NAS + webserver

[Subyman]

I currently run a i3 2100 on a supermicro board with 8GB for my NAS using Nexentastor as the OS. I am wanting to expand the appliance to also function as a webserver. It seems Nexentastor alone can not do this without heavy modification (no-man's land.)

My question is what would you guys recommend as the best solution? The PHP server will only run a mailing list and/or forward web forms to an email address, so it will not be under a heavy load. The site traffic is unknown at this time due to it not going up yet, but I doubt it will be more than 10-20k unique visits per month for a while. Only a fraction of those people will use the php capabilities of the site, so the load numbers are far lower on the server itself.

What would be my best solution? Right now my data is in ZFS format, but I am not against moving to WHS if that is an option. I was thinking either going with Solaris or doing WHS.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

PS, I checked EC2, but I have a hard time paying for a server that will mostly be idling even if it is only 15 bucks a month.

 

[imagoon]

While this isn't really networking... If you want to run a webserver, it is generally a best practice to isolate a public system from private stuff. Basically you don't want your NAS also serving webpages in most cases.

Also in most cases you will need a business ISP connection otherwise hosting services is typically frowned on and your ISP may cut your connection or simply block the ports. Most block things like port 25, 80, 110, 8080 among many others and most ISP residential IP ranges are in things like the spamhaus black lists so the big companies out there like Yahoo, Google, MSN etc won't even accept email coming from a server in those ranges. Mail also requires static IPs which many residential services still don't offer or charge a ton for.

Basically $15 from EC2 is cheap compared to the services you need to set up at home to build reliable hosting service.

If you insist in doing this at home on your NAS, I would use some sort of VM to keep the webserver from being hacked and allowing access to the NAS.

 

[Subyman]

While this isn't really networking... If you want to run a webserver, it is generally a best practice to isolate a public system from private stuff. Basically you don't want your NAS also serving webpages in most cases.

Also in most cases you will need a business ISP connection otherwise hosting services is typically frowned on and your ISP may cut your connection or simply block the ports. Most block things like port 25, 80, 110, 8080 among many others and most ISP residential IP ranges are in things like the spamhaus black lists so the big companies out there like Yahoo, Google, MSN etc won't even accept email coming from a server in those ranges. Mail also requires static IPs which many residential services still don't offer or charge a ton for.

Basically $15 from EC2 is cheap compared to the services you need to set up at home to build reliable hosting service.

If you insist in doing this at home on your NAS, I would use some sort of VM to keep the webserver from being hacked and allowing access to the NAS.

Thank you for your reply. I was apprehensive about using the same physical machine to both serve my internal systems and handle php web code. After reviewing my options, EC2 does seem like the way to go, especially since they offer a free micro instance for a year so I can try it out.

 

[Subyman]

Well, I got it set up, but it seems Amazon has very low limits on sending email by EC2. I've already been cut off just testing. I have to ask permission. This is why I wanted to do it myself... Gotta ask permission to run some code...

 

[imagoon]

Well, I got it set up, but it seems Amazon has very low limits on sending email by EC2. I've already been cut off just testing. I have to ask permission. This is why I wanted to do it myself... Gotta ask permission to run some code...

At least it sent your mail. Sending from your home IP would just end up in the SPAM buckets.

 

[skyking]

Not always. I have several debian servers, and a couple on non commercial dynamic IPs. That used to be the standard, if it was a dynamic IP range it was cut off.
All of them can send my gmail account a simple text email on raid status. It has never failed. The email, that is! I lose a drive every now and then.

 

[imagoon]

You are correct of course but email has so much "it depends" it gets very hard to get mail out unless you take the steps needed to clear up these issues. SPD and the like, getting on the white list etc.

 

[skyking]

I think it passes into gmails servers because it has no links, and is purely a txt.

 

[Subyman]

They already approved lifting the email limitation, so I think it was handled appropriately. I may look into SES to send the actual newsletters instead of EC2. I mainly wanted the EC2 server to handle sending me html form emails from the website and adding subscribers to a mySQL database.

Edit:

I was looking forward to building a box for this setup, but it seems it is irrational to want to host on your own anymore unless you need very tight hardware requirements. The business line alone would be more pricey than all of amazon's services.