Hi,

Im thinking of hosting a webserver ive set all the ports up and firewall but on a website it gave me a link to a website designer sort of program. Although i cant seem to download it for some reason so i was wondering does anyone know any programs which is great to use to host it?

Thanks

Matt

Are you talking about a web design program or a web hosting program?
You mentioned both above.
For design use Photoshop if you can get your hands on it.
Hosting your own website is VERY risky!
Also your site wont be online if you turn your computer off.
You will need a fair bit of server software to run your own webserver.
I recommend Apache... there are plenty of Apache set up tutorials on the net.

Apache is pretty much the best choice... or LightHTTPD.

Does your ISP allow you to run servers? Good way to get your internet cut off if they don't. Another question is if they packet shape port 80 to keep you from running a HTTP server, I know a lot here in the US do it so you have to run on an arbitrary port. Kinda a pain in the ass.

What operating system are you going to run? Looking to setup PHP/SQL/etc? What are your monthly bandwidth limits (if any) and what is your max upload speed?

Thanks for that info,

Im now deciding to leave it due to im not sure of if they would like it. Im with sky and im on 8mb. 40gb Downloading and i think it is 1gb uploading?

Thanks for the info :P

Matt

another thing to consider, if you run your own server, if it becomes popular and saturates your upload, then you're downloading will come to a crawl.

if at a later point, you decide to do this,
you'll need at a minimum:
Apache (or some other server)

you'd probably also want:
PHP (or some other server side processor)
mySQL (or some other database software)

And Apache can be very daunting to configure, as its config file is huge, and has tons of options, which makes it very flexible, if not intemidating.

you'd isp most likely would not like it, like you guessed. most of them have it in their contract that you won't run a server on non-business packages.

Quote from glyphon :

most of them have it in their contract that you won't run a server on non-business packages.

Must admit that I've never seen that clause in a contract for a UK based ISP (then again, I must ALSO admit to never having read the small print )
I have been hosting a website for almost 5 years now, and only recently took up a 'business' account. Never had any problems from my ISP's before, and I had about 3 different ones during the 5 years that my site has been running.

If you really want to give it a go, I can wholly recommend http://www.dslwebserver.com as a place to start...bucketloads of tutorials, walkthroughs, tips, etc to get you up and running...and whats even better...it's free!

As for a web design program, you have a very powerful one installed on windoze by default...it's called Notepad!

it used to state in my isp contract as well that I wasn't allowed to run any (web)servers and enforced it by blocking the popular ports. Ditto for not being allowed to run a local network - you were only allowed 1 computer on the connection.
Yeah right
But they came to their senses years ago and now you can do whatever with your line. The theory is that they don't have any downloading limits anymore anyway, so why shouldn't someone be allowed to drain his link with a website

Oh and in the end, it's not websites that drain an ISP - it's still p2p that is responsible for a huge percentage of all traffic.

In Finland the ISP:s had a mention of not allowing server hosting on their lines, but the court ruled those out by a decision that everyone should be able to do anything he wants with his connection.

Quote from Victor :

Oh and in the end, it's not websites that drain an ISP - it's still p2p that is responsible for a huge percentage of all traffic.

I'd venture to guess that the possibility of having an insecure server is more the reason, rather than traffic.

Quote from UnresponsiveBeeVictim :

I'd venture to guess that the possibility of having an insecure server is more the reason, rather than traffic.

Considering the number of botnets currently around, normally caused by idiots opening the likes of 'sexwithdogs.scr', you think an insecure web server is an issue?

My ISP (blueyonder) also have rules about what can / can't be done with a residential connection. I remember this as they threatened to terminate my contract ~5 years ago unless I removed my web, mail, FTP, and IRC servers.. I needed to buy their business package (at about 10 times the amount per month). Like fsck did I.

Yesterday alone, my mail server rejected 24 unique blueyonder IPs attempting to deliver spam.. web server security is really the least of Joe Sixpack's / ISPs problems.

blueyonder's reason was simple (although they didn't explain)... money, not traffic, not security.. the fact I was running a server on a cheaper connection thus they were "losing money"... it's always about the $$$ for big companies... most don't even know what security is themselves, let alone how to worry about their users



Regards,

Ian

Quote from Ian.H :

... it's always about the $$$ for big companies...

Commie.

Wheel, how is that even relevent in the slighest to the topic at hand. I have noticed as of late your posts have been going waaay downhill, and very negative. It's very depressing, and they rarely add to the conversation.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

Commie.

Maybe he should have written "£££'s for the big companies" instead; that way people would understand that there is a BIG difference between pro-western capitalism and blatant profiteering.

I almost forgot though, I wouldn't have thought you were old enough to remember the Truman presidency...still looking for commies under every rock??

Quote from Bladerunner :

I almost forgot though, I wouldn't have thought you were old enough to remember the Truman presidency...still looking for commies under every rock??

Truman's policy of containment had nothing to do with destroying communisim, just stopping the spread of it. And, what is wrong with companies having a little bit of extra profit? If you don't like it then don't buy it.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Wheel, how is that even relevent in the slighest to the topic at hand. I have noticed as of late your posts have been going waaay downhill, and very negative. It's very depressing, and they rarely add to the conversation.

Thanks for your concern. I just can't stand when people come on here and complain about the "big buisnesses" and stuff.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

[ snip ]

I just can't stand when people come on here and complain about the "big buisnesses" and stuff.

So you still have nothing to actually contribute to the thread.... one may wonder why you actually bothered replying in the first place

[plonk]



Regards,

Ian