Web hosting @ home with DSL?

[crx]

Hey all-
I have thought about this for a while now and really wonder if this is possiable to do and still give good service to my customers? Let me explain first...

I currently have four small accounts that do not require any 3rd party toys, such as SQL Server, ActiveX, etc.(extra stuff), just your basic web site. I have been watching their bandwidth for over six months now and all four accounts combined have yet to execed 100 megs of traffic for a single month(not very busy), yet I still continue to pay for some pretty good hosting services (uptime is great, but not really nessascery on these accounts). None of these web sites have anything more then tell who they are and what they do(plain, plain, did I mention plain?).

I have already tested several domains pointing to my home server to see how it holds up (using 3rd party DNS). Everything seems to be working great. It is my understanding that my current DSL service can have an upload bandwith of UP TO 128k(is this enough?), they also offer upgrades to 384k and 768K. I also plan on buying a Netgear router and using it. I do have a machine that is used just for a server and nothing else (tons of RAM @ these prices).

I am really looking for thoughts, ideas or tips on doing this. Yes, I have talked to my ISP and he is cool with it(small town). feedback, thoughts, ideas, warnings, etc....
thanks-
doug

 

[jsm]

I actually host 3 or 4 different web sites each with their own domain name on my ADSL connection. There are a couple things to worry about in my opinion.

1. Security. Have a great security plan in place. Check log files, lock out ALL unnecessary ports, subscibe to Microsoft's Security Bulletin (if you're using Win2k or WinNT4 to host).

2. Back ups. Having a backup strategy is very important. You don't need something as fast as a DLT, but something.

3. Net speed. If you're doing this at home, consider the type of DSL you are running. It is ADSL, SDSL, HDSL? If it ADSL, get the ISP to speed up your upload speed - especially if you are hosting at home and use the same line for your day to day browsing. I would reiterate this emphatically if you have anyone beyond yourself using this DSL line. You cannot control what they are going to do - leave Napster open with their 100gigs of MP3s catalogued with 30 downloads going on at the same time, decide to put their FTP site up for their two friends (who share the password with 100 other friends or get their clear text password sniffed).

4. WWW Graphics. This is just an odd thing I thought I would throw out. When I first had my web site up here at home ([url]www.viruscorp.com)[/url], I had no idea on graphics optimization. After seeing how slow my web site was to load, I quickly learned that graphics need to be correctly optimized for fast downloading. For this, I would HIGHLY recommend using Macromedia Fireworks. Anyhow, I don't know how much you really care about this final point since all you are doing is hosting the site, but I would often times get complaints that people's sites were loading slowly. Well, when you have a 200k image uploading over a DSL connection that goes upstream at 128k, there is going be a speed issue.

Good luck!

 

[WoundedWallet]

jsm is giving good tips.

I also have 128 up, and it does the job. Unless you're streaming stuff. So test it at 128, if you notice that you need more, then you need more

Regarding backup, this is what I do:
Have a daily backup. I use one of the HDs for that.
Then have a longer term(monthly?) backup and copy it to a CD.

And finally security. The trickiest point. My only suggestion is to learn a lot about it and answer my questions later on

I'm using a software firewall, but I still feel naked. Having a mail server only adds to the headache. Right now I'm considering to ad a router (see my other thread) so that I can feel secure enough to host more people and make some money out of it.

But I have to say that in all it's a good worthwhile experience. So go for it.

 

[crx]

Thanks for the input guys. I think I am going to do a software RAID with a couple of drives I have then once a week do a tape back up.

My problem is that I only have one IP address. I was thinking of putting it on my server then using it as a gateway to my workstation (via 2 NIC's). Then setting up virtual domains for the rest of them.

ideas? I would like to us a router but dont see how I can do this without another IP address.

Doug

 

[midnightrat]

not sure if this will benefit but there are numerous companies that now do free hosting, http://www.freewebspace.net/ is a good place to start. Most are ad supported, but hey free is free.

by 2 bits

 

[WoundedWallet]

Routers are used exactly for the one IP address situations. Have a router connected to a switch and you can have as many machines as the ports in your switch.