What do I need to host my website??

[HobbesAB]

As the message title says, what do I need to do in order to host my web site?? I have a DSL connection and plenty of spare parts, so what do I need?? Any info or links would be appreciated. FYI, I did a search, but I kept coming up with free web hosting sites rather than FAQS or anything useful.

I guess the second part of the question is, what are the benefits of hosting it yourself or going to one of these services??

Thanks,

AB

 

[Vampire]

One thing to do is read your DSL service's terms of service very carefully, most do not allow you to run a web site. A friend wanted to do the same thing, till we read the TOS and saw it was forbidden, unless he went with a much more expensive business account.

 

[sun818]

Do you have a static or dynamic IP? Do you also have a router installed? If you have a static IP, you can configure your domain to point to your static IP. If you have Dynamic IP, you need to set up DynamicDNS on your web server.

My DSL uptime is horrendous and would not rely on serving important pages. If you pay for web hosting, they typically provide a uptime guarantee, daily backup of your files, etc.

 

[HobbesAB]

My TOS does say that I am not allowed to host a website. However, they are considering a request I made since I will be doing it for my church (a non-profit organization) and for educational purposes. By hosting it, I feel I would be able to maintain it much more efficiently. I will be putting things like a church calendar, directory, and other things like that.

Until they say no, I will continue to gather information (heck, I'll do it anyway since I want to know how to do it anyway).

I have a static IP. How do I configure my domain?? Do I need any specific software??

Thanks,

AB

 

[Wiz]

Hi Hobbes,
You need to get your domain put into someone's nameserver so it will point internet traffic to your static IP address.
Companies, educational and governmental institutions run these nameservers. You need to find one that will agree to point internet traffic to you.
Then of course you have to have web server software installed on your computer and generally configured to allow users to access it's port (usually port 80).
It's good if you can do this on a machine that can stay up 24/7 and maintain it's connection to the internet.
Then it's simply a matter of configuring your server software to route incoming requests for the domain to the content you want to provide, and keep them from getting to anything else on the machine or on your network if you have one.
Remember that your outgoing bandwidth is likely more limited than your incoming bandwidth unless you have synchronous DSL service.
I host churches on my web server service, so feel free to ask me anything. Here's one you might enjoy:
The City Church

 

[goldboyd]

other than dsl, what you need is:

2 DNS servers
web server
prob a mail server
redundant connection for when dsl goes down
and more things i'm forgetting right now