i need help self hosting

[deathbellstar]

i found a site selfhosting and leaned that i could self host but i need help setup up my computer to self host.i useing win xp.i want to set up my computer to self host my web pages that im working on.if any 1 can please help me thank you

[red_bull]

Do you have an always on internet connection?

[deathbellstar]

yes

[mivox]

Will you be violating you ISP's Terms of Service by hosting a websit eout of your home? Quite a few cable/dsl/etc. providers prohibit hosting sites through a residential internet access account.

[deathbellstar]

i did not think of that i will go find out thanks:)

[deathbellstar]

yea well it will voalat my tosi did not know that.i think that so stuiped if i pay for that connection i should be able to do what ever i want with it

[deathbellstar]

a) Run any type of server on the system. This includes but is not limited to FTP, IRC, SMTP, POP, HTTP, SOCKS, SQUID, DNS or any multi-user forums;

(b) Register or point a domain, sub-domain, or hostname to any Optimum Online IP address. Moreover, users may not have traffic redirected to The Service

that what it says

[Crazy_Fool]

>>i think that so stuiped if i pay for that connection i
>>should be able to do what ever i want with it

ummm..... nope .... you pay for a home connection which is for personal use. if you want to host websites from home / office etc, you need a different service, ie, leased line. your ISP will give you fixed IPs etc.

with web hosting costing as little as £20 / $30 a year, is there any point in trying to host from home?

[dingman]

is there any point in trying to host from home?

Not as a money saving approach, no. If you can get the connectivity to support your site, and have the admin skills to do the same, then self-hosting gives you unparalelled freedom and flexibility. It also means that there's nobody but yourself to blame if something goes wrong.

As a general matter, I would think that if you have to ask how then self-hosting probably isn't for you. Of course, if you're doing it with a domain that isn't critical to anything it can be a great learning experience. But the learning experience will not immediately result in a reliable domain.

you need a different service, ie, leased line. your ISP will give you fixed IPs etc.

There are some DSL packages aimed at small businesses with the necessary features as well, including a user agreement that allows you to run servers. They cost more than "residential" DSL lines at the same speeds, because of the fixed IPs and the fact that maintaining a network where you allow other people to have their own servers (potentially mis-managed, 0w3ned, infected with nasties that target server software, etc) will put more demand on an admin staff than maintaining one where servers aren't allowed. You can clamp down on the bandwidth drain and spread of infection on the latter much more easily than the former.

[deathbellstar]

thanks for the info. i wanted mustly to lean how to self host as a leaning exp.and i found a web site that let you have a diff ip each time but still have the same domian name with them and they take message for you when your not on.i wish i could post it but their are rules.

[deathbellstar]

>Crazy_Fool
>ummm..... nope .... you pay for a home connection which is >for personal use

so if i wanted to set up a live vido feed on a site www.123.com so i can talk with mom that would for personal use

[mivox]

As long as the video feed wasn't running 27x7, it ought to...

[BjarneDM]

deathbellstar:
If you just want to learn about webserving etc and don't neccessarily need to publish your work on the web, there's no reason not to play around with setting up a webserver on your machine. In fact, many of the technologies needed for maintaining and building web-pages - PHP, SSI, MySQL, cgi - neccessiates a webserver.

you can always block access to the webserver from outside your own home either at the router your ISP has given you or on your computer itself.

ZoneAlarm can do that for your for instance if you at first can't find out how to do it in your sever configuration.

But to advise you further as to giving access to your potential webserver, I need to know more about you setup:
1) did your ISP give you a router to connect through
2) do you have a local LAN in you home

[Crazy_Fool]

>>so if i wanted to set up a live vido feed on a site
>>www.123.com so i can talk with mom that would for
>>personal use

you could just use netmeeting - that's what most people do.

[Steve_W]

>> In fact, many of the technologies needed for maintaining and building web-pages - PHP, SSI, MySQL, cgi - neccessiates a webserver.

True, they do require a server environment to function, but it can be a remote server on the internet. I have extensive experience with SSI and cgi, and have never had a server installed on my machine.

It helps to have a fast connection, then you can learn a lot. Build it, upload it, rebuild it...

[dhdweb]

Steve_W,

I used to do it the same way, build it, upload it, test it, fix it, upload it, test it etc....

This is a big pain in the butt, not to mention that you are using up your bandwidth limits. (yes FTP counts against your limits)

I have since setup Apache [apache.org] on my machine as a localhost and added PHP [php.net]as well.

Now I don't upload anything until I know it is working correcly, upload it, final test it and done!

dhdweb

[dingman]

You deffinitely *can* do server side stuff without a local server environment, but it's much faster with one. The difference between a save-upload-test-fix-repeat cycle and a save-test-fix-repeat cycle adds up over a bunch of iterations. I wouldn't develop any other way.

[BjarneDM]

If you *really* want to learn to mess around with setting up a server, there's no way around installing a server (or two) on your own computer. That way you *really* have the complete control over the system that you need to really mess things up and can install anything you want to experiment and play with.

Most ISPs wont allow you to install anything beyond what they deem safe. This is particularly the case for things that have to go into the cgi-bin. MySQL and PHP are usually the limit, and you are usually *not* allowed to modify http.conf and .htaccess files.

Also, you might want to configure PHP differently than what's available on your ISP and compile and install PHP all by yourself.

Now, if you don't want your apache server to be seen by any other computer than the one you are running it on (localhost or 127.0.0.1) modify http.conf at around line 405 to read :

Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.1

this will make sure that only you yourself on your own computer will be able to access the website - everybody else will just get a 401 - access denied :-)