Hosting my own web site.

[Mitzi]

I am considering hosting my own web site but I know very little about what would be required. As far as I am aware all I would need is a static IP address - is that correct?

Does anyone have any additional information, how do you register a static IP address, how much does it cost, anything else I need to know?

 

[Vegito]

IP you get from your internet provider.. if your going to do a web site, you're talking business rates.. they'll be monitoring it like crazy to get your money.. ie monthly allowance of bytes transfer...

also you need to register a domain like something.com, also if your ISP wont do DNS you'll need to pay someone to get you DNS unless your domain registar gives them to you for free..
DNS is translating something.com to your IP address so people wont have to remember your IP all the time...

costly..

 

[Mitzi]

Well I already have a domain name (www.mozzano.com) so thats not a problem.

I mean I don't really need to host the web site personally if it would be too costly but at the very least I'd like to have my Linux box on the web so I would be able to use SSH to connect to it.

I'm sure that wouldn't cost too much but I cannot find information about it anywhere.

 

[Workin']

You don't even need a static IP address - you can use a dynamic DNS service like dns2go or dynu to keep track of the dynamic DNS your ISP gives you - for free - if you use a subdomain name from the dynamic DNS provider (which would be something like mysitename.dns2go.com). If you want to use your own domain name (like mysitename.com) then the dynamic services will charge you a modest amount per year. In which case you can find a "real" web host for less money and let them host it instead of using your own server.

Now this will work better if you have a low-traffic personal site, too much traffic will overload both the dynamic dns server and your own connection - and maybe get you some unwanted attention from your ISP. I run 3 semi-private web sites and 1 ftp over my dynamic-IP residential cable account. No one's complained so far. And it costs me exactly -0-, other than my regular monthly ISP fee.

Of course, you will also need a server with the appropriate web server software, along with the knowledge of how to secure your site against hackers and prevent your machine from being used for various distributed denial-of-service attacks and other fun stuff.

 

[Workin']

<< I'd like to have my Linux box on the web so I would be able to use SSH to connect to it. >>

All you need to know is what IP address is assigned to your internet connection, then you can connect to it using that address whenever the machine is on line. You could also use a dynamic dns service to keep track of the IP and you could use one of their free subdomain names instead of the dynamic IP to connect to your machine. It's easier than it sounds.

If you have your own domain name already then you should try and find a cheap host, since the least expensive dynamic dns I could find for a full domain name costs $50/year, and I know you can find web hosting for less than that. I have a few commercial sites hosted at Parcom, it costs less than $50/yr and they deal with the hassles of running the server. I've been using them for 2+ years and highly recommend them.

 

[Wik]

Go to this site. It will answer just about all of your questions and take you step by step on how to get started.

 

[Mitzi]

Thanks for the info and links guys. I'm reading them now

 

[Vegito]

Right, I thought you wanted it for business purposes... if you want some home based web, dydns works, if u can't afford to drop customers, get ur own dns or ultradns.com

 

[Mitzi]

No its not for business, just so I can ftp/telnet in to my machine whilst I'm at work/university to get hold of files etc - nothing business critical.

I tried dns2go last night and it seems to work pretty well - I was able to telnet into my Win2K, though my firewall. I haven't setup an FTP server yet. Next job is to get the linux distro working.

Cheers for the info guys.

 

[Wik]

I would not use telnet. The packets are not secure and anyone can snoop them easily. Use ssh instead.

 

[JackMDS]

$3.95 Domain Hosting. 200MB/5GB Bandwidth/MySQL etc.

 

[Paulson]

if you need a free dns server, use zoneedit.com

They offer a lot of services for nothing, and haven't been down once.

 

[sml]

another good one is www.everyDNS.net - i know the owner, he's a pretty cool guy. totally free DNS hosting.

 

[blstriker]

If you already have a domain name, then zoneedit.com can be your dns server. They're very good. I currently use them to host my own site on dsl.

 

[Mitzi]

I go the Win2K machine running a telnet and FTP server over the weekend with DNS2Go. Works pretty well but obviously I'm kinda concerned about the security.

Anyone know of any good, FREE SSH servers for Windows?

I'm thinking perhaps doing all this under Linux would be better from a security point of view.

Edit : I'm looking at ZoneEdit now, it looking pretty interesting. If I changed one of my domain names (www.blueboo.co.uk) to point at ZoneEdits nameservers, in the future would I be able to change it back to my usual web host?