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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
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    33

    Why not Personal Hosting? (initially)

    so..playing with fire I'm curious what people really say about hosting a small website on my personal dsl line..considering atm I have zero users. But that can be expected for website that has not been released yet.

    Here are the pros/cons I see:

    + Cheap
    + direct access to my server
    - super slow up-speed (768kb), still at near zero load the initial web page load is ~8-10sec (bad..but not horrid), after that 1 second load.
    +/- Have to do everything myself (already done) (well this is good for learning), but I admit I am no security expert, but I do know how to setup a hardware firewall which is in place.
    + Can control Hardware/dedicated hardware (currently 4GB/dual core AMD) (I suspect this will be superiour to a hosting service at $30.0).
    - No backup process (as of yet)
    - NO Verified SSL Cert installed (and not running Native AJP) yet...
    = (SSL cert should be easy to buy/install)
    = (Native AJP..was a versioning issue on previous attempt..should be fixed now however)

    - No email services (looks like googleApps will solve this for Free for my purposes)

    = Should be a cakewalk once mx records r in place.
    = Mainly outgoing notications. & support email.
    - not so reliable a network (heh..server is actually running on my wireless..N network..crappy..can be fixed with 100ft cable.)
    - really just prolonging the inevitable (but its cheaper...)

    Pros/cons of using a real hosting company: (say ~$30.00/month)
    - costs money
    + fast (well faster then my dsl anyways)
    + bigger pipe (bandwidth)..but limited quantity of up bytes a month.
    + reliability unknown
    + nicer built in tools for monitoring, etc. (I have zero of these atm).
    + 'can get professional' advice on some things.
    - No control of cpu load (I'm assuming at ~$30.00) I will not have dedicated hardware.
    + Automated backups (I assume any decent service plan will have this)

    Thoughts?
    obviously there are more pros if i use a hosting solution..but I think near term for 'initial launch', and 'beta testers' etc..home hosting should work just fine...on the flip side..I should probably get the 'experience' of using a hosting company during the beta roll out..sigh..

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Location
    Sputnik's World
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    82
    Cons:
    • Your isp probably has a "no server" clause. Best case, you don't get caught, or find that typical "server" ports are blocked in such a way to prevent you from running servers more than just locally. Worst case, you find yourself without internet for having violated their ToS.
    • Most have a business package or "home office" type package that allows you to run servers, but it's going to be WAY more expensive than your current package. (Unless you already have the more expensive pacakge.)


    Beyond that, if you are just looking at a test bed for a few friends and family to come make sure your page works, there is nothing wrong with home hosting that.

    I do run my own web server, with a couple of live pages, but I'm only looking at about 25 hits a day, which really isn't much. (Unless of course they all tried to hit at once.)

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    EU & USA
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    If you do not need to keep your site up 24x7; or have any need of any kind of professional services; like UPS, generators; cooling; multiple carriers; high speed etc etc you can host a site just fine at home.

    Although i think you will be amazed on how much your power cost per month; compared to the price you pay for shared hosting ($30,00 is quite a lot of money, for just hosting a site).

    As you will soon notice the hardware of your server is not the bottleneck of your website; having 1 little site could be done even on a super old computer with minimum resources and still be blazing fast. Really for just simple websites you do not even need a simple P3.

    In fact i think in the end it would be just cheaper to run it on a shared server in a professional environment; but you will learn a lot less from it

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    523
    750 watt PS + decrease in longevity of components for the other 12 hours of day it is typically off would cost me more than $30 a month

    No way would I even think about it for a $30 per month 24/7 website even if I could serve at the same speed.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Posts
    30
    I did exactly this for my small personal site a few years back. I did so on a PC built out of spare parts... I think it had something like a 1.3 GHz celeron running Debian "Sarge". It handled everything perfectly fine including a Teamspeak server, and I even tried a CS: Source server. The net speed was much too slow to bother with the game server, but the rest was fine, albeit slow. (On 3mbps/512kbps dsl)

    The big drawbacks for me were:
    - slow
    - I had dynamic IP and had to use dyndns, which also meant nightly 1-5 minute downtime while my ISP reset my IP.
    - Maintenance. Definately took a fair amount of work on my end.
    - Not the best uptime, but that wasn't a huge issue.

    Benefits:
    - I was free to mess with any and everything I wanted.
    - Cheap
    - Fun factor (I like tinkering!)
    - Educational.
    - No real worries about limitations.


    If your site is for personal development, or a small place for buddies I'd recommend you try it out. If the site is for professional use or image is important, I'd try something else.
    Last edited by Glorfindel; 08-01-2009 at 05:10 PM. Reason: typo

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2007
    Posts
    281
    As was previously mentioned in this thread, one major thing you should look at is your ISp's TOS. The vast majority of them forbid servers on their "consumer" level plans. They want you to upgrade to a business plan, with static IP. It would still not even come close to having the speed/reliability of having your site in a quality DC.

