A server (in a nut shell) is just a PC with out the day to date hardware taken out, such as a GFX card.
Its then wired into a high speed internet connection, then it has the correct LFS files put on it, so when your connect to the IP of that server, you join an LFS server.
You need another company to host for you, 500servers doesn't allow website hosting AFAIK.
When you want a website, you need to register a domain name (eg. mywebsite.com) and then rent the same kind of server to put the website (html/php/jpg files etc.) on.
Most hosting services come with domain name registration so you don't have to connect the domain to the server yourself.
Not 500servers for hostiln, oi, I meant I should ask franky500 more about hosting lfs on servers. About the website and registration, pretend I wanted to make hosting like godaddy.com, but just register my own domain over my own server. Understand or no?
You're going to need a very high speed internet connection if you want to display much more than text to more than a few people at a time.
When it's so cheap to rent servers with full customer support etc, there's no point running a home server, would probably cost you more in electricity than renting a server tbh.
Well you say "great " but when you think you can rent a high speed server with everything you could need (for a smallish site) for a few dollars a month, it'd be stupid to spend money building and running your own.
1 Year, 1.45 TB of Bandwidth, Several GB of Storage - $22 from Dreamhost.
1 47 Slot LFS server = £17.40 a month
Dedicated Server = something in the region of £80 a month for a P3 box, and then the knowledge required to set up LFS servers and websites on it, which is harder than you think (*cough* Fusion. Dan's complete failure in this department)
Not generally, but if you ask nicely you can work out an arrangement. He hosts my website, has done for 18 months now. In 500 servers tradition the price is very competitive.
if u mean the same 'software' on ur site as 500servers to host ur own lfs servers via lfs...
i asked franky what software it was,
he gave me a link, but its expensive software
if u ask him, he'll tell u the name, i forgot
It need not be expensive, most Linux servers run Apache which is free.
Windows servers (normally used for LFS hosting) is just the Windows Server OS - as you need an OS anyway it's not the end of the world, although yes, it could be a bit cheaper.
You could, theoretically, use something like XP and just install some web site hosting software on it, you can normally get these quite cheap. (I wrote my own once back when I had nothing better to do)
The problem with all servers though is that the machine isn't in your home, it's in a datacentre, so you have to build it and set it up once and it has to work and keep on working no matter what security vulnerabilities crop up along the way. You cant just take the lid off to sort a cable out, you cant just reinstall Windows if it all goes awry. It has to work and it has to stay working.
Of course if you put a machine at home then it runs on your home network, the problem here is most home connections have very limited upload capacity. A 20mbit connection will typically only upload at 1mbit or less, imagine serving 20 users at once... it will be too slow.
Alternatives to having your own server machine are to rent the individual applications, such as renting a web host and renting an LFS server instance. This is fine for small scale stuff, but is not very cost effective if you get to multiple LFS servers and web sites.
Step up from that you can have virtual machines (such as Phlos uses), which give you your own virtual desktop and allows you to share the cost of having a dedicated server - but likewise only gives you a share of the computers resources so is not as versatile as a full dedicated machine. Also, another user doing something nasty (hense my previous reference) can also cause you problems, such as your network bandwidth being sucked dry and your IP getting blocked and RDNS blacklisted.
What are you on about? Hosting your own site isn't complicated... Ok, it's non-trivial, and you need to understand things like DNS, and some general networking, but it's by no means too complicated.. Or have I misunderstood here?
