Apache Query: Requirements To Run Own Web-Server?

[sandeep1405241520 0]

Hi friends,I have learnt that one can host own website using apache web server. Does that mean that I will have to keep my computer ON all the time. What about browsing? How will people visit my website. I mean what address will they have to put in the address bar of browser where currently I am putting the address of my website.And what all security policies will I need to apply to prevent my computer being hacked. I was just browsing internet when I came to know that a windows based machine gets hacked in 2 days and a Linux based machine in 4 days on average. If that's true, isn't it quite difficult to be connected to internet for a long time and hosting website. I curious to know more about how to host my website on my web server. I have plans to host my website on the LAN I have in my hostel.Do supply your comments.Regards.

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

I have learnt that one can host own website using apache web server. Does that mean that I will have to keep my computer ON all the time.

 

Yes - you'll need a computer that runs 24/7. Throw in a pretty decent speed internet link along with that, else once your site starts getting crowded you might have problems. This computer needs to be running Apache on Windows or Linux (preferrably Linux).

 

What about browsing? How will people visit my website. I mean what address will they have to put in the address bar of browser where currently I am putting the address of my website.

 

For this you'll need to purchase a domain name from a registrar service like GoDaddy.Com. But aside from that, this domain name should be able to point to your web-servers IP address. For this you need to run a DNS (Domain Name Services) server. Think of this like a telephone directory. People access your site by your domain name. Your domain name refers to the DNS (Telephone Directory) to find out your Phone Number (IP Address) and calls up that machine.

 

If you're using an ADSL link - most likely you won't have a fixed IP. For this service to function properly you need a fixed IP - coz thinking metaphorically, your phone number should remain constant in order for people to reach you correctly every time. However, acquiring a fixed IP costs $$$ - so you can resort to a Dynamic Domain service such as no-ip.com or dyn-dns.com, which allows you to hook up your domain name to a non-static IP. You simply run a small client program on your web-server, which updates your new IP at the dynamic dns service's server everytime the IP changes. That way, you domain always points to your latest IP.

 

And what all security policies will I need to apply to prevent my computer being hacked. I was just browsing internet when I came to know that a windows based machine gets hacked in 2 days and a Linux based machine in 4 days on average. If that's true, isn't it quite difficult to be connected to internet for a long time and hosting website. I curious to know more about how to host my website on my web server. I have plans to host my website on the LAN I have in my hostel.

 

It's true that no system is completely hack-proof - but Linux stands a better chance at withstanding hacking attempts. You can configure linux in such a way that it runs only the required services - i.e. HTTPD (Web-server) in your case. That way you can minimize the open ports - which are usually exploited to break into your system.

 

Now there's this other problem for you too - you are on a LAN in your college. Your machine will have a local LAN IP - which the outside world cannot see. When you connect to the internet or someone tries to connect back to you - they see the main IP of your college's internet routing server. You need to contact your System Administrator and tell him to allow NAT (Network Address Translation) routing to your own computer, so that any requests coming to your domain should be automatically forwarded to your machine. Else such requests will either lead straight to your college web-site (if it has one).. or else get blocked at the first router it meets in an inbound path to your network.

[vicky99 0]

Hi sandeepAccording to me if you have windows xp professional or windows 2003 server you need nothing to host ur web site.If you have these plz contact me . I will show you the way. Bye

[Houdini 0]

vicky99

According to me if you have windows xp professional or windows 2003 server you need nothing to host ur web site.If you have these plz contact me . I will show you the way. Bye

This is not true becuase you will have to have a domain and a domain name server. You can use your own PC (even Win 95) to host a local or intranet server on your own network, to serve files through a webserver on the internet you must have a domain name and domain name server account somewhere, this ususally costs money, not to mention that you should have a machine that is on 24/7/365 with someone that has the ability to bring it back up if it crashes, and a Windown machine does this quite often.

I would use an Apache which is more reliable and more poeple know how to service it, but if all you really want to do is run a webserver on your own home network or even single machine for development then YES you can use Win XP or Win 2003 or later but not without running T1 and or T2 lines into your home (which also run quite a bit of money monthly). Microscopic Earthling was correct with this

For this you'll need to purchase a domain name from a registrar service like GoDaddy.Com. But aside from that, this domain name should be able to point to your web-servers IP address. For this you need to run a DNS (Domain Name Services) server. Think of this like a telephone directory. People access your site by your domain name. Your domain name refers to the DNS (Telephone Directory) to find out your Phone Number (IP Address) and calls up that machine.

[finaldesign1405241487 0]

try to start with some free packadges for starting your own webserver. XAMPP is a very good one, and pretty simple to configure, works with WinXP. I have it on my maschine, just for testing purposes.

You can download it for free, just google for term "xampp".

Installation process is simple, just follow the onscreen instructions, if you get in trouble, feel free to ask here on forums, someone will jump-in to help...

Anyway, when you finish with installation, if you followed the rules and instructions, you will have XAMPP installed on your computer in folder:

c:\Program Files\XAMPP\

 

Now browse in folder inside XAMPP called

htdocs

 

Now that's the place you put your website stuff, index.html and others

[abhishek 0]

The requirements are quite simple. You need an OS (which you already have) a web server software like apahe and a DNS redirection service(for testing try no-ip.com's free service where you get a free subdomain like yourname.no-ip.com. And lastly a very fast internet connection.

Edited July 10, 2006 by abhishek (see edit history)

[seec77 0]

I wouldn't recommend actually trying to serve a website from your computer. I mean, it's great for testing your PHP skills, and lots of other things - I have about 6 Drupal installations on my computer, most of them broken from messing aruond. Apart from that I have lots of phpBB/Wordpress installations. I always mess around with Apache + PHP + MySQL (LAMP), but it's really not for the whole world wide web. You'll also at certain points find the noise that your computer makes during the night quite unbearable, or at least I did.

