Hosting own website

moonpenny

On a few websites I have looked at recently, at the bottom of the page it says that the site is hosted by "themselves"

Can someone tell me how this works? I thought you had to pay for Hosting through a site.

S0litaire

If you have a fixed IP address from your ISP (or subscribe to a DynamicDNS service for a non static IP)
you can set up a small cheap PC as a Web Server and use that to host your own website.

I've done it from time to time so other people can test sites. it's reltivly easy to set up it's just a bit harder to keep it secure and keep hackers from jumping on..

saying that I had someone try to hack my laptop a couple of nights ago! gog a pop up from my system asking if a total stranger wanted to "Take control of my PC" (I had desktop sharing turned on as i was working on another machine at the time)
Luckily i said NO and checked my system to find they had left a nice little present of a "trojen exe wasting to be run when the person took control... unfiortunetly i'm running Ubuntu and exe's don't work hehe!

Tempted to let him in and see him flounder with a non windows OS...


Ermm... Back on track! ^_~
OK
Hosting your own website is easy if you want to keep a PC running 24/7
you need a domain name
you need either a static IP
or
Subscribe to a Dynamic DNS service that can track your changing IP address and make sure your Domain name points to it.

masscrazy

Hosting is dirt cheap even free, no need to self host, various obsticales as above has explained, few i've dealt with are evohosting and surpasshosting.

verystupidwithmoney

There is no such thing as a server. A computer is a computer whether supplying content or retrieving it. These so called servers do exactly what your home computer does.

Usually servers are more powerful as they deal with higher loads in general. But this power is only through extra hardware and other various optimisations. Nothing else.

The difference is essentially the software. You can run a http daemon on your home computer and give someone the IP. As long as its routable your machine will server content. However, most home routers disable port forwarding. Essentially, in order for you to serve content you need to open port 80, the standard, on your home router and forward that traffic to your home computer which the httpd will have opened.

Anyway, hosting is so cheap this isn't worth any of the bother and it's so easy to get wrong.

moonpenny

After reading both your replies I think I will pay for hosting as like you said masscrazy - it's cheap, so why complicate things?

verystupidwithmoney

I can recommend united hosting. Excellent support.

Notmyrealname

verystupidwithmoney wrote: »

There is no such thing as a server. A computer is a computer whether supplying content or retrieving it. These so called servers do exactly what your home computer does.

Usually servers are more powerful as they deal with higher loads in general. But this power is only through extra hardware and other various optimisations. Nothing else.

The difference is essentially the software. .

So these computers are the same as your home computer but have different hardware and software.

You've not quite thought that through have you?

And the 19" rackmounts I've used make rubbish desktop computers....

masscrazy

moonpenny wrote: »

After reading both your replies I think I will pay for hosting as like you said masscrazy - it's cheap, so why complicate things?

Hosting is so cheap, I forgot that I have reseller hosting! I could setup an account for you if you'd like. Its nothing special but it may be better going for a paid host, which'll be few quid a month and would be bit faster.

verystupidwithmoney

Notmyrealname wrote: »

So these computers are the same as your home computer but have different hardware and software.

You've not quite thought that through have you?

And the 19" rackmounts I've used make rubbish desktop computers....

No. The software is the same. You are completely wrong. The software can run on your home computer or a 20k flat bed. They are identical. The number theory of computing does not differ for servers.

And yes. Your so called 19inch beds would make a perfect desktop if they had a decent graphics card. What else is your server missed hardware wise to not be a desktop other than being far more noisy?

I suggest you have thought it through but don't actually understand what you're saying

http://ask-leo.com/so_just_what_is_a_server_anyway.html

RobTang

verystupidwithmoney wrote: »

No. The software is the same. You are completely wrong. The software can run on your home computer or a 20k flat bed. They are identical. The number theory of computing does not differ for servers.

There are plenty of mainframes, non x86 unix, Itanium, sun solaris sparc and even ARM based servers out there whose software wont run on your desktop.

Most of the server hardware configs make awful desktop machines, I've tried a few server multi-cpu server boards as workstations and any i5 / I7 will provide better UX. Its like taking a HGV to do the weekly family shop.

verystupidwithmoney

RobTang wrote: »

There are plenty of mainframes, non x86 unix, Itanium, sun solaris sparc and even ARM based servers out there whose software wont run on your desktop.

Wrong. The software will run fine. Apache code is apache code, for example. The differences is in how its compiled for the particular arch essentially.

However, yes - pre compiled binaries wont work for other archs but this common sense. Yes yes, exceptions do exist but it remains true to the point.

The fact remains. Any server software will run fine on your home computer or any other computing device assuming its been compiled correctly.

Your iphone is running unix. Check the legals. Unix also powers yahoo.

Most of the server hardware configs make awful desktop machines, I've tried a few server multi-cpu server boards as workstations and any i5 / I7 will provide better UX. Its like taking a HGV to do the weekly family shop.

Of course they make awful desktops. They sound like a small jet. However, the fact remains is you could use it as a desktop if you wished.