i have an extra pc...should i buy a domain name and use it for a server???

[hulkster]

okay, my mom is going to give me a new Dell pc that she got for her private business a while back.  its a p4 2.6 ghz with 512mb of ram, and a 40gb HD.  i dont know much about building servers or bandwidth or anything like that, so i need some help.  i have a web site for my cab and right now its hosted through bellsouth with 33mb of bandwidth.  does that suck?  i mean, my bandwidth limit has been reached a couple of times, and im just wondering if i can get more bandwith with my connection by hosting my web site on that dell pc.  i have win2k server that i can install on it, but i want to know if its worth it.  i have 3 pc's that i could hook up to the net.  im running the fastest dsl connection you can get (the 3mb one) but am i going to get any benefit out of this?  i dont plan on hosting any game servers or anything, it would just be for the web site and maybe some files or something.  the domain name is only like 10 bucks a year, and if i understand right, i can just point the domain name to my server (which is free) and there we go.  am i missing something?  will my connection suffer a huge performance hit or something?  help!

[SirPeale]

If your site is popular, yes, you will receive a huge performance hit.

Not to mention that likely your ISP TOS do not allow a server on your connection.

Also they've likely blocked port 80 outgoing.

[GGKoul]

Are you paying for webhosting right now?  If so, how much?

[hulkster]

well im sorta paying but not really.  im paying 45 bucks a month for dsl which includes webspace, email addresses, and 33mb of bandwidth.

[NinjaEpisode]

Don't forget you also need a static IP, unless of course you're going to go with dynIP or something like that which also has a fee involved.

[clanggedin]

I would use it for another cab and bag the web server idea.

[GGKoul]

The Static IP would cause a problem if your running a network hub.  As the hub takes care of the IP sharing.  

If you don't want to spend money, find a better "free" hosting plan.  
If you want to register your domain ($30/year) and use a pay hosting service.  I recommend www.webmasters.com

For $10 a month, they give a lot of bandwith and space to store everything you could ever want.

You could even sell your excess bandwith and space by sub-domaining.

-GGKoul

[hulkster]

hmm...okay, no server then!  ill just use the pc for something else.  thanks guys.

[patrickl]

Setting up your own webserver is a lot of work. You need to monitor the thing constantly and make sure you install all security patches.

If you want to solve the bandwidth problem look at your website. Reduce the graphic elements to a smaller filesize. That picture of your cab alone is 0.25MB you can reduce that to far less. The construction page has 23 images of around 60KB. I'd say every visiter to your site will cost you about 2MB bandwidth. You can easily bring that down.

If you resize the pictures in the files as opposed to in the page (the file is 640x480, but you show them as 477x357) and increase the compression rate these pictures can be reduced to something like 15KB without any noticable quality loss. That would allow 4 times as many people to visit your site.

[SirPeale]

Are you sure you have 33M of *bandwidth* and not *storage?*  

[patrickl]

33MB bandwidth doesn't sound like a lot for $45 a month no.

btw the bellsouth page lists 10MB webspace . Couldn't find the bandwith max.

[Santoro]

I love my 1 and 1 internet hosting . it's 10$/month for 3 domains or 5$ for 1.

But I also host santoro.com from behind my cable modem, and I have a dynamic IP that changes 2-3 times per year.  Port 80 is blocked, but I use Zoneedit.com to redirect santoro.com to my home server on a different port.  Zoneedit has been reliable for 3-4 years and is free.

When the cable company changes my IP, I log into Zoneedit and change the target IP.  

Works great for a low-use site.

[photorock]

           These days most ISP's are going with dynamic IP's, mainly for this reason, to cut down on bandwidth usage.

            I wouldn't set up your comp as a Webserver becouse the big issues are money, time and off course security. If you do setup a webserver and it becomes popular eventually your ISP will step in charge you accordingly. At the moment you have a personal account with your ISP, if they detect alot of traffic on your account they will step in and make you purchase a business account or alter your account accordingly.

            Not only will your service be adversely affected (slowed down), there's the time required to police your site and the potential security concerns. Also you would need a decent router and server software for security. Expensive...

             As for a $10 Domain name, that sounds like an awsome deal, the best I could find a month ago was $50 a year registration fee plus a set up charge. Is that a registered Domain name becouse it seems awfully cheap or is it some sort of psuedo name (some server operators offer Domain names like E-mail addresses, which are only valid through their server and not transferable).

             Finally, there are plenty of places on the net to setup a webpage some with unlimited bandwidth (at a decent price), you may have to search a bit.

[mahuti]

As a business owner that has offered hosting service in the past, and operated a number of webservers for myself, I can attest that running your own server is just NOT worth it.

I would highly recommend leasing space from a legitimate service. I would suggest Dreamhost.com That is the service that I host the arcade art library on. You can do just about everything through their control panel... password protect directories, set up databases, etc. Lots of goodies for $7.95 a month. Tons of bandwidth and storage. Plus they, are very good at communicating any issues they are having proactively, they provide good service, and they regularly add extra freebies to current customers.

I also highly recommend 000domains.com for domain name registration. They sell em for $13.50 a year... which isn't the cheapest (godaddy.com at $7.95 a year) but they provide the cheapest cost to least amount of hassle ratio that I have found.

Seriously, you can't go wrong with those 2 services.

[Snarbald]

Where are you guys finding these expensive domain registration places. I think it costs me like $8 a year to have snarbald.com.

