I just had a thought: I remember reading somewhere that anyone theoretically can host their own site w/ the proper equipment. Instead of putting up w/ all this grief at a cost of15-20 bucks a month, why not invest that money to purchase the basic equipment on a monthly payment plan and host our own sites? I mean if these high school kids can run a hosting outfit out of their garage or bedroom, can it really be that impossible to accomplish??

It's easy to set up servers and start hosting, but the problem is with the bandwidth.

Around here it is a lot cheaper to spend ~$5 per month than to get a big business line.

I tried hosting my small personal website off of my DSL, but it was really slow and sucked down my bandwidth. It drove me nuts so I took it down and now I'm searching for a good web host. :)

Most of the "kids" do not actually put their servers in the garage, their office is just there. Generally, they are either resellers of a large company, or they have a dedicated/colocated server somewhere.

Either way they are working with a hosting provider.

Mike, from what I've read here, 5-10 bucks/mo. will buy you nothing but grief and headaches. How did the bandwidth limitations cause you problems? I mean, did it close down your computer, or were people not able to access your site, or did visitors get bottlenecked? What exactly happened that made it a negative exp. for you?

The main thing is about kmoney and bandwidth, first you have to splash out on a server, then you have to keep buying webspace and bandwidth and everything else. Bandwidth for a little site would need about 1gb a month, and what about the big sites? 1gb would go in 10mins

What I've uncovered in the last few minutes waiting for people to respond to my post is this: doing a search under "Hosting your own site" at Google I found a lot of hosts making an argument (some good, some not so good) about the bad things of doing your own hosting. Reminds me of how real estate brokers try to sell you on the negative aspects of marketing your house w/o a broker (which CAN be done w/o grief - I know cuz I've done it) instead of listing w/ them. Naturally, the arguments are slanted because if enough people started hosting their own sites it'd take money out of the hosts' pockets. My general perception is that it can be done w/ a lot of effort, but the effort I'm expending finding a quality host and not worrying about them closing down next month and then having to transfer all my files and start over makes the former start to pale in comparison. Any thoughts?

Originally posted by JoeTownley

My general perception is that it can be done w/ a lot of effort, but the effort I'm expending finding a quality host and not worrying about them closing down next month and then having to transfer all my files and start over makes the former start to pale in comparison. Any thoughts?

As long as the site as not critical to your business go for it.

You can get a quality hosting account with a few gigs of bandwidth (which is more than enough for a small site) for 5 to 10 dollars per month. It's the people that offer the world on a platter (such a gig of space and 10 gigs of bandwidth for 5 dollars per month) that you have to watch out for. If it's just a small personal site, then hosting it on your own home computer wouldn't be any problem at all. If it's a larger site, it will suck up your bandwidth making your internet connection unbearable to use. If it's a site where uptime is important, your site will only be up when your computer is on, and unless you have a laptop or UPS, there's no backup power.

Why don't you list the pros and cons and see where you stand. It isn't that it can't be done, however it is often just not financially wise, nor does it offer you the same things that you'd get by colocating a server somewhere (or signing up for a plan).

Heh, the main bandwidth problem was with my gaming. Whenever my site would be accessed everything would get laggy.

My upload speed is around 224 kbps. So the whole site got really slow when more than two people tried to access files at the same time.

It probably all depends on what you can get and what kind of stuff you want to put up. For me 256 Kbps upstream costs ~$45 per month and I use most of that bandwidth for screwing around. If I wanted to host a small site myself, I'd probably have to get another line or a bigger one. So for me it would be cheaper just to go with another host.

I really did like the storage space though, you can't really beat +60GB of storage for a website. It was also a great experience, I learned a lot from doing it. :)

Originally posted by JoeTownley
Mike, from what I've read here, 5-10 bucks/mo. will buy you nothing but grief and headaches. How did the bandwidth limitations cause you problems? I mean, did it close down your computer, or were people not able to access your site, or did visitors get bottlenecked? What exactly happened that made it a negative exp. for you?

