Hosting a Website on Your Computer

[Ginger_Ale]

Quite simply, if you can go about doing this, how would I do this (actually, it's for my friend)? How fast should the connection be, and is it possible to get it so that I can host some website, say www.mysite.com on my computer (that is what servers are, just computers that host files, right?). Any instructions are appreciated, thanks.

 

[MOTH]

It depends what its for and the type of activity you are going to get. Most ISPs give you a "leased" IP address which makes it difficult to ensure the Name Servers stay up to date.

If those aren't problems then you can download Apache web server which I believe is open source and at one point was what 90% of the non-business sites used.

Of course if you would like something at least a little bit professional you could go with one of the free hosting companies like angelfire.com but you have to put up with their ads. If you want to pay some cash you can go with a cheap hosting company. My wife's web site is hosted on hostsave.com servers for about $8 a month. You also have the registration fees for owning a domain name in the first place. hostsave can handle that too.

 

[CruddyLeper]

It's cheaper in the short term to rent web space. Make sure your friend is committed if you want to host a site yourself.

Maybe renting space with a view to hosting it yourself later? That might be a fair compromise and would allow your friend to "bug out".

Which happens far too often, in my experience. Also, be aware that hosting a web page (static) isn't nearly the same thing as hosting a dynamic, changing database like a forum. You'll need a bit more than just Apache for that.

What exactly, I'm not sure, so I'll leave it to others to post or yourself to google.

 

[Comraddict]

http://www.no-ip.com/

 

[Grisu]

If you have a dynamic IP, you'll need something like Dyndns to keep your IP up to date. If you got a static IP, you only need your ISP to register your IP as the target for mywebsite.com in their DNS-Server, and you'll have to tell the domain-Administration authority (you know the guys that let you register a domain) the DNS-Server of your ISP.

After that all you need is a comp that's always running (obviously) and a webserver (preferably apache). if your friend wants a dynamic webpage, you'll also need PHP and MySQL (or any other Database).

Anyway, I don't think it's worth the effort. You get really good offers these days from a professional hoster (also you don't have to worry about uptime, backups, etc).

 

[IglooDame]

Anyway, I don't think it's worth the effort. You get really good offers these days from a professional hoster (also you don't have to worry about uptime, backups, etc).

Ditto, and additionally, having public traffic hitting your machine requires some serious attention to security. As you sound relatively new to the game and thus unlikely to be able to secure the webserver adequately, I'd strongly suggest you try a webhosting company rather than host it yourself.

 

[gonzo_for_civ]

If he is more interested in the website tell him not to bother hosting it himself. The costs wont justify the decision to bypass perfectly good hosts available elsewhere. Personally I would do it(and have done it) just for the experience. Yeah there's a ton to learn, but you gain a greater understanding of just what's going on at the host level. I had a lot of fun with it myself.