[Pixelhugger]

Hey Hulk... check your email!  

[SirPoonga]

If I had an extra PC I'd
1) use it as another gaming machine have a friend come over and play LAN games
2) install linux on it
3) try out stuff on it  
4) make it a file server

[photorock]

          Mahuti, great links. I checked them out, excellent. Great prices too. Oh the $50 can. fee is to register a .ca account through our local provider. Expensive...

Also they've likely blocked port 80 outgoing.

          Odd, why would an ISP block port 80? I know it's the port for HTTP, but to me that doesn't seem right for an ISP to do that unless there's abuse somewhere. Oh well, I guess you learn something new everyday...

          File/ftp Server, now that's a good idea. I did that with my old P2 a couple of years back and it came in handy when I was at work and needed to transfer files home.

[maraxle]

Try www.jaguarpc.com.  You get 1gb of storage with 45gb per month of bandwidth for $7.95 per month.  I've used them for a few years now, and their service is good.  Plus, they can register domain names for you for only $9.95 per year,

[Chris]

         Mahuti, great links. I checked them out, excellent. Great prices too. Oh the $50 can. fee is to register a .ca account through our local provider. Expensive...

Also they've likely blocked port 80 outgoing.

          Odd, why would an ISP block port 80? I know it's the port for HTTP, but to me that doesn't seem right for an ISP to do that unless there's abuse somewhere. Oh well, I guess you learn something new everyday...

Because they want you to buy a "business" grade account.  Also, if you're on cable internet, you're sharing your bandwidth with your neighbors, so they don't want kids setting up warez sites on the cable connection.

I'll second the Dreamhost nomination...

[drunkatuw]

This is a DIYer board, so I vote for making your own webserver.  I had extra time while in college to learn a lot of the details of hosting a website, so I find it pretty easy to handle now.  I have an old celeron 533 running linux and apache.  My cable company blocks port 80, so what I did was use www.dyndns.org to create a domain name and then forward that domain with :81 tacked on the end to my real domain www.drunkatuw.com and I use masked url name and pass subdirectories so now it's just like I had it on a "real" server.  I also run a small program called webalizer which tracks the stats of my website, so I can monitor if I'm using too much bandwidth which might alert the cable company.  Another trick I use is to host larger pictures on the 10MB webspace the cable company already gives me and just link to those in my website.  I haven't had many problems hosting my own site, I just use it to host pictures from family events or going to the bars.  I also host the website for my upcoming wedding.

If nothing else, you get to learn more about linux (unless you use MS crappy IIS server) which is fun but can be frustrating and time consuming.

[photorock]

Because they want you to buy a "business" grade account.  Also, if you're on cable internet, you're sharing your bandwidth with your neighbors, so they don't want kids setting up warez sites on the cable connection.

           That makes sense! I haven't used a cable modem since 97 (transfer rates started at about 3MB and ended up at about 21 KB in the end, terrible) and to be honest with you I'd never go back to it again (rather use AOL, it's just as fast at times). We've been using DSL since then and it's fast (apx. 300 KB down). Sometimes it's a little unreliabable, but the last time I checked (2 yrs ago) Port 80 was open.
            Perhaps location plays a factor!

If nothing else, you get to learn more about linux (unless you use MS crappy IIS server) which is fun but can be frustrating and time consuming.

            I've used both in the past and kind of found it the other way around. I liked IIS (hate Microsoft though) and didn't care to much for Unix. Never used Linux though. Are they using a GUI now or is it still on stone tablets....  

[Santoro]

Forgot the URL:

http://order.1and1.com/xml/order

Been using them for 6 months with no problem.

I agree that maintaining a web server is hard work, but mine is running on my main home PC running XP pro and IIS.  I do Windows update regularly and have it behind a NAT firewall with port forwarding.  I can't think of the last time I had a problem or had to spend time fixing it.  It has been at least 3 years.  So for a simple, low bandwith, non mission-critcal site, I say go for it.  It is also fun if you are a gearhead.


Dave

[SoundDoc]

I'll second (or is it third?) the vote to build your own webserver.
I run my Domain, 5 Domains for friends, and all their mail, and my file server all off a old P3 500, Shaw Extreme G Cable internet, DynDNS.org for dns redirect, and a linksys router. Its a old machine with 2 IDE 133 controllers in it, so I have 12HD's in it, holding & streaming all our movies, mp3's, and files to our main machines. Even for being such a old machine, it averages about 10% cpu utilization, and has never gotten above 50%, even when I torture tested it throught the internet connection.
Yes, if your going to host a huge site, like microsoft, with tons and tons of bandwidth, you need these huge farm solutions, but for your own site or two, having your own server is nice.
Its not a ton of work to police, all critical service packs apply themselves the day they come out, and the server restarts itself when their done.
It doesn't have a monitor, kb, or mouse, and I last checked on it about a month ago. Just checked it now, and its still fine.

win 2K server for IIS, Merak Mail server, (has a licence kicking around), and free AV. thats all you really need.
Its handling around 15,000 messages a week on e-mail, and averages about 60GB a month for the last couple years, and I've never heard a peep from Shaw yet. (now I just know I'm going to get a call tomorrow.... )

The sort bit is, if you have this new machine, swap it with your oldest relic, and take that old machine and why not throw a server together? If you allready have it built as a file server, its just a IIS component away from being a web server, and a cheap or free mail server away from being your own mail server.

Have fun no matter what you do!

sd