Because I can't find a broadband ISP in my area whose TOS allows servers. Techinically, I can but I'd have to go business class which ends up around $200/month for speeds A LOT slower than standard cable that I can have for $40/month.

Originally posted by JoeTownley
I just had a thought: I remember reading somewhere that anyone theoretically can host their own site w/ the proper equipment.

No argument here. "Theoretically" anyone with proper funding can do anything they feel like.

Enter the learning curve. :eek:

You have to make a decision as to whether maintaining your own network/server(s) is something your company is committed to doing -- and then hiring someone (if you don't already have an IT dept) to perform the related tasks.

Plenty of companies I've worked with host their sites on their own equipment, in their own office, on a fractional/full T1. While they don't have the typical shared hosting problems, they're poping Zomig for their migranes like M&Ms.

So, while you don't make $10-20/mo on the sites, you make $3500-7500+/mo for being their "on call" outsourced IT department.

I have to agree with with uuallan. As long as the site isn't "mission critical", I dont see anything wrong with hosting yourself. Providing its not agains your ISP TOS/AUP. My ISP allows hosting, but not on port 80...

I get 512K/sec up and 1.5MB/sec down, but only on really good days :( other than that I average 200K up and 300-700 down.

Here is what I came up with for hosting a site yourself. This list is based on my personal experience hosting the site on my local machine... My machine is Win2k, and I used Apache for my hosting software. (I wouldnt touch IIS with a with a mile long pole and yes, I have tried using it)

Pros:

Complete control of your site and its content. (freedom)
No FTP'ing.
Monitor traffic live
Good learning experience
Good development testbed
General purpose hosting
Still able to work on your site if your internet happens to go down...


Cons:

DoS attack attempts, including hacking (get a good firewall and config it where its picky)
Installing addons gets tedious (MySQL, Perl, php, etc)
Lags your machine during games.
Slows your internet browsing down (get 2 network cards and use one for hosting, and the other borwsing, it works for me)
Potentially tricky learning curve
no email support (I didnt have any see below).
need a 3rd party if your ISP dont want you hosting a domain or dont provide that as a regular service. (DNS service like DNS2Go... I used DNS2go)


If you can think of any more, be sure to add them in...

Here's my list of Pros and Cons as to my knowledge from talking with people and reading forums, web sites, etc., as well as personal knowledge


Pros
-----
- Hardware upgrades are farily easy if you're knowledgable in that area
- You get the WHOLE server to yourself
- No user on the same server's gonna bombshell you with a chat script that sucks 99% of your CPU (unless you let them)
- You have complete control (OS, features, etc)
- Unless you get a lot of hits, you're not going to have slow download times on other computer on your home network
- You install only what you want, so, if you don't care about FP Extensions, or MySQl, you don't have to put that stuff on your had disk, memory.
- As stated above, great learning experience


Cons
------
- Many broadband providers work like aDSL, you get a lot of "down" speed, but not a lot of "up" which means "Clients" (people accessing your server) will have a slow connection, your connection may also slow down do to inablility to send a request.
- Learning curve may turn out to be a flat line at ZERO
- Cost of broadband, ecess data transfer, equip., static IP, etc.
- You'll have to get your on DNS setup, or purchase from other provider.
- Tech support tends to suck when even YOU have a prolem


Things that might help you
-------------------------------------
First off, I would suggest doing this only if you have access to a GOOD network service, such as a T1, or even T3.

If you hate computers, get a professional host

Get a dedicated system to run your web page. If you use your PC that you use for everything else, you're bound to get annoyed. Server crashing, you'll have lag using grames, etc.

Do research. Just because microsoft provides software to host your site doens't mean its any good. Ask yourelf, what is the server going to do? If you just want web sites you might squeak by with Win WebPublishing, but if you want web, email, ftp, file servers, etc., you're in a whole new ball park.