 

BTW (off-topic), m^e, my brother's wife is the executive producer of Radio Bu Israel. (I noticed last.fm shows you listened to it...)

[nightfox1405241487 0]

You can basically run a website off of ANY kind of computer. My laptop runs Apache for internal use, my Linux box is used for internal & external use as well. I (used to) have a 333 MHz, 128 MB RAM, computer running Red Hat Linux 9 as an internal server.Basically, you just have to worry about how much traffic you're going to get.An old computer, 333 MHz is great for a website that gets little traffic or INTERNAL network use only. However, a 2 GHz P4 will work great for Internet serving.After the hardware issue, you have to worry about LINE SPEED. A simple ADSL (what generally ALL DSL users have) has a great downlink but a SLOW uplink. This is why Data Centers have OC fiber lines. Fiber lines are sync speed meaning the downlink is the same as the uplink (haha... must be great to work in a data center ) so there's plenty of bandwidth. My DSL uplink is 40 KBps, so my website downloads for everyone else at that same speed too, regardless of what their connection is.[N]F

[saggi 0]

Hey guys i wana to ask that if i wana to host multiple domain name and using free DNS service, all the domain that i have configured to mine ip but how i configured to them to each directory to whom i want as http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ is mine domain i wana to when some one try to open http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ it will open to c:/my serverfiles/www/killersbut it didnt it open the www directory so wat i will do i even configured Vhost file but it didnt work

[iGuest 3]

Could you use the ps3 to run apache I have linux on mine.-reply by freeboy32

[iGuest 3]

hey friends I have installed apache web server on my desktop pc (vista platform) now I want to use this pc as a server and want to use my laptop(Xp platform) as a client and access the website uploaded in my pc server, but I am not able to access it, I have just started learning networking , so can any one Please help me...?????????

-reply by pankaj

 

[8ennett 0]

I would NOT recommend hosting your site from a hostel. It would be unfair on everyone else who uses the internet there as hosting your own website will take up a lot of your bandwidth depending on the amount of visitors you have and how 'heavy' the website content is.

 

Now yes you can host your own website off your computer and it is quite a popular option, however you will need to open the ports on your computer and your router and to do this you will need full adminsitrative access to your router.

 

So download and install the latest version of the apache http server and when prompted allow the program access through the firewall. If you aren't prompted then you can manually open the port by opening your computers firewall application and inputting a new exception, name it HTTP and set the port to 80. This will allow access from the internet to your computer through the http port only so people will only be able to access your server and nothing else.

 

Now that you have your web server up and running you can upload your website files to C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache 2.x\htdocs (for Winblows users) or something similar. You can also edit your web servers configuration by opening the file C:\Program Files\Apache Group\Apache 2.x\conf\httpd.conf.

 

The next thing you will need to do is forward all external connections from your router to your pc. Now every router has its own version of port forwarding and you can look up the method for your particular router at PortForward and if they don't have your router in their database then use google to search it up. You are wanting to forward port 80 to your LAN ip (which is different to your internet ip). So use your router again to find out what your computers local ip is (if you are the only computer on the router then it will usually be either 192.168.0.2 or 192.168.1.2) and forward port 80 to it.

 

Now your website can be accessed by people on over the internet. If you want to test it out then visit WhatIsMyIP, copy your ip address off the page and paste it in to your browser. If the setup was succesful you should see your website. Now other users will have to type in this ip address as well if they want to view your website so now we need to setup a domain name.

 

Visit a website like DynDNS and sign up for a domain. Now you can pick what ever you want so http://www.mysite.com/ and you will need to enter your websites current ip which you found out from WhatIsMyIP and then anyone who types in http://www.mysite.com/ will be forwarded to your router, which in turn forwards them to your server. If your ISP has given you a dynamic IP then when ever you disconnect then reconnect your router from the phone line or turn it off and on again then your ip will be different. So visit the ip website again, write down your new ip address, go back to DynDNS and change the forward ip to your new one.

 

It's also worth noting that when your PC or router is turned off then your website will not be available to the internet and will return an page not found message when people visit http://www.mysite.com/. Hope this helps anyone who needs it.

[infotornix 0]

Well use centos 5.5 stable ver os, if yu need portable use the lampp or any other webserver you mind.But use a storng control panel like kloxo and lxadmin.other free cp are available but its too simple and i uses this lots of effect and updating somuch .lots of plug ins and you can create reseller and customer.Well with hardware use what ever you want but just use the good harddisk so it runs well .if you are using your old computer as server(as i also do sometime for experiment only) please add some ram to it.Well just add an extra battery or 2 for running your server.Well you can share if you have fast internet for small price.And with this you can at least host your own website for free . Well i did it already and my website is running but the main problem is i have changable ip so i have to update the ip every time i reboot my computer.Well if you need help done hesitate to ask help from me.Happy to help.

[iGuest 3]

try to start with some free packadges for starting your own webserver. XAMPP is a very good one, and pretty simple to configure, works with WinXP. I have it on my maschine, just for testing purposes.

You can download it for free, just google for term "xampp".

Installation process is simple, just follow the onscreen instructions, if you get in trouble, feel free to ask here on forums, someone will jump-in to help...

Anyway, when you finish with installation, if you followed the rules and instructions, you will have XAMPP installed on your computer in folder:

c:\Program Files\XAMPP\

 

Now browse in folder inside XAMPP called

htdocs

 

Now that's the place you put your website stuff, index.html and others

 

my apache will not start from the XAMMP control panel just my mysql, ftp and mercury is working.

[yordan 10]

my apache will not start from the XAMMP control panel just my mysql, ftp and mercury is working.

Probably something is using the "80" port on your PC, try configuring another port for Apache.