I want to set up my own domain...

[Booty]

...at least, I think that's what I want to do. I'm really kinda ignorant as far as networking goes. When I set up linux, and it asks me for a domain name and host name, I have no idea what I'm supposed to put in... stuff usually works fine, but anyway...

What I want is this: I'd like to secure www.xxxxxx.net (xxxxx being my name or whatever is available)... then I'd like to have that point to my own webserver that I plan on building. I'd also like to be able to set up email acounts like yourname@xxxxx.net, etc, so I'm assuming that I would run my own email server as well? Finally, I'd also like to have an ftp.xxxxx.net available... I have an ftp server, but it'd be nice to be able to just give people the xxxxxx.net address instead of my IP (and no, it's not a warez server or something, just an easy way for me to get to my documents/data from somwhere else if I need to).

So I know this whole message is pretty newbie-ish and maybe a little vague, but I'm looking for a place to start. I've messed with installing apache and all that... I'd like to run the servers on linux/unix, so I'm looking for good recommendations for the different server daemons and also advice on how I tie this all together under a common domain (I really hope I'm using the right terminology here). Thanks.

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

You start by registering a domain name with one of the many registars on the net. I happen to use www.domaindirect.com, but there are plenty of others.

If you don't have a static IP, you'll need to sign up for a dynamic IP service, I happen to use DynDNS, but there are several other services as well.

Finally, you can forward requests from your registered domain to whatever internal name that you have been assigned by your dynamic IP service, and requests by name will be referred to your server name.

Obviously, you have to setup the server(s) on your machine that are accessable to the Internet for all of this to work!