Lastly: Know your operating systems. If you should be using Unix and you're on Win2k, that could be a problem, and visa versa. And if for any reason you should be on a Mac, that could also be a problem, but it probably isn't.

Most internet service providers that state that you cannot run servers in their terms of service usually just say that to cover their behind. Most really don't mind if you run a personal web site on your home computer, as long as it's not used for profit purposes, and as long as it doesn't use up a lot of bandwidth. If you're getting the connection for free, like on a college campus, then that's different. Colleges are usually strict about running servers. Also, since the Code Red and NIMDA worms were released, many internet service providers have blocked port 80 to prevent residential customers from getting infected and adding to the problem. You can get by running your web server on another port and using a free redirection service. The main disadvantage is many cable and DSL providers have slow outgoing speeds for residential customers, and if you live in the middle of nowhere like I do, you can't really upgrade to a faster speed.

Originally posted by gnorthey00
- Tech support tends to suck when even YOU have a problem

lol :D

Originally posted by gnorthey00
Lastly: Know your operating systems. If you should be using Unix and you're on Win2k, that could be a problem, and visa versa. And if for any reason you should be on a Mac, that could also be a problem, but it probably isn't.

Using VMware (http://www.vmware.com/) you can host using a Linux/FreeBSD/*nix box in a Win32 window -- and vice versa.

It's also an incredibly affordable/smart way to learn your way around another OS -- as you can completely trash the system recompiling the kernel or hacking up the apache config to figure out how things work, and then just pop in the CD and replace the install from your host OS.

Your virtual machine can use DHCP through NAT to share your connection or, alternatively as a server, be bridged to the physical network.

It's truly an amazing program that we can't live without here. :)

VMware for Windows requires Windows NT, Windows 2000, or Windows XP. If you're just hosting a personal site, you can find a web server for Windows 95/98/Me. If you're planning to do serious hosting though, you'll need a serious operating system.

My hearty and sincere thanks to all those ladies and gentlemen who took the time to respond to my question. Just reading the replies was an education in itself. And if anyone has more to add, please do so.
I should add that my site is mainly personal, but I will be adding several 4-min. videos of me playing the piano. Will this complicate things?

Videos tend to be pretty large, so it will take a while for people to download them, and it'll slow down your internet connection while they're downloading.

Joe, maybe if you give us your plan (ie: what you plan to use for a connection, power, etc.), how many visiotrs you expect, content, etc., we can give you an opinion of whether you should try it or not, as well as tell you the limitations of the set up so you'll know when you have to switch to plan b.

Honestly, you can certainly host a personal home site that gets 20 visitors a day without people even knowing you're doing this from home. A small set up for a small site wouldn't cost you much and would work.

Videos wouldn't be much of a problem (depending on what your connection speed is - upload speed that is), though large files can be problematic.

If you give some details, you should be able to get rather unbiased advice and help. I personally have nothing to gain or lose by you hosting your site with a host or if you do it yourself, heh. :D

Okay, I'll have a go at it:

Pros:

1. You can only blame yourself if the server goes down.
2. All the harddrive space you want.
3. Your own dedicated server.

Cons:

1. You can only blame yourself if the server goes down.
2. You have to learn to install the web and email software and manage it.
3. You have to install the webserver software and manage it.
4. You're probably going to have to upgrade to business class service to not be violating your TOS.
5. You're probably going to have to upgrade to business class service to be guaranteed that they won't arbitrarily block port 80 incoming because of nimda.
6. Business class hosting is going to cost more than shared web hosting.
7. No redundant power usually, resulting in downtime.
8. No redundant connectivity usually, resulting in downtime.
9. No 24/7 monitoring usually, resulting in more downtime.
10. Not nearly the same amount of bandwidth available, for slow page loading for your visitors.

