Hey!
I have Windows XP Professional, and I want to set up my own free hosting company. (I am also behind a router )
Plesk 7.0 won't work because I use DHCP to get the internet from the rotuer.
Cpanel only works on Linux, right?

So are there any other scripts available that can do this and that are good?
Thanks,
Viraj.

I would suggest to read this post:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=375266&highlight=Winxp

Not trying to be rude, but running webhosting on Winxp would not be a good idea free or not.

last_demo

What is bad about it?
I'm really want to set up my free hosting company - how should I go around it?
Will I be able to do it if I buy Linux SUse or something?
Also, with SUse, will the fact that I am behind a router make any difference.

Please tell me the easiest and cheapest way I can start a free webhosting company.
Thanks.

As I am still learning about hosting and reading alot here. I would suggest to search alot and read everything you can. I have been reading here for hours on end searching and researching things just to make sure i have all of the correct information. It all depends on how serious you are about hosting and what you want to do beyond just providing free hosting. It always leads into something else from what I have read.

Sorry but I hope this helps a little bit.

last_demo

If I buy Suse and install it on another partition, will it be easy and efficient to run a free web hosting company on?
Thanks.
Also, as the webhosting is mainly free, it does not need to be awesome! As long as I can get decent uptime and my members are pleased, it's ok.

Hi Viraj, how well do you know web hosting? For eg Apache or Windows IIS? You seem to be in a hurry. I would suggest take your time, run up on free web hosting postings here. Ensure you do have enough technical skills to start running a server from home.

What Internet connections are you having? Dynamic IPs isnt very optimal for running a server at all.

Also check whether the TOS of your ISP allows you to setup a server on their line and whether the ports for eg 80 and 25 are available in the first place.

Hey!
I have a dynamic IP, but I thought you could get programs that automatically update your IP as it changes?
I don't have a lot of technicnal knowledge about this unfortunately.
I will browse around the posts, but can you suggest some helpful topics?
Thanks,
Viraj.

Hey!
I was wondering if there is an alternative to Plesk or Cpanel.
Preferable something that runs on AppServ instead of IIS.

Plesk says it doesn't work if you are connected over DHCP for internet and even though I've installed the FrontPage Extensions for IIS, it says I haven't.

Is there any alternative to plesk that will let me manage web hosting accounts?
Thanks.

For a stable hosting , free hosting included, you need at least get yourself a fixed IP, I would suggest getting a cheap dedicated server first and foremost. Best if it comes with a controlpanel already installed as in Plesk, Directadmin, Cpanel.

From there on you can start your free web hosting. I personally don't think you will have much success convincing people to get free hosting from you using DHCP, there is a lot of good free hosting companies around.

Have a look at http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=412536 for FREE windows control panels.

Prob is , he is running XP Professional which restricts the domain and connection. I don't think you can use IIS if you are thinking of hosting many free sites. XP Professional with Apache is more appropriate. Whatever I still feel using dynamic IP for hosting isn't very effective.

You will obviously have to keep the PC on 24/7/52. And I wouldn't host with XP if I were you, I would host with Linux (I prefer RedHat 9); Linux is really secure and it is what many hosts use but it is not user friendly.

If you were to host with XP then the uptime would be very bad as XP is not designed to be a server. XP (any edition) is designed to be for Personal Use (ie. Internet Browsing, Word Proccessing, ETC). The result of you keeping a XP machine up for a month would be that the computer would literally crawl (ie. very slow).

I would suggest that you learn a bit more computer knowledge then try to become a webhost with a server at a DataCenter.

Kind Regards,
Mini

This might help:

h**p://www.dslwebserver.com/

It's a simple thing to unlock the sockets.

XP is not a valid hosting OS though.

Ok so maybe setting up a free host is not an option, but then can I atleast host my own site with Xp Pro?

There should not be a problem hosting a single site on XP Pro. You can use one of the dynamic DNS provider for eg. http://www.no-ip.com to provide the DNS support. Another one would be http://www.dyndns.com.

You cannot run a web host off WinXP.

There is a limit placed on the number of connection to the machine. IIRC it is around 64 connections which is pathetic. The idea behind it is to make people buy Win2k3. Win XP is only suitable if you were just doing local dev testing.

For a personal site , this should be enough. But if your site starts getting popular, just uninstall the IIS and install the Apache for Windows.

Switching to Apache won't get past the socket connection cap but.

Just wondering, some ISPs don't allow port 80 or port 21 connections (http and ftp respectivly). Wouldn't it be easier for you to co-locate your server in a decent datacenter?

Also, go with CentOS instead of Suse for servers, as Suse installs graphical desktops (a nono with webservers).

-Christian

I would also think colo or dedicated server seems much easier esp when you can get a low end linux box for less than US$40 or just get a VPS.

Thanks a lot for your help, guys!
I will probably make my own server if I decide to set up a free hosting company, but that will be ages away!
Till now, I think I will just find another 'decent' free host and carry on hosting my site with them!

Thanks a lot for your help!