    You should be able to get decent hosting for about $5 a month, Probably cheaper if you are looking to pay for the year.

    Just a thought.

    Cheers.

  7. #7
    Not to mention the TOS initialy I didn't know how to run a server and your average consumer wont. And as far as comercial grade thats an obvious no.
    Andrew Anderson
    Sales Manager
    NerdyHost.com

  8. #8
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Next Door
    Posts
    88
    Pros and cons
    + for fun
    - 100 % more complications, a company can give you shared hosting under 50$ per year or less.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Pacific Palisades, CA
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    3,641
    Go for it, it will be a good learning experience. After you have everything set up and running, get a hosting account and publish your site. Use your home machine as a backup server.
    Collabora Hosting - Unlimited Windows and Linux Hosting
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  10. #10
    Yes, ISPs normally have a stipulation in their TOS that you may not use your DSL line for this kind of service. Charging for services of such sub-standard quality/reliability is very bad business, but if you're not charging and only managing a low traffic flow then your ISP is unlikely to notice any interruptions that will lead them to investigate. As Collabora says, it will be a good learning experience ... as long as you're not charging for the service. But generally I'd say this isn't advisable, as the last thing you need is to loose your DSL altogether. You could hire a dedicated line, but this would work out more expensive than hiring a dedicated server.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Posts
    33
    First off thanx for the feedback.

    Well as it happens I have been developing/hosting on my local dsl, no problems other then sub-par reliability on my internet connection, but overall its been useful to get some feedback on the site from friends/family. Anyways I knew in the long run..I could not host locally, even with my static ip. Now thats its I can consider the web-site 'done'...its time find a real host, which I have done, now I just need to get it all setup, and turn to the next chapter..web-promotion, SEO optimization ..etc..

    thanx for the feed back, and yeah I think for a personal learning experience its definetly the way to go..as it helps u figure out your deployment process, standard operating procedures, etc.

    I have been using a hardware firewall (from my router) which will of course change, and no ssl on login..so that will need to be tweaked once I move over to the new host (vps unmanaged for me).

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Austin Tx
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    I've done this for years (more then 4 now) over 6G down, 756K up DLS, hosting only free things...church email, personal email, neighborhood associations web site, personal blogs, etc.
    Actually, about 10 email domains and 15 web sites are currently served from my DLS (have a block of 32 statics), and a church has about 15 email addresses, they all have email open all day, every day, sending and receiving w/ Pop3 / Imap / SMTP.
    I never really notice a blip on my bandwidth radar. I game at the same time (no, I'm not a kid, I'm a 43 yo , 15 yr experienced network / systems admin).

    I have 4 server, 1 OpenVZ virtual environment, and about half-a-dozen workstations hanging off it. No issue, other than the occasional POP3 dictionary attack attempt. That's why God made ipsec.

    Works fine for me, but I would never charge for it. DLS does have issues from time to time...if you have someone that is almost always home to call if the modem needs a reset, I'd say go for it. Again, would not recommend charging anyone, unless they understood exactly what they were getting into.
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  13. #13
    That is not what your PC was designed for...
    You can have agreement with your ISP and test the things but at the same time I suppose that can be done for fun only not for the serious things and no one ISP will not handle huge traffic your personal web site might have

  14. #14
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    Mar 2009
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    Um...if I can host 15 sites and 10 busy email domains, I don't think one personal web site will be in issue on DSL. Even pay attention to my post? This is being done. Right now...no issues.
    No reason at all why he can't host a personal site off of it. My speed out is the mentioned 768K, exactly has OP described. The 6G coming IN helps that a bit. Async.
    Only issue...if you don't have static ("sticky") IPs, you may not be allowed access to certain ports (25, etc). Check with the DSL provider first.

    I have no issue, been doing it for years.
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  15. #15
    Then your web sites are not very loaded with the visitors. If you have a lot of visitors believe me you will have some problems.

  16. #16
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    Mar 2009
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    Austin Tx
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    Obviously you didn't read my posts thoroughly. I'll go notify my equipment to stop working correctly. It didn't get the memo.

    I have many connections all day long to various resources. It works well. Regardless of any theories presented. It's OPs call. He can listen to folks theorize, or listen to a guy *using the connection shared with all these host to write this, right now*.

    I also game my butt off. Sorry it works, man. Tough cookies. I never have BW issue unless someone is brute forcing or similar.
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  17. #17
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    Mar 2007
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    Phoenix, AZ, United State
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    Well, I don't see why it would be impossible to do this. Assuming your ISP was okay with it, and you actually had a relatively reliable connection.

    I wouldn't recommend it to anyone though.
    drew@slicie.com - Vertical Scaling Servers
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  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by HostSentry View Post
    Well, I don't see why it would be impossible to do this. Assuming your ISP was okay with it, and you actually had a relatively reliable connection.

