How can host a website using my computer ?

[JESSEJJ89]

I've heard I can host my two blogs using my own computers. They don't get much traffic. Any simple way of doing this ?
Is a 20MB internet connection good enough ? Thanks

[lmintnewb]

You can, do you want to ? That's perhaps a better question ... Depending on how much experience or knowledge you have on the topic my opinion would be ... More than likely not. Can see how it'd get really involved. Config'ing a web server, having to deal with firewall issues and/or security problems that could crop up as a result. Having a static IP, that doesn't change and if it were to. Having to update dns etc to make sure it's pointing to your server. Even people with static IP's ISP's can just up and decide to change it periodically for whatever reason. Most the time someone has to pay extra to be guaranteed a truly static IP address.

So could ya ... With more than a tad of trouble and involvement ? ... sure. If you were feeling pseudo masochistic, absolutely. As a technical challenge or learning experience imo ... Guess someone could find some merit in a project like that. But depending on your intentions ... Seems like there are too many easier routes. Everything from outright free hosting ( http://www.000webhost.com/ being one am not endorsing them in any way just noting em), free hosted blog platforms ... wordpress.com, blogger, squidoo etc etc etc there are a ton. You may even be entitled to some kind of free web hosting from your ISP, as part of your plan. That may work ok for a low traffic personal blog. More shared hosting out there than you can shake a stick at for $10/mnth too. Off the top have no idea what 20MB connection means in terms of up/down bandwidth capacity. Usually the upstream isn't the same, your download speeds will usually be much better than uploads. Would think any decent residential highspeed connection would be up to it. Though that could change depending on your idea of low traffic and what type of media is being served.

If ya are looking at learning or trying to do web development locally ( on your PC ). Stuff like xampp ( for Windows) or LAMP ( for gnu/nix). Guess matters a lot what you have in mind.

[ThistleWeb]

You can install a webserver to do that, it's easily done. Check out howtoforge.com for plenty of guides on installing NGINX, Apache etc. The key is in the traffic. Most domestic ISP packages have a lot of download but limited upload. For a server, it's using the upload. You may get say 500k down, but only 50k up. Many domestic ISPs and even corporate ISP deals block ports that are associated with servers like port 80 as well as including stuff in their terms and conditions to prohibit you running a front facing server from home. When you visit a website, it automatically assumes port 80 unless told otherwise, so if you bind your server daemon to listen to a different port (like 8080), you'll have to include that in the url as :8080. This is easy enough, it's just that your visitors will have to do that too.

You do have the issue of DNS to think about too. A name is bound to an IP address. The reason servers work is because they are static IPs. Domestic ISPs tend to do dynamic IPs only, so they can have more subscribers than addresses. This means your IP address changes every few days. There are ways around this, but you'll have to sort that out too. Otherwise you'll face regular "I can't access your blog" moments, even though you can access it; it's just moved digital house.

The "how" is reasonably easy, the "why" may not be so clear cut. With your own server, it's you who has to maintain it. Basic hosting is very good value now, either as a free host with limitations, or an entry level cheap hosting package on a professional web host. I use Cherokee on my local machine for Dokuwiki. It's not front facing, it's also flat PHP files, so no database daemon required. I did a screencast on how to get that far of you want to check it out. It's an additional couple of steps to make it front facing, and adding database support. http://thistleweb.co.uk/screencast/linux/cherokee-php

Servers on local machines are very handy for development, but as a front facing service they are less than optimal for a variety of reasons.

[FDF]

Hi,

I do it myself and it really seems more complexe than it really is.
I do recommand you try at first to install a copy of your blog, or a simple testing website, then switch when ready.
The upload rate is a problem when you have big pictures, musique or video. Otherwise (pictures up to 800px*600 or a little more, it is not a problem. I have a piwigo website at home, with definitly lower adsl connection and nobody complains...

To ThistleWeb, you know that what you call the internet connection here is not an internet connection if you can only be a consumer... Internet is designed to be tranparent on what is the server and the client. So every computer should be both server and client. They are selling you something and deliver something else...

There is a european group protesting against that. Have a look there http://respectmynet.eu/

[ThistleWeb]

To ThistleWeb, you know that what you call the internet connection here is not an internet connection if you can only be a consumer... Internet is designed to be tranparent on what is the server and the client. So every computer should be both server and client. They are selling you something and deliver something else...

There is a european group protesting against that. Have a look there http://respectmynet.eu/

This is why there are various packages offered by ISPs. They want you to pay for a commercial connection with a static IP address if you want to be a front facing server. They don't want you taking up their line of bandwidth on the cheap. It's not that you can't do it, it's just that they don't class it as something within the rules of a domestic consumer based package. They may not notice you're doing it as long as the drain isn't obvious or their monitoring doesn't get into that much detail to trigger flags. If it does trigger a flag and someone does have a look manually at the logs, you can bet your bottom dollar it will be a violation of their domestic T&C and they will take action. Most likely it'll be a warning email telling you to cease and desist, while pointing you to their rules; or upgrade to a much more expensive package.