Now, I have buddies who hosted their personal and even their home business web sites on their cable modems. They could deal with the downtime resulting from utility problems. But do you know how upset they were when the cable company arbitrarily blocked incoming tcp port 80 one day? They would call to complain, and the cable company would tell them to upgrade to the business class service, because they weren't even supposed to be running web servers. I think they had the right to be upset for no other reason than the cable company advertising "unlimited Internet". That seems limited to me. They also usually block incoming and outgoing tcp port 139, and outgoing to tcp port 25.

So feel free to host your web site on your cable modem or dsl at home, but don't make it an important one. Because you won't have a service agreement for web hosting, unless you want to pay the big bucks. You also won't have the reliability that you would get by outsourcing to a datacenter.

If I only had a personal web site that wasn't making me any money, and I wasn't worried about my email getting to me, I wouldn't pay a dime to have it hosted elsewhere. I'd be hosting it on my cable modem, violating the TOS like a champ, for as long as I could get away with it.

But for $10/month, you can get professional quality web hosting. Do you really need your own dedicated server and more than 100GB of drive space for your site? Why are you willing to put yourself through all the trouble to save $0.33 a day? My time is worth more than that.

Actually, Chicken from a technical POV I'm a complete neophyte. So when you ask what connector, what power, I can't respond since I don't know what these mean. Even all these acronyms like SSH and SQL and dozens others are wreaking hell on my brain. I can tell you that I have AOL w/ a 56K modem but would be willing to upgrad to a high speed connector if it made a difference and expand my memor or even change to a better computer if it would help; my site is small except for the videos, I wouldn't expect more than maybe a few visitors a day in the beginning, to expand to a dozen or so a day if Ii got lucky. I'd want the videos to be streaming so long downloads wouldn't be a big problem, (in RealPlayer, preferably). Has any of this been of help in determining my needs. If not please pose more questions.

So it seems I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. What a hell of a position to be in!! I'd sign up w/ a host this second if I could be sure of the service, but reading all the horror stories on this board how can anyone be sure of what they are getting w/o worrying about having to go through all the blood, sweat and tears of constantly changing servers? There's gotta be a better way!!

My thought on this subject is that you always get what you pay for. Seriously. It works every time.

So the big question to ask yourself is what are you paying for? Well, it all depends on how you do it.

So let's start with the hardware.
First you're paying for a decent web server. If you buy it used on ebay, you could get away with spending as little as $500 for a machine that works. Cool. Solved that problem. What's next?

Operating System Software Platform.
After having set up over two dozen web servers running at varied capacities, I've found that it is never a good idea to run your server on windows 98. For one thing, it's not stable enough. Keeping windows 98 on for six hours let alone the days or months it will need to stay on as a web server is tantamount to instanity. According to the microsoft web site, windows 98 has a garaunteed up time of 4.62 hours. Not good.

So you need to get another operating system for your new computer to run this web server. You could go with linux, but then again, linux is not an absolute term. The only thing close to a consistant kernal in the linux world is FreeBSD. If you are used to windows, the learning curve is extremely high. So what other choices are there? Well, there's windows XP Professional. I've seen it for about $500, but I'm certain you can find it cheaper. There's Windows 2000, more expensive but worth it. Or last but not least there is NT 4. The beauty of NT4 is that you can get it pretty cheap these days if you know where to go. Let's put a price of $150 on it for now.

So, you've got your new hardware and software to run your handy dandy new web server. Now what? Pipes.

There are two ways to handle this.
1. Use your own lines.
This is usually not a good idea. I think there is a term in there with every major ISP prohibiting the use of their pipeline for use with servers. My cable company kept tying up my line with HTTP probes every three minutes. Had I been running a server, that would have slowed me down considerably. So rather than use home service for something it wasn't built for, and something the ISP's don't want you doing... how about this.
There are several colocation providers I know of (rackmy, and AmericanISP, just off the top of my head) which offer good rates on colocation. Prices on the low end usually range from 35-50 USD a month for space in their facility and data transfer. This isn't such a bad idea. You get all the advantages and control of hosting your own server, but none of the baggage.
What I mean by that is that a colo company won't be shutting off your service because you put a server on it. I'd be very surprised if they did. Your server is not taking up space in your living room where it would otherwise. You still have full control of your computer via PC anywhere or some other program like it. And most of the problems in dealing with a home server are solved.

