One of the things I’ve enjoyed with the introduction of broadband in many households is the ability to host web services from your own home. While this isn’t a new topic, by any means, not one I hear talked about too often. I’ve written a tutorial for OS X users who would like to set up a web (http) server running in their home, and many of the principles can be extended to other operating systems and services (mail, database, etc.)
worms, virii, electricity costs, excess heat from your box running 24×7…there are so many reasons not to serve content from under your desk.
let someone else manage a persistent connection, hardware maintainence etc.
I disagree. I’m hosting a family website from my iMac sitting next to me. I have full control over the server and it’s super quiet. When the monitor’s shut down (99% of the time) I’d guess it’s a very low power draw.
I think OS X is a very capable home web server. With a Netgear router and DynDNS it’s a great system.
Why??
Why should I spend money for a simple website for home?
I am going to have multiple computers anyway. They are going to run all the time anyway. For a business, if it’s only a small website then you are fine running it locally, if you start adding SQL queries and such then go to a provider, if anything for the bandwidth.
My iMac is left on for years at a time and it doesn’t have a single fan in it and I even put a bigger and hotter hard drive in it.
I run web servers on my macs for personal use. 2 different macs on 2 different networks. I don’t have a domain name I just use my 2 static IP addresses to get access. When eve I type in the address or give someone the ip address it automaticaly changes the IP address into the machine name. IE it will change 1.1.1.1 into dualg4.local . This happens everytime from anywhere I try to access it. I will have to highlight dualg4.local change it back to the ip and press return and it works. Any ideas?
Aren’t there ISPs that don’t allow you to host from your connection? Has anyone been bitten by such a contract?
I thought being disallowed to host anything was the norm.
tick the darn box.
what is so hard about that?
I have worked at numerous ISPs (Cable, DSL, and even dialup), and it is absolutely the norm to block many of the ports essential to folks wanting to run services of any sort. 80 and 8080 outbound is nearly a certainty, and with the advent of more modern viruses, instead of authentication, most ISPs are simply blocking *all* inbound 25 traffic and outbound 110 traffic as well. Furthermore, as far as 25 goes, most ISPs now block all outgoing traffic except that using their own servers, and to use those servers you must be attached to their network. Also classically blocked are 120-135, both directions to avoid issues with netsend, etc. Of course, port mapping can work around nearly all of these issues, but this requires that your intended audience knows this, as well as how to deal with this.
That should have been 120-139.
But, the best thing you can do if you want a 24h web server is either that old P1 with linux/freebsd, or a mini-itx computer (fanless and only 60W of power consumption)
how about using a service like DynDNS? you can get a free sudo web address (bosglob.webhop.net) and it can even mask the location of the page.
easier to remember than the IP numbers.
I use my free webspace that my ISP give me, then I use a free service like webhop on DynDNS who routs all connections to the domain name they give me to my webspace.
I’ve been running a web server on my 400Mhz G4 for several months now. I have a free domain name from no-ip.com, and am running php and a mysql database to host a forum. It took barely any time at all to set up, and now that I know how to do it, I wouldn’t do it any other way! If you have other computers on your home network and want to access your site by using the domain name instead of the ip address, simply edit your hosts file to include the new domain….
ok article, but if you’re really serving a small website you can get hosting service and a domain name and 5 pop3 email accounts for under $20 a year. You’ve got to be using more than that in just electricity.
The reason that you don’t hear more about doing such a thing is because >90% of the ISPs explicitly prohibit it. Generally, they are permissive and leave the common ports open, but do some level of traffic monitoring and if they are looking to knock down some traffic, they start calling the highest bandwidth users, point out that they are violating their contract, and shut them down. Comcast and Verizon being the biggest culprits.
For many people, it’s also just not worth it. Hosting is pretty cheap and doesn’t go down when a squirrel bridges the transformer on the pole at the street (vaporizing squirrels make a big “BOOM!” like a cannon shot, incidentally). Many people can operate just fine in 10-20M of static content provided by their ISP.
Personally, I do run a home-based site, but I’m tempted to move to a hosting company and spring a few bucks — more outbound bandwidth, and less electricity usage.
One of the reasons to do this is just for the fun of it. It’s a form of hacking. There are whole websites dedicated to showing you how to host your own site at home. My favorite is http://www.diywebserver.com (no affiliation with them); http://www.dslwebserver is another one. The guy who runs DIY Webserver actually does small scale commercial hosting from home.
