i have been designing webpages for the last 3 years and i always pay that £5 a month and i thought why not host it my self i have a pc with windows 2003 installed and i was wondering what i need to do from there

thanks in advance guys

well your going to need a fast broadband connection with atleast 1MB Upload speed. You will also need 1-2 static IP's, you can either use IIS6 to manage your sites (Advanced) or you can buy Plesk (www.swsoft.com) or Helm (www.webhostautomation.com) (Begginers Option, although it does take some time to setup)

There is lots more to consider but im not feeling to bright and cant think :-)

First suggestion - Do not host from your own PC/house.

Second suggestion - Find a quality host within a quality datacenter. You can find one within the 'find a host' section above and the advertising forums below.

You will run into many problems trying to host your own website, all of them simply not worth the trouble.

If you have multiple sites, you may want to look into getting a reseller plan.

Yes I agree, I only replied to his question and didnt elaborate.

Your definatley going to need a server at a DataCentre or a hosting provider. (If you give me a PM I could help out there)

Or why not start with a Reseller package if it is only a few sites you will be hosting and then think about a Dedicated Server when you need it.

Yes I agree, I only replied to his question and didnt elaborate.

Your definatley going to need a server at a DataCentre or a hosting provider. (If you give me a PM I could help out there)

Or why not start with a Reseller package if it is only a few sites you will be hosting and then think about a Dedicated Server when you need it.

Great advice about starting out with a reseller package... although if the original poster is comfortable with managing a server then a dedicated server might be better if he is willing to pay.

But the bottom line is... don't host out of your house! Would you want your -important- website hosted on someones computer sitting underneith their desk collecting dust? :)

Don't forget the cat/dog sleeping ontop of it.. :)


Hosting in a proper data center is really a must if your intent is to offer reliable and professional webhosting.

If you justy getting started it might be best to and I would recommend looking into hosting panels like cPANEL, HELM, PLESK and look around for a good provider who offers dedicated server + panel for a decent price. Usually these providers will hand out free static IP's and ensure your equipment is covered 24/7 for power (ups/generators) A/C etc etc

This takes a lot of stress off beginners and you can grow into your own server/co-location as you build your client base.

Cheers

well your going to need a fast broadband connection with atleast 1MB Upload speed. You will also need 1-2 static IP's, you can either use IIS6 to manage your sites (Advanced) or you can buy Plesk (www.swsoft.com) or Helm (www.webhostautomation.com) (Begginers Option, although it does take some time to setup)

There is lots more to consider but im not feeling to bright and cant think :-)
Add to that electricity bills since you need to run your pc 24/7

Who doesn't run their PC 24/7??? :)

I do run my PC-s 24/7. I have 1 server for hosting, and 1 laptop for myself to use.
But... I don't have fast internet connection. It's okay. Elecricity bills are the same, as before. :)

Make sure you have a good upload speed trust me. The average upload speed is between 256K and 1MB. A SDSL connection is ideal for this as the upload is the same and the download so you can have like 8MB.

professional hosting can be more reliable, they use stuff like backup power, air conditioning, security, round the clock support for failures. If your isp blocks port 80 then you wont get far anyway.
You will need a DNS to bind your domain names to your IP address (which better be fixed or the sites will go down when the IP address changes) and you have to set what that DNS is with your domain name provider.

i wouldnt ever recommend hosting multiple websites on a home pc , one or two maybe. it really depends on what kind of sites your hosting.

@ louisjade: I don't think its a wise decision to have server at your permises, especially when you don't have any prior experience of server management.

As far control panel selection is concern, as a beginner... I will only suggest you either Hosting Controller (http://hostingcontroller.com) or Helm (http://webhostautomation.com). Both CPs have their pros and cons and you will get different opinon here for both CPs... So, what the best option ? I will suggest you to evaluate both control panels infact both HC and Helm offer 30 days free evaluation. And by the end of 30 days, you will be in better position to choose either one of it.


Blessed.

Ok here let me tell you how to don't use your computer you have internet thoughsands of viruses can get in and when u shutdown th servers shuts down
:(

As far control panel selection is concern, as a beginner... I will only suggest you either Hosting Controller (http://hostingcontroller.com/) or Helm (http://webhostautomation.com/).

HC will f you up its very bad it leaves gaps for people to do anythign to your server. Helm is very nice automated everything but its slow just too slow it takes about 15 minutes to find how to do things and 10 to add one plan! tooo slow!

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I would suggest getting some one who knows there networking get another computer with ram, space and have a good isp for bandwidth.
you can never turn that computer off now you have to go get mysql and things like that theres programs that has everything you need already on it im not going to point any out just ask some one for help there.

Once done with that go ahead and get a control panel i like plesk 8.0 because it supports linux and its nicer and i think its way better than cpanel, cpanel is nice too but just not for me. You defenantly want a linux server its way better than having to create databases by code that means helm, plesk 7.5 and lower are out of the picture also other windows control panels and enism and directadmin suck badly. so take my advice please!
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for more help msn: bizzopz@gmail.com thats my email also!

Thank you

Your best bet is to stick with paying $5.00 monthly if anything look around for webhosting compare there are dozens out there .. cause it could run up your bill to about 5 times then what your paying now if you think about it .. dsl , cable modem line dsl is pretty cheap but still .. cause you will get quality, speed, Professional webhosting .. if you have an electic outage that would bite to have your site down in a data center that have backups that last for a couple days some times more .. so you got no worries .. on that part .. you would have 99.9 % up time ..

I host a website from a Linux Server, based in my house. i also run a few IRCd servers from it aswell but my connection suffers from DDos attacks and a lot of stuff. I'd say buy yourself a VPS to get started with first? then progress to a Dedicated server. I got a VPS from myvpshost and cost $40 a month with directadmin + installatron included. Amazing service!!!!

I've now progressed onto a dedicated server

I will suggest you to purchase a server from data Centre ... Because from this you will get a high security layer around your server....
Now a days it is very easy to crash or hack a server if it don't have sufficeint security.

All the best

Buying a server is extremely expensive for hosting low number of websites, I recomend balancing between money and needs.

Dedi IP,100%uptime,Good Ram-Cpu.

What kind of hosting plan do you currently have? £5/month sounds like a decent deal unless you are running out of space, or need non-standard tools that your host doesn't provide.

When it comes to hosting, you are generally much better off paying skilled professionals to maintain your servers than doing it yourself. If you were running a network of websites or a large message board (like WHT) then you would be better off with a dedicated server (or servers).

Also, for less than £5/month you can probably find a good US-based shared hosting provider. Never be afraid to look into other countries for hosting. The lag between the UK and US/Canada via the web is fairly minimal (provided the Atlantic doesn't start having under-sea cable cut problems). :) If you buy a year of service you could even get away with paying around £50 a year for GOOD service with a TRUSTED shared hosting provider.

What it comes down to is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for hosting. You need to figure out what your exact needs are and what solution would best fit without you over paying or being under-serviced.

Dedi IP,100%uptime,Good Ram-Cpu.

You dragged a 3 year old thread up to say that? :eek:

Haha! Oh wow, I didn't even realize this thread was that old. Well I'm not the necromancer here, I just went and talked to the guy he brought back to life. :P