So now we come back to my initial question:
What's it going to cost?
Well I'm glad you asked. Here's the breakdown.

Server: Used, Found on ebay $500
OS: NT 4 found at garage sale $150
Pipes: At home $45 for slow DSL service, yuck
Pipes: Colo, let's call it $50 a month

Which brings us to a conservative estimate of:

$695 at home with a line that is not meant for hosting
$700 for space in a facility that is.

Mind you, these are the rates that I would get after scouring the internet for about a week. Your actual costs may vary, but not much if you're smart about it. Also, if you buy your server used, there is a good chance it may still have an operating system on it, which would bring the cost of doing it on either end down a bit.

Cheers

Originally posted by sam.moses
According to the microsoft web site, windows 98 has a garaunteed up time of 4.62 hours. Not good.

Hahah, that's a great stat. :dgrin:

This is turning into a very informative, un-biased thread. Hopefully JoeTownley is getting enough information to let us know how his venture turns out. :)

Originally posted by JoeTownley
So it seems I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. What a hell of a position to be in!! I'd sign up w/ a host this second if I could be sure of the service, but reading all the horror stories on this board how can anyone be sure of what they are getting w/o worrying about having to go through all the blood, sweat and tears of constantly changing servers? There's gotta be a better way!!

I don't think it has to be that hard, Joe.

Sure, people do have bad experiences from time to time, but to be honest even if you were in the unfortunate situation of having to leave one host and go to another, it's a fairly painless process to re-upload your content to another host. And in terms of financial outlay - maybe you'll lose five or ten bucks because of it....

If you read enough here, you should get a reasonable idea fairly quickly about who some of the better regarded hosts are and if you go with one of them, you shouldn't have too many problems. Yes - every host will have *some* problems, but then you probably would if you were hosting at home too. Wouldn't it be better to let the hosting company tear their hair out over it? :)

Just my thoughts, anyway. I'm all for doing it yourself though, if that's what you really want to do (it's something I've often toyed with the idea of, just as a little side-project for the fun of it); I just thought I'd point out that despite some of the horror stories here, hosting doesn't have to be THAT bad an experience if you do a little homework first.

But that's my point, (or part of it) Hostit. If one host is found to be good via this site then how come everyone inquiring on this board doesn't fly to that particular host? Then you wouldn't see all these disgruntled customers posting here telling their horror stories. Maybe they post first and then research later. But I rarely see a recommendation for a host unless its from someone who owns or is working for the host they are plugging.

Good point.
I think the reason you see more angry posts on this board is because unhappy customers are usually louder. That, and the fact that positive posts for a single hosting outfit on this board regarding are likely to start flame wars. There are about five hosts out there that I personally hold in very high regard. I will not mention them here though. In my experiences with hosting, I've found that good web hosts are few and far between the way I use hosting. The best way to find the good ones on this board is to do a search for "who's the best web host" and look for the posts that endorse multiple hosting companies. Hosting in general is incredibly cheap these days. I remember when it cost $50 for 100 mg of flat space with Perl. In general though, unless you are a power user, you should be okay, and within your budget almost anywhere you go.

Just a thought.

Questions to help you...

First: Do you care if the server is out for a few minutes once in a while, maybe a couple hours at worst if the utility goes out? (If you don't care, then you'll be all right)

--Questions to help you determine what you need, what you'll pay, if ido-it-yourself is worth it, etc.
1. What kind of hardware performance do you want?

If you want to handle lots of visitors at a time, get the fastest processor and loads of RAM, but for reasonable speeds, find a reasonable priced server, and just be ready for slower access and peak loading time

2. How will it be powered?

If your power tends to go out in the summer due to overloads on the power grid, you're going to need a UPS (Uninterupted power supply), if you have power most of the time, then you may not need a UPS. If you do need one, I have seen a site thant tells you how to make one, but DO YOUR HOMEWORK. You can also buy one where computer supplies are sold.
***You'll need everything related to your server on the UPS, modem, router, firewall, terminal, etc.

