UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Chit Chat I'm thinking of setting up a server.. this is my first... need advice.

I'm thinking of hosting my own web-site(s) by setting up a server at my home. I'm tired of dealing with host services. I'll build the box, and probably use Windows 2003 server, but I don't know about the rest.

Currently our house has DSL (1.5mb downstream / 256 kb upstream). It currently has swapping IPs, but I can get a static IP. My worry is that I don't know if 256 kbps is fast enough. What's the thought on this? Is that enough?

Also what's with 2003 and multiple licenses? Do I need the standard 5 client license package? Or do I just need 1 license? That part I don't understand yet as I've never done this before. Any help and advice that you guys can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Mark Schonfeld

First of all the upstream is not enough for even one active site. The licensing for 2003 Server as far as IIS is concerned is a non-issue. You can have all the anonymous connections that you want. The standard edition with 5 cals would be plenty. Some of the things you might have to consider are other services people might need. SQL or Access require licensing. MySQL is a fantastic alernative but adds a lot of overhead to the server if it's being hit consistently. SSL is another consideration. A shared certificate is one option but per site certs (purchased by site owner) are important if you want to host an e-commerce.

What about back-ups? What about intrusion detection and guaranteed uptime? If you want to charge people for these sites then you need to define the SLA (service level agreement) that you give them. Uptime is controlled by things like power, connectivity, reboots, patches, maintenance etc. etc. etc.

As soon as you have people on the server other people are going to try to exploit it. You also have to consider how many IP addresses you'd need. IIS 6 does a great job of using host headers and virtual sites/directories but you don't want a lot of sites on a single IP if they are going to be very active.

well, as I said, this is just for my sites.... not to be for charging people to use. Most likely there will only be 3-4 sites total on the entire system.

That should be fine. I guess I should have read a little closer. I love Enterprise Server based computing and get a little caught up in it now and then.

hmmmm.. Well, I'm going to look a little bit more into this. I'm wondering whether there is a way to get a second DSL line into the house as we have 2 phone lines. My real worry is the upstream as I somewhat agree that 256 kbps isn't even really fast enough. Thanks for the reply. Also I'll be looking into your forum too.

Oh yeah... forgot to say.. the reason I'm thinking of a second line (even though it would too be 256) is because my brother plays Counter Strike a lot and I feel he'd eat up a lot of the little bandwidth I'd have.

If there is any gaming going on you'll both be bumping into each other a lot. Have you considered cable? I use DSL and I love it but I'm 400 feet from the CO. Some cable companys offer a lot better upstream for probably something near the same price.

I for one woudln't ever think of hosting any of my sites (let alone one) on anything slower than a T3. Think of it like this, if you plan 9on running a site, don't plan onusing your dsl, it's quite simple, you decide to download something and you're prettymuch screwing any bw dedicated for your site...

I for one use www.hostnuke.com who i've been with since 2001, i wouln't even think about going elsewhere, theive never given me any problems, and i've only had downtime twice and that was for upgrades to the server. they hvae a fast responding staff and have awesome features for an affordable price, and their on a fast connection that you don't even have to worry about...

A T-1 is plenty for a normal site, a T-3 is beyond what most any of us would use unless you're serving up a lot of images and/or large files.

I'm not sure how the bandwidth works when downloading/uploading. I'd have to research.

Also, I obviously can't afford a T1! LOL!

What may prove affordable and fast enough is SDSL, if I can find a provider. 3 MB / 3 MB.

I have a year to figure this out as my hosting plan expires next June with Nexx (can't say I recommend them right now, or Interland, or Yahoo).

Also on a related subject: HOLY CHRIST! Windows 2003 Server costs like $800! Whoa. Pretty close for 2000 Server too. I assume that it's because of the 5 CAL license. Why is it that I need a 5 CAL license? I don't understand how server licensing works. Does that mean that 5 people can access my web page at a time? If I plan to have one server, on one machine, do I need 5 licenses? Also do I need to get the server version of Windows? What's the difference? What about just running Windows XP Pro on it? Or Windows 2000 Pro?

Someone I know is hosting their site on their PowerMac G4 with Apache and OSX. They're using ADSL (faster than mine though .. )

Oye, there's a lot for me to learn about this hosting stuff. It's easier to pay someone to do it for me, but I don't want to do that anymore.

IF you don't know what you're doing I wouldn't really try to host my own site, at least hosted providers basically provide the backbone and the security patches :x.. would suck to get taken over ...

Why not just use FreeBSD or Linux? Free, stable, solid, and fast.

also, I don't think I can do cable because I can't seem to find any companies offering it to me in Hollywood, Fl.

My little knowledge of them scares me away. If I was more familiar and comfortable with them, I might.

Try one! If you have a spare PC to play with, download the .iso files, burn the discs, and give one a try. Play around.

Red Hat Linux may be the easiest to get set up. You can grab the RH 9 cd's from mirrors.kernel.org

--mark

Well, you're right and you're wrong. I agree that if I knew nothing about it at all... then you're right. The thing is that I know enough for it to be worth doing, and once I've done it the first time, I'll have learned what I need to know to do it again.

Also, my knowledge isn't necessarily limited all that much when it comes to actually setting this up. The stuff I don't know is regarding software licensing and such. Then again, I wouldn't have a reason to know, unless I had done this before, or worked with someone who has. So, there's a first for everything.

Not a bad idea actually. I have plenty of spare parts around.

Carefully read your ISP's Terms of Service or Acceptable Usage Policy. Many ISPs specifically don't permit web servers to be run over their service.

First off self hosting can be done reliably. I host my system and only once had 1 outage in 2 years that was not planned. All my hardware is redundent though on a UPS capable of sustaining everything for 2-3 hours. After that I have a generator at my house Being a network engineer helps a bit in planning and designing.

To host a UBB you really only need 2 ports open (80 & 25) and this can be done easily with any router so security really is not much of an issue. Since the server is local you would not need to open any more inbound ports unless you had someone that needed access, then you could open FTP or SSH (perferable) on a as need basis.

DSL also can be used and done reliably unless you are running a lot of large files. And with products like Nexland (now Symantec) you can load balance between 2 DSL, Cable lines or a combination there of. Having a dynamic IP address is easily rectified with DDNS services like TZO.

Server configuration/optimization is very key.

my ISP offers a static IP dsl option, so that one's thankfully a no-brainer, although I'll see if other services are less expensive.

Thanks for all of that info. As for an OS.... any suggestions? Win XP Pro? Linux? Unix? FreeBSD?

other service is free?

I personally wouldn't host anything on any OS made by M$ becides W2K or Server 2000/3 (and even then a new patch comes out on a daily basis, should say enough for "secure").

Your best bet however is Redhat, if you wanted to play with some powerful distributions theres always Slackware, FreeBSD, Debian; all free.

http://www.redhat.com/
http://www.slackware.com/
http://www.freebsd.org/
http://www.debian.com/

thanks.

I'm a FreeBSD person myself. Couldn't be happier with it

Definitely read through your ISP's TOS as user bin geek said.
If you are only using it as a test server and not directing a bunch of traffic to it, chances are you will not have any attention drawn to it from your ISP anyway but if you are in violation of their TOS there is always a chance you will have to pay the price so keep that in mind!

Also, if it is only going to be used for a test server you may want to look at using a free service like http://www.no-ip.org instead of getting a static IP to save some bucks.

good luck

thanks.... actually they advertise the static IP option as being for hosting your own web sites. I appreciate you guys looking out for me though.