Hosting my own website

redfoxstorm · July 20th, 2005, 02:20 AM

I need somebody to walk me through the steps of hosting a website from my house.
I have a static IP.
I will buy a domain name from whatever site you guys recommend. And I just bought redhat so, is there anyway I can host it from that box?
Basically if you could point me to a tutioral or fourm posting.

Thanks,
RedFox

redfoxstorm · July 20th, 2005, 09:58 AM

bump

sixf00t4 · July 20th, 2005, 10:05 AM

godaddy.com has cheap domains.

if you do it on redhat, just enable apache

VHockey86 · July 20th, 2005, 10:12 AM

You sure didn't need to buy redhat to host a webpage....

Basically what you need to do is

**Make sure hosting a webpage does not violate your ISPs terms of service**
--Granted if your site is low volume... its unlikely they will ever know, but still its good to check. Some ISPs even go as far as blocking incoming requests on port 80.

1) Install / Configure apache on your redhat box
--- You should be able to find RPM packages for redhat to install. If you are familiar with linux, compiling from source is probably a better route however.
--- I would install "webmin" to your redhat box to make apache administration easier.
--- Once you install webmin, you can configure via https://localhost:10000 and login as root
--- Files accessible on web generally go into /var/www/html/ by default.
--- Test your webpage and make sure stuff is working before putting it online (http://localhost)
2) Forward port 80 on your router (if you have one) to the redhat box. Its generally a good security practice though to have your web-accessible box on a different layer of the network than the webserver though.

Something like...

Broadband modem ---> Router that forwards port 80 to webserver. Connect webserver to the first router, and then connect another router to the first router and put all of your home PCs behind the second one. This gives you an extra firewall.
--Test accessing your webserver by going to your WAN IP address. If everything works fine, proceed with getting a domain

3) Register a domain name
4) Change the domain name DNS setttings to point to your IP address and your ISPs DNS servers... or whoever is the hosting company probably will give you DNS servers to point to.

You might want to talk to siliconjunkie, he owns a webhosting company and I'm sure could tell you a heck of alot more about security and domain names than I could.

redfoxstorm · July 20th, 2005, 12:33 PM

Thanks, you give good detailed instruction, and I will ask him for advice as well. When I was setting up my static IP I asked the tech support if it was against the user agreement for me to host a website from my house and he said it shouldn't be a problem. So, I think I'm okay...for now

redfoxstorm · July 20th, 2005, 01:30 PM

OKay,

Since I'm a newbie at Linux, lets just say I wanted to install apache on my xp box. here is the part that confuses me.

Here is the setup screen for apache that I can't answer.

1. Network Domain. Enter the DNS domain in which your server is or will be registered in. For example, if your server's full DNS name is server.mydomain.net, you would type mydomain.net here.
2. Server Name. Your server's full DNS name. From the example above, you would type server.mydomain.net here.

Do, I need to be running a server or can apache run on an xp machine?

VHockey86 · July 20th, 2005, 02:01 PM

well, in essence the computer running apache is the server. Never installed apache on a windows box though, and in linux I dont recall ever setting those options...

for servername you should be able to just use "localhost", network domain i'm not sure.

Apache's website generally has pretty decent documentation if you look there.

--edit--

After a quick google it seems just using "localhost" for both is fine.

I think those settings are moreso if the server is on a domain network with a local DNS, where you have to worry about active directory and stuff.

redfoxstorm · July 20th, 2005, 02:14 PM

So, i'm going to need a Linux Server OS to run this right?

VHockey86 · July 20th, 2005, 02:24 PM

no... you can just install as you were.

I meant those settings are for that kind of environment, but localhost will work fine for what you are doing.

redfoxstorm · July 23rd, 2005, 12:14 PM

Okay, i've got apache on my Red Hat box, and I did the test page. http://localhost and the test page came up and said that apache was working.

Question: var/www/html is owned by root, so how will people looking up my website access this? This whole root thing is starting to piss me off? Every tutorial i've seen said to store the website content in this folder. HOW? its own by root!!! Do i have to log in as root to make my website? I've always heard of people telling me to not log in as root. Help!