I don’t do commercial hosting, but I do run about a dozen sites connected to my business from home on a Mac. I use Panther Server rather than vanilla OS X because it makes managing domains, etc. and integrating the mail server easier; I have a single static IP and just use NAT with an Airport Extreme Base Station. But, there’s absolutely no reason you can’t use a basic Mac do to this, especially if you’re just running a single site using the built-in Apache.
Apart from being fun, the advantage for me is that I save about $200 per month in hosting charges if I ran a dozen domains on a commercial ISP. I pay a flat $50 per month for my DSL line. Hosting my sites in-house gives me a lot of flexibility in managing them.
“Comcast and Verizon being the biggest culprits. ”
Not if you have a contract that states you are only allowed X amount of traffic a month. If you go over that you have breached the contract.
To put it another way. If you were the company “granting” traffic at X dollars a month for X amount a traffic a month, I bet you would let people know that went over their limit on a continual basis and either charge them more or shut them down.
Culprits? I don’t think so.
As for electicity. If you computer is going to be on all the time anyway. Like mine. It doesn’t use up anymore power anyway. There are also many ways to produce your own electricity. Personal windmills, etc., which is out of scope of this topic.
The issue I would be worried about is if my computer died due to CPU or hard drive failure. What backup do you have? Both on media and a backup machine?
I have Apache/PHP/MySQL running on Mac OS X, plus IMAP-SSL via Postfix, SquirrelMail, SpamAssassin 3.0, Nessus, QuickTime Streaming Server, CUPS, and filesharing via afpovertcp and samba. It wasn’t very difficult cause Apache, PHP, postfix, CUPS, and the filesharing stuff was already built-in. I admin the whole thing via built-in SSH, sometimes using VNC or Webmin. The built-in IPFW helps keep out curious folk while tcpwrappers keep out the rest. I’m not worried while it sits in the router’s DMZ; it can fend for itself as long as I keep the services patched. By the way, this is running on a 1996 PowerComputing PowerTower Pro, cpu upgraded via XLR8 Mach ZIF Carrier, Mac OS X Panther hacked onto it via XPostFacto. Works like a champ!
i’m lucky enough to live in sweden where broadband is relatively cheap and widely available. I host my sites from home too,works fine from what i can see and if theres ever a problem, i don’t need to pay 50$ to some dude to reinstall a service or whatever, no no, i just go under the stairs and take control or ssh in and see whats up.
That i like, direct control.
oh and yes, i have been offered hosting for free too for my domain, but i’m wary of it for the very reason that i want direct control (touch, feel, see) of my servers.
cheers
anyweb
http://www.linux-noob.com
oops, if this is MAC only then i don’t count, i don’t use them at all, sorry.
cheers
anyweb
I think it’s a great idea. It lends itself to so many possible uses, including:
a) Television Broadcasting from your home
b) Radio Broadcasting from your home
c) Webpage Publishing from your home
d) Business interaction from your home
Perhaps, in the future, domains or internet addresses will somehow be tied to snail-mail addresses, which hardly ever change. Who knows how it’ll form exactly; but a lot of people are interested in these things. I don’t think it will replace other things, just add another option.
–EyeAm
http://s87767106.onlinehome.us/mes/NovioSite/index.html
even if it’s not specifically disallowed, you can easily be caught out by bandwidth caps. Upstream bandwidth is typically capped way lower than downstream, as ISPs assume asymmetric usage (much more downstream than upstream) and provision correspondingly little upstream bandwidth for home users. Consequently, most ISPs will jump all over your rear end if you have more than a couple of gigs of upstream traffic monthly in total.
don’t people leave their computers on all the time anyway? i know i leave my laptop on all the time, it’s just handier.
Even if i don’t have a Mac, i still admire home hosting. It’s a form of freedom, so that i’m free to use whatever services i want (db, web, ftp, samba …) , i don’t have to pay anyone (excluding electricity) and i’ve the power of the administrator in my hands 🙂 .
I’m hosting a web / ftp / sql / samba / cvs / whatever on a small linux server linked to the net via DynDns and monitored by a couple of scripts to check temps and voltages (just in case…) and I don’t have (for the moment) problems neither with my isp (an italian one) which leaves all ports open to me, nor with the upstream bandwidth (it’s difficult for a home site to reach high-level usage). Good hacking to everyone!