I agree that in an ideal world, ISPs should reflect the very nature of the internet where every device is both server and client, in reality ISPs bend those for their own profits. I'd be interested to see any ISP anywhere on the planet offering competitive domestic packages who also explicitly allow front facing servers running on that package. I don't know of any. They're all complaining about needing to traffic shape some types of traffic to prioritise other types. They're all looking for ways to nickel and dime their customers by setting limits on one thing forcing you to upgrade to get more capacity or features.

Domestic broadband is 50:1 contention, business broadband is 20:1. This means they try to cram more people onto one domestic line than a business one, under the impression that only so many actually use it at once. They also clip back the upload speed on domestic lines because it's mostly a download use case.

[JESSEJJ89]

Thanks for the replies .. So it seem it would be a little complicated for a n00b. Is there a particular hosting company that is recommended around here, I was with HostGator for 3 years until my website was off-line for two weeks, so I'm looking for alternatives.

[lmintnewb]

If I told ya that ... I'd have 2 kill ya ... sorry.

Cuz of my choosen profession, had reason to spend more than a tad of time assessing the hosting industry. As a result I concluded a few things. 1. I hate the web hosting industry ( shared hosting above all). There are toooooo many of them, too many posing as web hosts too. They have a friggin reseller plan or a VPS and all of a sudden they're a webhost. D: Most those top hosting "reviews" you see online are from the big unlimited everything, craptastically overselling webhosts .. like Hgator. They pay affiliates to put up all that webspam garbage.

My conclusions on it are on another OS/partition, off the top, some of the stuff I learned in the process of eval'ing webhosts. Like shopping for anything a lil common sense goes a longggg way. Years in business and track record. Avoid the unlimited everything pitch and webhost crowd, it's a total bald faced lie and not good to start out a business relationship imo telling a consumer a bald face lie.

Unlimited everything = RAMPANT OVERSELLING ( which overwhelming majority if not all shared hosts are going to oversell to some extent. They'd be foolish not to, some just keep it within reasonable limits.) Others go crazy with it and try to cram so many websites on one server until it's ready to burst at the seams. Plus your unlimited everything plan will have strict limits hidden in the hosts AUP's = acceptable usage policies anyway. If a site starts getting any real amount of traffic the owner will soon enough start recieving the "you need to upgrade to a higher plan" and/or will be suspended.

I tended to look at hosting companies that offered reasonable limits on bandwidth, diskspace etc etc. At least they weren't lying through their teeth and treating me like I'm stupid from the outset.

Ya might pay a lil more going with a month to month plan. But if you do and service goes south this way ya aren't locked into a contract and can pretty much move to a backup hosting company in a couple hours. As such, not a bad idea to have a backup host in mind already ... just in case. Month to month ( esp for awhile at first), just seems like a good idea to me. Which just makes sense, if you're a business who are you going to focus on pleasing more. The folks you have on the hook for a year, or the ones who can take their business elsewhere, at the drop of a hat ?

Another trap some of the unscrupulous hosts use to snag the unwary. ( usually in addition to the unlimited everything bs.) The whole free domain ... and dreaded free domain for life trick. That means free as long as you host with us. If you try to go somewhere else ( because we suk and know it, lol.) Then sorry we're keeping your domain or you'll have to pay, move heaven and earth so forth to get it away from us. Not a good thing, if someone's spent a lot of time and/or money building up their domain.

If you're serious about it ... Then register your own domain, so that you own it and only you own it. ICANN accredited registrars are a dime a dozen.

Keeping your own site backups or making arrangements to ensure it's done. I mean if it's actually important to you, ya might not want to trust a hosting company to do it. Would also not be very nice to spend time/money and one day find out oops, your site's gone ... sorry sir. Hmmm ... now lemme see, where did we put those files *scratches head.

Not even going to try turning this into an exhaustive overview of webhosting, toooooo much to it. Mainly depends on your intentions and purposes. For a good percentage of people any run of the mill shared hosting is a fine place to start regardless, esp for something of a personal nature. Just think the above are a couple common pitfalls or gotcha's to look out for. Ya obviously already know, not all shared webhosts are created equal.

[clippittee]

To achieve this, follow the overview below.

1. Install LAMP on your computer, along with the website. It should be accessible locally.
2. Check with your ISP to get a static public IP.
3. Set up domain services. Purchase a domain from any provider like Hostgator. And point it to your public IP.

[Cosmo.]

And you believe, that anybody waits 4 years for an answer?

[killer de bug]

This topic is 4 years old and posting in it doesn't make any sense. Therefore I will lock it.