3. What about connection?

56K modem means thatyou will have an upload speed of 21 Kbps (KiloBITs, 8 Kilobit = 1 Kilobyte) [NOTE: KB = Kilobyte, Kb = Kilobit]. You'll want a Cable or DSL conection at least. Make sure that you have good upload connection, (Your upload = users download) T1, or T3 are also possibilities, but probably more expensive.

4. Can I...?

Ask your internet service provider if you are permitted to operate a web server from your existing acount. Check about other services (mail, ftp, SSH, etc.) you will be using as well.

5. What do I need (software)?

Question depends on what you intend to do:

The Basics:
Operating system,: Unix, Win2k, FreeBSD, others-which I believe are more complicated
You need something to "serve" web pages: Apache (Unix, I believe also available for Win2k and FreeBSD, but don't quote me)
The Kid Next Door: If you get confused, get "The Kid Next Door"(KiND), ther are several KiNDs that are knowledgeable in this sort of stuff and if you hold out a $20 will help you on a per-item basis

Specialization:
If you want a photo album, message board, webmail script, etc., you'll need to addsoftware for scripting.
Perl and PHP are two languages which you will need to install
You might also need MySQL (database software)

You may also want to look for something to "stream" your video clips in a compressed format. (Similar to RealVideo), but price may be a concern.

Okay, you've all convinced me. Self-serving is NOT the way to go. I'll have to settle for a host, hopefully I'll land a good one w/o much heartbreak. Thanks to all who helped me to make this crucial decision. Use me as a barometer of sorts. Give me some recommendations. I'll try them and report back to you all on how they worked out.

Originally posted by JoeTownley
I just had a thought: I remember reading somewhere that anyone theoretically can host their own site w/ the proper equipment. Instead of putting up w/ all this grief at a cost of15-20 bucks a month, why not invest that money to purchase the basic equipment on a monthly payment plan and host our own sites? I mean if these high school kids can run a hosting outfit out of their garage or bedroom, can it really be that impossible to accomplish??

I hosted my site for several months on my own server at home before starting dixiesys, matter of fact I only recently moved it from my home computer.

My cable modem is a "business" class so it gets a static IP address and uncapped (hahahahaha YEAH RIGHT) uploads (I do upload around 80K/s so it's a lot better than the 128 kbit most are capped at) and 80K/s is plenty for even several web sites. But the RELIABILITY factor is the problem, it's not that uncommon to lose connectivity for 3 or 4 minutes at a time, no biggie when you're cruising the net or checking email and frankly, not a concern on my personal web site, but if I were SELLING that hosting it would become one, too quickly.

Originally posted by Dixiesys
My cable modem is a "business" class so it gets a static IP address and uncapped (hahahahaha YEAH RIGHT) uploads (I do upload around 80K/s so it's a lot better than the 128 kbit most are capped at) and 80K/s is plenty for even several web sites. But the RELIABILITY factor is the problem, it's not that uncommon to lose connectivity for 3 or 4 minutes at a time, no biggie when you're cruising the net or checking email and frankly, not a concern on my personal web site, but if I were SELLING that hosting it would become one, too quickly.

Definitely.

As for in-house, self-hosting -- T-1 prices are really coming down here in Southern California. I've seen a dedicated 1.5Mbps T-1 for as low as $149/mo, and 2.5Mbps business wireless for as little as $199/mo.

It's generally easier to get some semblance of a service-level agreement with these providers than your basic residential broadband.

However, you'd still face problems due to potential lack of redundacy, etc. And if you're willing to drop $149-$199/mo for hosting, you might as well go down the best route anyhow and colocate in a local datacenter for $99-250/mo. :agree:

< just a note, I'm not recommending you host on a wireless connection :)>