    I wouldn't recommend it to anyone though.
    I wouldn't recommend charging for it, but to provide or give yourself free service, why the heck not?

    I'm a 15 year DC vet, done it from my house over ATT for, heck, I think actually almost 5 years now, so 1/2 a decade. Works just fine for me. Over 100 email accounts used mostly all day every day, handful of pretty busy sites.
    Again, wouldn't dream of charging for anything over it.
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  19. #19
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    Mar 2007
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    Quote Originally Posted by mugo View Post
    I wouldn't recommend charging for it, but to provide or give yourself free service, why the heck not?

    I'm a 15 year DC vet, done it from my house over ATT for, heck, I think actually almost 5 years now, so 1/2 a decade. Works just fine for me. Over 100 email accounts used mostly all day every day, handful of pretty busy sites.
    Again, wouldn't dream of charging for anything over it.
    From my experience, a typical shared hosting server runs at about 1.5mbps up pretty consistently.

    So if you are hosting a 10th of that, it seems pretty reasonable. It would also be pretty educational.

    Shared hosting is so cheap though, so for the vast majority of people... mine as well shell out a few bucks a month.
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  20. #20
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    Mar 2009
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    Austin Tx
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    One shared hosting site filling up a T1? No, that's not accurate under normal circumstances. I've installed T1s for years, to large businesses running entire email and communications / web infrastructures...a typical web site, unless you are doing like porn or file sharing is going to run more like 128K consistently, maybe with spikes to 1.5 or so. A little MRTG or something similar will show you exactly (PRTG, whatever your poison). A home-based site? Your lucky to have 10 hits a day.

    I run a 150 man corporation and our 90 servers w/ 3 locations nailed together with 1G N-LAN only pulls 5-6 Mb average during peak. That's over a 100Mb internet-connected port. We have thousands of daily, active customers. 1 shared host is not going to to 1/5 of that, I assure you. There are exceptions...but nothing that is classified to be on shared hosting situations. For instance, taking a peek at my 90 servers right this instant, I'm doing no where near 1/2 Mb. And folks are working on site right now, and orders are coming in. IT's off-peak, of course, but that give a real world example.
    We have 8 front end web servers load balancing about 15 sites, with dozens and dozens of supporting servers.
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  21. #21
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    Quote Originally Posted by mugo View Post
    One shared hosting site filling up a T1? No, that's not accurate under normal circumstances. I've installed T1s for years, to large businesses running entire email and communications / web infrastructures...a typical web site, unless you are doing like porn or file sharing is going to run more like 128K consistently, maybe with spikes to 1.5 or so. A little MRTG or something similar will show you exactly (PRTG, whatever your poison). A home-based site? Your lucky to have 10 hits a day.

    I run a 150 man corporation and our 90 servers w/ 3 locations nailed together with 1G N-LAN only pulls 5-6 Mb average during peak. That's over a 100Mb internet-connected port. We have thousands of daily, active customers. 1 shared host is not going to to 1/5 of that, I assure you. There are exceptions...but nothing that is classified to be on shared hosting situations. For instance, taking a peek at my 90 servers right this instant, I'm doing no where near 1/2 Mb. And folks are working on site right now, and orders are coming in. IT's off-peak, of course, but that give a real world example.
    We have 8 front end web servers load balancing about 15 sites, with dozens and dozens of supporting servers.
    A shared hosting server, with many hundreds of sites.
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  22. #22
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    Well, yeah, of course...but bow does that relate to OPs question about running some personal sites over DSL?
    Sorry, not making a connection. He's not starting a new Hostgator, he just wanted to do some small personal hosting, which is what the discussion is about. I don't think hundreds is in his equation.
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  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by mugo View Post
    Well, yeah, of course...but bow does that relate to OPs question about running some personal sites over DSL?
    Sorry, not making a connection. He's not starting a new Hostgator, he just wanted to do some small personal hosting, which is what the discussion is about. I don't think hundreds is in his equation.
    Unless I'm missing something, the OP asked for our thoughts on the idea.

    I was merely trying to put some perspective on it, and the point I tried to make was that bandwidth shouldn't be an issue overall for a few small sites.

    I feel like you are disagreeing with me, when I'm agreeing with you.
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  24. #24
    I am hosting my personal website on such home server (on adsl with dynamic ip). Every time when I recconect IP changes and it is updated by perl script in dns. I use Every DNS to host my domain for free. You can see how it is working by checking my personal blog (it is just one of subdomains on my home server).

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by HostSentry View Post
    Unless I'm missing something, the OP asked for our thoughts on the idea.

    I was merely trying to put some perspective on it, and the point I tried to make was that bandwidth shouldn't be an issue overall for a few small sites.

    I feel like you are disagreeing with me, when I'm agreeing with you.
    You are correct, I missred you, I'm just used to folks knocking it so hard, guess my (tired) mind read it that way... After some sleep, I see what you are saying.
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