to another Voice Comm system as I don't realy like having UPNP running unless I have to. Some services in messenger seem to require UPNP to work via NAT luckly it is easy to turn on an off as needed.

J. Stuart J.

Ok first thing to do before even thinking about hosting from your home is:

Check with your ISP that it is ok, some isp's terms and conditions expressly forbid you to host a domain on your computer.

The basic necessities for this are:

1.Reasonable speed on a static ip address, if you are planning on any kind of streaming you need at least a 300kbs upload speed.
2.A pc to act as a server, its ok hosting from a workstation for testing, but if you are planning on running anything like php etc running other programs with a server in background will cause some problems along the line.
3.server software, me i am using phpdev availiable from here as a service for php clients

also i am running ms server 2003 for microsoft clients, ie those wanting to use asp etc.

3.The firewall i am using is winroute i have never had a problem with it

4.as far as security goes, even the most basic of web server packages only allow access to certain directory's on your hard disk that you specify, there are more ways to make it secure but they will dependf on the server platform that you choose.

ok 1 final thing i forgot to mention is watch your traffic, ie bandwidth usage, even small pages can add a lot to your allowance from your isp (unless ya got a good one like me eh skaarj: )

i am in the middle of doing a write up on my recent experiences and how i did it, when its finished i will post it somewhere here.

besides all that, if you need more help/advice fire a question here, i am just starting out on my journey;s to set up my own hosting service, others here have more experience, but between us we should be able to point you in the right direction.


if you have anymore questions drop me a line by email, or icq (details in my profile), or here.

hehehe now will someone give me the keys to my cell back i was only gone a week, and somone changed the locks.....

What about Perl and email? Do I need to buy an email client?

as for perl it can be installed again its all dependant on what server software platform you are going to be using

as for email client??? i think you mean email server???? there are plenty of good free email server platforms out there do a search on google and you will find loads, i dont mean to sound evasive with mty answers, but at the moment you havent given much info on what ya plans are, anduntill ya narrow things down somewhaqt its hard to really give you some detailed help.

tom

Thanks Tom. I am planning on using NT as my platform because I know nothing about linux or unix. I have a cable modem running to my place and three PC's networked together. None of them are running through the server at the time. When I am finished all three boxes will run through the NT server and the server will be where the web page is hosted. That is of course if my ISP even allows me to host my own site.

Not that I have really much new to add, but I too have a cable modem & router & other computers kind of setup. Mine is a linksys that has some built in protection. I set the port forwarding very restricted (ports 80 and 21) to my web server (no email into it!) I use Apache (of course!!) and Cerbius FTP. Since it's really set up for fairly limited use I've not gone the route of registering a name. My ISP gives me a small homepage area which I use (through javascript) to redirect people to my computer and which ever page I want them to see -- I once setup apache to use such that if someone used a particular port they got a particular page -- worked ok till I got to work and tried it --- they limited port access :-( I even wrote a program the goes to my isp and downloads a file and then using that information automatically goes to my home computer and downloads a file!

Oh well! have fun! -- you can get into a lot of trouble this way! ;-)

As long as we're on the topic, can anyone think of a simple Linux command or program (I know, in Linux they're sort of the same) that finds out what my external IP is? I've got a Linux box behind a router, and it would be handy if I could get it to find out its own external IP every time my DHCP lease expires with the cable company. (My eventual plan is to link to items on the Linux box from my main web page, and have the Linux box update the links on its own as the address changes. Everything except finding out the IP address is simple enough using a shell script as a cron job.)

Cell 1250 :: alanmacdougall.com :: Illustrator tips

RE: IP

My router give me the external IP by going into its setup page. I actually wrote a VB6 program that kinda does what you asked about --- I put it in the startup group (win xp) and everytime I start my computer it checks both the computers IP (which might change cause the router is set to give dynamic IPs) and then it reads the html code that the router displays to determine the external (WAN) IP (of course you have to setup the program with your router administrator name and password). At this point in time my program does not make all the necessary changes to the various configurations (though I think it does at least a little) but I haven't had the need to automate that process that much (wan ip has only changed once).

I'd be willing to bet you could find all the source code in C for a Linux box; it's just a matter of putting it all together! (Don't ask me how --- I'm just now trying C!!)


Okay, I just checked -- the program automatically updates my Apache configuration files but not the port forwarding part of the Router (that has to be assigned manually)


[This message has been edited by Jan_man (edited 08-18-2003).]

PT: Get a dyndsl account and client, and you'll have an (nearly always up to date) domain for your box... like perfectThunderbox@dyndsl.com ... there are any number of free dns services for this around.

No-IP can provide you a domain name for your computer, for example http://yourdomain.no-ip.com (several possibilities) with redirects or e-mail services. Once you registered (for free) and set up your account online, you just have to run a small application, it will make people accessing your domain go on your IP. Then you just have to set up Apache...

This is also very used to create private FTP servers.



[This message has been edited by Moon Shadow (edited 08-18-2003).]

Or use:
www.dns2go.com

I also started an FAQ on this if people want to throw resources in:

:FAQ: How do I host a website on my own computer?

___________________
Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Well, after contacting my ISP and finding out how much it will cost to have a business account (which I must have for a static IP and to host a web site), it is just cheaper to have it hosted somewhere else. The difference between the two (what I pay for cable modem access and a business account) comes out about $300 a year, and I can easily get my site hosted elsewhere for that kinda cash. In this case, it just is not cost effective to do it myself. Thanks for all the help guys.