Home-Server

El Brenty · Post by **El Brenty** » Tue Aug 10, 2004 9:52 am

With technology moving on and passing me by, what's involved these days with turning an old PC into a Web-server?

I've got a broadband link, and a static IP Address. I have 2 domain names from my ISP, and get a pro-rata charge on top of the monthly hosting fee for relative useage.

As I don't seem to get charged any extra for my connection bandwidth, I was wondering if it could be put to use, instead of milking my provider's servers.

I'm getting quite busy with forum hosting, so a web server that could operate with SQL and PHP would be great. I've no idea where to start.

Evan77 · Post by **Evan77** » Tue Aug 10, 2004 2:05 pm

Go download the free abyss web server, http://aprelium.com. Apache is also a popular one http://apache.org. After that, you can install php (http://php.net) and mySQL at http://mysql.com.

El Brenty · Post by **El Brenty** » Tue Aug 10, 2004 4:39 pm

Wow, Evan, thanks, I never realised it was all so simple - And FREE!

I'm somewhat gobsmacked that all this stuff is opensource! These people rule for giving their talent for free!

I'll keep y'all posted on how I get on with the installation.

ssj3gohan · Post by **ssj3gohan** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 7:49 pm

okay people! you're talking to the right man!

I've just set up my own home server, it's an old Pentium 166 Mhz with MMX and 32 MB's of RAM. Setting it up is as easy as it gets:
-use bootdisks of windows 2000 (best for such a computer) to first format the whole hdd, put everything in one NTFS partition and install win2000
-install iis (on win2000 cd)
-set your router (i've got a router) to forward port 80 to the IP address of that computer
-put your homepage in C:/Inetpub/wwwroot/ and you've got yourself a webserver!

IIS supports most popular serverside scripts, but I think (don't know for sure) if it understands java, c and perl. The computer is way fast enough to even serve my www.terrascript.cjb.net faster than the space it is on now. Right now I'm really happy that it works, so I might sound a bit biased

N-e-way, I'm planning on casemodding it so people think it is actually a speed freak pc, but I gotta wait for a friend to come home from vacation before doing that.

Apache should be good too, haven't tried it yet. IIS comes with windows (nt-based windows) and serves me well enough. If you wanna visit my site (none configured yet, just test page) on my homeserver you gotta be lucky, as it is only online a few hours a day, visit it here

Skitz-O-Phrenia · Post by **Skitz-O-Phrenia** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 8:50 pm

you can also use xp pro, it has built in iis like win2k

ssj3gohan · Post by **ssj3gohan** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 8:59 pm

friend of mine told me that iis on win xp pro works like s***, and w2k works like a dream. Can be system-dependent though. On a pentium 1 though, windows 2000 is the best choice, winxp will just take up too much system resources and give you nothing extra in return.

Skitz-O-Phrenia · Post by **Skitz-O-Phrenia** » Wed Aug 11, 2004 9:54 pm

very true, whats the system specs cam?

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 5:43 am

IIS only supports jsp and ASP with VBscript, to run perl, you need to install active perl, and for php, of course the Win version of php... Both are very simple installs... Also on Win2k Pro and XP you are limited to 10 simultaneous connections to the machine....

ssj3gohan · Post by **ssj3gohan** » Thu Aug 12, 2004 8:11 am

so I'll need to upgrade to w2k server to allow >10 simultaneous connections?
didn't know that.

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 3:33 am

Yep, Microsofts way of not allowing us to use workstation editions as a server whether for web sites, print servers, or file servers...... then of course you need to purchase client access license... ahhh yes, the beautiies of Microsoft.....

xbreaka420 · Post by **xbreaka420** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 3:35 am

raptor doesn't the government have some way of controlleing corporate monopolies because microsoft def is one(eating up all its competition)

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Fri Aug 13, 2004 6:13 am

Yeah, but so far they haven't done anything that is monopolistic, at least not legally, and I'm no fan of Microsoft's business practices, but that would be like telling Ford they couldn't restrict the number of seats in a car.... it's their product, they should be able to do with it as they want. And after all, there is is Linux and apache that will do it for free...