I'm wanting to host my RPG site in-house and I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on servers. I was thinknig about purchasing a Cobalt RaQ 4 and setting it up in house. Since the site isnt high-profile I dont need a T1 or anything like that. I already have a setup idea worked out for this such as cooling, wiring, power, and hardware (most of which I'm using for an in-house network... I just need the cash to do it.

Any critiques on this? The site gets about 100 unique hits a month and has a few downloads. Good, bad, other suggetsions... C'mon lemme have it ;)

Thanks in advance.

*Beginning to think he is taking his RPG site a little to seriously*

Why would you want to host it in-house? And seriously, with 100 unique hits, how can you motivate the cost with hardware etc?

I mean, I could understand you wanting to do it for fun, with like an old 486 CPU and Linux, but buying a RAQ4 for it?

Seems like overkill

Hi MGCJerry,

I set at home a small server PII 400 running w2k over an ADSL for my friends and clubs I belong.

It Works fine. Only sometimes in peak hour it slow down. Something the sever goes down mainly because attack (specially against smtp ??), but since it is not for profit nobody cares.

I monitor the server with a weekly free report form www.internetseer.com only to see how it is going.

I use Microsoft free tools URLScan and IIS Lockdown for security.

The server handles an average of 150 unique visitors at month. I use free Awstats statistics to get user info.

A good site to learn about IIS is
IISfaq (http://iisfaq.com) .


Good luck

On a related topic ...

Let's say you're hosting a site at your house.

If folks send you email and your server is down is the mail bounced?

If your running your own mail server it will bounce. You can run mail at one location, and web at another. Also check and see if your ISP will run mail store and forward for you.

Thanks for the comments...

I was also thinking about building a server myself. My site has a few CGI scripts (which I dont think will run on W2K). My site is for my RP'ing group and my online gallery. The RaQ would be nice sometime in the future (me and a friend wants to start our own webhosting comapny) and that would give us a good jumpstart colocating it somewhere.

This isn't high on the priorities list so there is no rush for me to host the site in house yet. I guess it is the thought of doing everything myself. I always liked getting my feet wet.

The biggest problem I'll have is posting a 3d download on "Renderosity". I've lost about 1.6GB in 1 day because of a 3d download though...

I'm not too worried about saving $1300 for a server. Since I'm still living at home it gives me time to get my stuff together and get some more schooling (network admin, web design). I think it would look good on my resume that I'm hosting a site in house.

100 some odd hits a month and you want a dedicated server? Just a tad bit on the overkill :D :D

I'd say don't waste the money on a raq though. go build yourself a standard rackmount system. you could do it for less probabbly and it would be more powerful!

Why raqs?

A Raq4 is total overkill for that kind of thing, you would be much better off with a plain vanilla box. If your interests are learning about admin, then a basic box would do you better than a Raq too IMO...

*makes note to self to mention his insane ideas as "overkill" in future posts* :)

A RaQ4 was about the cheapest I could find (I know there is cheaper though) plus I like the way it is administered. I've used one before while I was hosting with someone and really liked the way it worked.

If anyone has some links to other server mfgrs. be sure to post 'em here or PM me, and I'll gladly take a look.

Ever since I got into doing 3d modelling and animation, a site can easily increase in traffic about 1000% overnight.

I think it is a personal thing, nothing againt hosts though, I've always liked doing something myself. Guess I need to hang around more to kinda see what everyone else does.

However after some thinking, I'm sure if I do actually purchase a server, I'll most likely colocate it and host some friends on it. If I build one, I'll most likely host it in-house.

Hosting yourself is great. By the way check out http://www.interpromicro.com get a server way better than the raq for $700 raqs are slow machines. ( 450 mhz )

Do you have an older computer? I run a test/dev/preview server in my house - it's 400Mhz and 128MB Ram with RedHat Linux..

Nope... I dont :(

Hmm, go to a local computer shop or buy one off ebay - a 400mhz can easily handle 150 unique visits a month

Originally posted by mkaufman
Hmm, go to a local computer shop or buy one off ebay - a 400mhz can easily handle 150 unique visits a month

It could easily do 150 hits an hour.

I say
go get a cheap webhosting account man.

100 something hits a month?

go get a webhosting acct, it will be like 5 bucks

If your running your own mail server it will bounce. You can run mail at one location, and web at another. Also check and see if your ISP will run mail store and forward for you.

Just a quick side note, your mail will not bounce if your mail server goes down (how could your server bounce the mail if it's down?). If the sendmail of the person sending you mail can find MX records pointing to your server, and it's down, it should queue up for about 5 days waiting for your server to come back up.

If the sendmail of the person sending the mail can't find MX records, the mail will be returned to the sender as undeliverable.

So basically, if you run DNS on the same machine that accepts your mail, you will loose a bunch of mail if you go down. But if you have secondary DNS configured on a seperate server, you'll be fine even if MX points to a downed server.

I would go for a cheaper hosting acct. but, I do 3d modeling and animation and these models can easily reach 3mb zipped. I usually post "freebies" on a high profile Graphic Arts Website that has anywhere from 600 to 2000 people on it at any given moment... I was also talking to them in their chat about hosting, many people use between 10gb to 190gb a month. If I didnt do this 3d stuff I would gladly stick with a cheaper host, but 3d kills bandwidth very fast...

Links for the curious:
Renderosity (http://www.renderosity.com/?ReferMember=1698) <---WARNING: This site is sloooowwww......

My Online Gallery (http://www.renderosity.com/gallery.ez?ByArtist=Y&Artist=MGCJerry)


Hmm... I did some more research and found out that I currnetly cannot afford hosting "in-house"... Unless I start selling some 3d stuff........ Hmmmmm :)

Aww, shucks... :bawling: