First thing that I'd have to say is that my website that I will host from home won't be open to the public; it'll only be me using it, to learn more about some Internet languages.

Second of all: what program(s) would be good for hosting at home ??

Third of all: anything else that I'd need to know ? [I know there's probably a ton of stuff that I'd need to know, but I probably already know all of that.. but try me anyways lol :stickout :stickout

People have many different preferences when it comes to server software. A good start (IMO) would be:

A stable linux kernel
Apache
Some Mail software (I prefer qmail), maybe squirrelmail for webmail
Courier-IMAP (if you want webmail)
Bind
ProFTPd
OpenSSH
OpenSSL
MySQL
PHP
Portsentry, Snort, Acid, use something like iptables as well
Read tons, have fun!

Regards,

Jeff

Originally posted by Jeffyt
People have many different preferences when it comes to server software. A good start (IMO) would be:

A stable linux kernel
Apache
Some Mail software (I prefer qmail), maybe squirrelmail for webmail
Courier-IMAP (if you want webmail)
Bind
ProFTPd
OpenSSH
OpenSSL
MySQL
PHP
Portsentry, Snort, Acid, use something like iptables as well
Read tons, have fun!

Regards,

Jeff

Thx for the fast reply, m8 !! I'm reading up on some websites already, and some of those software I've got. I'll go and see what the others are :):)

Surely from learning from home if you are a web developer then IIS will be fine and then you can use ASP/PHP/MySQL/Access etc to learn from.

Unless you want to get into server admin'ing then you may want to do the Linux thing and do the whole hog.


Is it possible to run mail servers, DNS etc on for example a cable modem with 1 IP address which is dynamic? well more or less since it very rarely changes for me.

If you already use a version of Windows NT (NT4, 2000, XP, .NET), then I highly reccomend using Internet Information Services (IIS) to start off with. It does not involve installing any operating systems, compiling code, or installing packages. It just involves clicking a couple of buttons and installing IIS. It is very easy to learn to configure, and it is _pretty_ secure. I would highly reccomend installing all of the Microsoft Windows service patches before installing it.

I would reccomend, of all languages, to learn PHP and SQL, and I think that most would agree. SQL is universal and (pretty much) portable between languages and engines. PHP is easy to learn, and except for 2 or 3 functions (i.e. unlink()), it is 100% compatible with both Windows and *nix. mySQL is probably your best bet for a database engine, its free, easy to install, and easy to use, though I still reccomend getting a book.

^^^ my thoughts.



On the Dynamic IP thing: www.dns2go.com allows you to configure your domain name to point to your dynamic IP address. The longest update time is 5 minutes. I've never had any problems with the software.



- James

http://www.dslwebserver.com/
Loads of help/details above
plus I used Foxserv from
http://foxserv.linuxmax.net/portal.php
with hermes mail server added from
http://www.alixoft.com
and zoneedit.com for dns.
Using cable connection for access to internet plus router
with inbuilt firewall.
All above, for a personal test site, using php,mysql etc etc
using spare domain name on Win98

I'm mainly hosting a website from home for learning more [ than I already know ] about PHP and MySQL, without any worries about the database to crash, etc etc. Thx for the replies !! Any more is welcome :):)

Then read your terms of service from the cable company.
May save you problems.

See http://www.dslwebserver.com :)

Also if you using Linux/Unix heres a shell script to install Apache, PHP, mod_ssl and OpenSSL#!/bin/sh
cd /usr/src
wget http://www.apache.org/dist/httpd/old/apache_1.3.23.tar.gz
wget http://www.modssl.org/source/mod_ssl-2.8.7-1.3.23.tar.gz
wget http://www.openssl.org/source/openssl-0.9.6d.tar.gz
wget http://www.php.net/distributions/php-4.1.2.tar.gz
tar zxf apache_1.3.23.tar.gz
tar zxf mod_ssl-2.8.7-1.3.23.tar.gz
tar zxf openssl-0.9.6d.tar.gz
tar zxf php-4.1.2.tar.gz
cd openssl-0.9.6d
./config
make
make install
cd ..
cd mod_ssl-2.8.7-1.3.23
./configure --with-apache=../apache_1.3.23 --with-ssl=../openssl-0.9.6d --prefix=/usr/local/apache --enable-module=so
cd ..
cd apache_1.3.24
make
make certificate
make install
cd ..
cd php-4.1.2
./configure --with-mysql --with-apxs=/usr/local/apache/bin/apxs --enable-sockets
make
make install
echo 'ServerName 127.0.0.1' \>> /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf
echo 'AddType application/x-httpd-php .php' \>> /usr/local/apache/conf/httpd.conf