Caveat: In the words of Denzel Washington in Philadelphia, “Explain this two me like I’m a four-year-old.”
My wife and I both own domain names that we use for our own interests – mine for my band, she for her animal welfare site. The sites themselves are located at Geocities (you can see where I’m going with this, right?), and the names just redirect to the Geocities sites.
We have three computers at home–a brand-new HP, and a couple of older Pentiums. We have a DSL connection to the Web, and a Netgear switch/router so the computers can share the connection.
Can we use one of those old Pentiums to host those two domain names, and if so, how do we go about it? Specifically what kind of hardware/software/whatever modifications and setup would be involved?
Any advice to get me pointed in the right direction would be tremendously appreciated.
To run your own server, first you need a server. If you’re running Windows, you can use either IIS (Internet Information Server) or PWS (personal web server, kind of IIS-lite). Both are free from Microsoft, and one or the other will be available for your particular flavor of Windows. There are also a variety of other freeware, shareware and commercial servers available for both Windows and other OSs.
Once you’ve chosen a server, you’ll need to install and configure it to host your content. This step varies depending on the server you choose, but there’s lots of online material available to step you through it once you’ve chosen a server.
Once you’ve got a server up and running, you need to modify your domain name registration to point to your machine. A domain name registration includes a nameserver address which is the DNS server which is considered authoritative for your domain. That is, the nameserver in the registration is the one that knows where to find the server hosting your domain name. You would have to get your ISP to modify their DNS server to resolve your domain name to your DSL’s IP address. Alternatively, you could run your own DNS server, but that’s another level of complexity. In either case, once a DNS server is set up to resolve your domain to your IP and vice versa, you modify your domain name registration accordingly.
If you run Windows, installing IIS or PWS is fairly easy and you could have your server up-and-running pretty quickly, available by your IP address if not your domain name. However, I’d urge you to also install a good firewall program and step through some security tutorials to learn how to turn off services you don’t need, etc. Servers are pretty vulnerable right out of the box, and you could easily turn your home network into a nice juicy cracker target by exposing it to the world like this. Your Netgear router may include enough packet filtering to handle this, so it would just be a matter of configuring what you already have.
Just for completeness, you should probably also check your DSL user agreement. Many broadband providers do not allow you to run local servers. They’ll scan their network looking for available servers and terminate your service until you stop it.
Do not run any of the MS servers if you are not an NT expert. A lot of stuff can and easily does go wrong. The recent Code Red(s) and Nimda worms also give excellent reasons to avoid IIS.
Just use Apache, it’s free and does not have the level security problems that plague IIS. Just remember to check your logs multiple times a day and visit the Apache web site a couple of times a week to check for needed patches.
One issue with a DSL server is the permanence of your IP address. If it varies every few months (like my cable modem address) you need to have an automatic way of updating your IP with your dns server.
Also, will your DSL provider allow this? Most have blocked inbound port 80 (and any other port they catch an http server on) because of the loads caused by unsecured IIS servers during the recent worm storms. My (non-MS) server gets blocked because thousands of people are running non-secure MS servers without even knowing it. Sigh.
ftg, I did already check with my DSL provider, Verizon, and they explicitly state that users can run web servers and that there are no restrictions other than those already outlined in the TOS. So I’m OK as far as that goes.
So, let me see if I’m on the right track, using as an example one of my domains, razorsedgeband.com :
Download and install one of the aforementioned freeware servers.
Configure it to host my content (html files, photos, sounds, etc.)
Tell Verizon DSL that I’m now hosting razorsedgeband.com at home, and get them to resolve that name to their IP address and vice versa.
Go to my account at Verisign, go to the “Manage Name Servers” section under “Domain Manager,” and replace the two WorldNic name servers there with the IP information that Verizon gives me.
Install a firewall. (I think Netgear has some built-in protection, but better safe than sorry.)
I don’t have a cite handy, but I believe it was the honeypot project that found servers getting hit and exploited within minutes of going live. You want to have your firewall in place before you open up any world-readable services on your box, even if you’re only accessible by IP and not domain name.
You might find there are advantages to having another company provide your dns. Less cost, fewer gotchas, etc. Read all the fine print. The big gotcha is that if you change name servers, the old one might get to keep “razorsedgeband.com” for itself! Scary. Pay attention to that fine print. To be “24/7” (and “proactive” and “paradigm shifting” …) you will really need an automated way to update your IP unless your package also includes a permanent IP address (which by the sound of it you might have).
If someone else provides dns to your site, your IP would map to both razorsedgeband.com and ubx-42.veriz-qrx.com (or whatever). But a reverse name lookup would return the later. (Mainly an issue for sites you visit that have filters.)
Phil, click on my web link under my post to see how successful my server projects have been. I can advise you on many of the particular details in setting this stuff up, whether it be for a simple web server or a web board.
Apache is far, far superior to any MS product in performance, security, stability, and memory usage. However, it is somewhat more difficult to set up. Fierra and I can offer suggestions if you run into problems.
If you want another option for propogating your domain name, there is always http://www.granitecanyon.com. It looks cryptic, but Caldazar sent me simple, step-by-step instructions I can forward to you as well.
I strongly recommend a hardware firewall, namely the Linksys Etherfast Cable/DSL one. Search on “Linksys” here, and you will find numerous threads discussing pros and cons of it versus a software firewall.
(I think Netgear has some built-in protection, but better safe than sorry.)