Neverside

Wish to run my own Webserver

Hey guys/girls how you all doing. I've been on a webhost for a year and a couple of months now and I feel like I want to run a server now not just for me but for my friends and for some clients that wishes to sign up as well. I was told that I should look into Windows Server 2003 if Im going to have hundreds of clients but if its just for a couple of clients then Windows XP will do. For anyone that is experienced with Windows Server 2003, is it easy to setup a server and get to work? Im about to buy a book as soon as I get a new job but for anyone that knows about running a server can anyone provide any suggestions and advice. It would be highly appreciated. I mean besides having a really good and stable computer with a UPS power system.

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RoB

It is fairly easy. If you have a static IP address, try setting up your own DNS using BIND for Windows. If you are working with a dynamic IP address, try using a DDNS service such as dyndns.com.

Overall, I would use Linux over Windows if you're gonna be hosting sites for other people. Linux isnt effected as much by virus' like Windows is. Getting a virus in your clients accounts will them with the impression you are unreliable and a different host would be better suited.

Try googling for more answers, seeing as thats how I learned my first time setting up a web server.

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Yeah but which one is easier to use, maintain and configure? Linux or Windows Server 2003? I want to choose the one that is really easy to setup and use.

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RoB

Originally posted by mcrob:

Yeah but which one is easier to use, maintain and configure? Linux or Windows Server 2003? I want to choose the one that is really easy to setup and use.

Windows. But once again, Windows is more vulnerable to virus's.

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Not just virii...windows is less stable over all. Linux will be faster if you don't use a shell, if you're running a server you want to reduce as much overhead as possible. Once you learn apache (incredibly easy to use) you'll wonder why you bothered with the multiple-menu and million click user-unfriendly windows in the first place. Sure, you can use windows if you don't have the time to learn how to use linux (and I'm not trying to be elitist here or anything)...really, if you're not doing that much with it and uptime isn't as critical (if you don't care that your website might go down every once in a while, and you don't have clients to keep happy)...windows would be okay.

Anything more than that though...it's worth taking the time to learn how to use apache in linux. As for flavors, I would avoid redhat and go to SuSe, unless you know someone with access to redhat's more robust enterprise iterations.

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Plus i's freeee. I recommend u run apache because it's meant to be on of the best. Our fellow PHP programmers use it to develop php scripts. Bind and apache are fairly easy to configure under linux. I am curious if u setup your own dns how do other dns servers know it exists. I thought if a dns server doesn't find an entry for a domain then it forwards it to another. U cant exactly tell your vistors to enter your ip address into their dns configuration files so the domain propagates.

Last edited by schoi, September 24th, 2005 12:10 AM (Edited 1 times)

linux is really easy to use as a webserver if you get the right distro.

i downloaded redHat9 in 6th grade and, not knowing what the heck i was doing, managed to configure apache to work just fine. of course, i still don't know crap about virtual server stuff like you'd want, but at least i can say i have a webserver running apache in my closet.

from my experiance, windows XP is really sucky for IIS, and server '03 costs a bundle. take the time to learn Linux, and you'll be happy you did.

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Yeah I wanna learn how to run a webserver so badly. In my opinion I think its better to run a server than to use a webhosting company. To me its more rewarding if you can host people and make money.

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RoB

http://www.linuxquestions.org may be of some interest because tjey specialise in linux.

I don't recommend hosting yourself for anything. It won't be anything remotely close to as good as it will be on a web host that has lots of experience. Setting up a server for development is alright, but when you are hosting a website let the experts handle the hosting.