Be your own host?

[Mike_Wiseman]

Along time ago i seen on a few sites tutorials on howto make your own home computer itto a server.... does any1 know where i cant find a tutorial on it?
thnx

 

[1rrr1]

you will have to have your comp on 24/7 though. If you don't do that then there isn't any point of trying it

 

[Nunim]

Yeah being your own host sucks, you have to have a real good connection also, and you have noticeabale spikes when someone is downloading on you.

 

[Qwert]

I have a good connection but only a few gigs of space left on my HD, and thats after clearing most of what can be cleared up. Stupid tiny 80 Gig HD. Damn you.

 

[ichibaka]

if it's not linux system, you definitely see a major slow down when lots of people are accessing.

 

[Mike_Wiseman]

so its a bad thing to do?

 

[hanz]

Read this http://forums.inuration.net/viewtopic.php?t=3559

 

[jstep]

hm... i may hook up an old computer with linux just to fool around

 

[xpfreedom]

I tried that for a while. It was problematic because of power outages, slow internet due to visitors on the site, and dealing with a messed up MySQL database. Of course, I was using Windows, so I'm sure that made things worse.

I wouldn't completely discourage this. Try it and see if you like it. It'll be a new learning experience. Get a linux distro and see what you can do .

 

[jstep]

i just want to full around with it

 

[ichibaka]

your computer would make a great file sharing server instead of dynamic content.

 

[cera]

If you have an old computer lying around I suggest:
Apache server, MySQL db server, PHP & Perl - there are numerous 'packages' that will install the above and provide basic configuration for both Windows and Linux OS's

I wouldn't recommend you install on a computer that you're using for other stuff. Check your ISP terms regarding operating a server (mine says I can't do it)

I have had an old pentium 1 set up on Windows XP as intranet/internet server primarily for testing sites that I am building. It's been running non stop for about 2 years (one power outage that required a restart). I still host all my sites and my clients' sites on an 'outside' resellers account though.

Good luck with it & have fun.

 

[Kodeking]

I used to host gamedose.com from my home computer until it somehow became a popular site. I switched to a paid host for two reasons: the high number of requests was slowing down my own surfing and I found out it was against my ISP's TOS (Comcast).

I actually learned alot about servers and programming in the proccess. Its a good thing to learn from, but I wouldn't recomend it as a long term ordeal.

 

[primacomputer]

You can run a decent linux system on just about any old piece of junk. It's certainly worth doing, if only just to play around with and get a feel for how it works. It's great for developing and testing since downloads and uploads are nearly instantaneous over the local network.

It's also great for hosting low traffic sites. Many low end service packages have a no-server policy, but I have never had complaints on sites that only get a few dozen hits a day. If you have a lot of these you can save some money. Beware the cost of powering a server 24 hours a day though. I recently moved a server from one location to another. The electricity bill dropped ~US$50 in one and increased by the same amount in the other. An older home workstation probably consumes less, but it still uses electricity.

 

[redhippo]

i have a friend running a company site from his home office with linux...seems to have no problems!:tu:

 

[adam_uk]

i got a willitwork local server which i use for development, files, downloads etc stuff like that (seems a bit wasted 2.0ghz system ), so i can keep the crap off my desktop and when ive finished developing a site on it i upload it to production box