Dedicated web servers

Are you interested in building a web server but don't know exactly how to do it? I stumbled across this website a while ago: http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/news/how-to-setup-a-dedicated-web-... All you need is an unused PC and an ISO burner and you can build your own web server. The only problems I had was setting up Dynamic DNS in which I put my local IP address instead of my external IP address. :\ But, if you want to get a big free website, you can load the Ubuntu Server software and follow the steps on the site and you get free Apache, PHP, and MySQL support. Not too shabby.

Tags: linux, server, ubuntu, web

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Permalink Reply by Maxime J on July 4, 2009 at 6:53pm: Or you just pay 50$ a year* and you don't have to deal with
- software patches/updates/upgrades,
- ISPs not allowing you to serve on port 80 (among others), and speed and bandwidth issues,
- backups,
- hardware fails,
- access security (both logical and physical),
- etc.

I had my own server and that was pretty cool. You just have to know what you're getting into. Much more job and money involved. But that's fun; you just can't take that time for developing content.

Talking about this, I'd personally suggest CentOS as a server OS. I've tried lots of distributions and that was my final choice. It's simple, it's derived from Red Hat (very directly in fact), and it doesn't have a too fast release cycle like many do. More oriented toward "lets use what proved itself good and stable." Oh, and big plus for CentOS: VERY easy RAID1 configuration... That was great, had 2 HD in RAID1 and 1 HD in standby, and it was "hotswappable" if I remember well.

So... anyway.. a lot of fun doing it and a great experience, but turned out it wasn't worth the effort, time, money... And had that stupid ISP I'd have to pay 5 times the price of the shared host to be able to serve from them.

MJ

* OK, that's not for a dedicated server, but who makes his own little PC server at home and really needs a dedicated server? When your site has enough traffic for needing a dedicated server, there are good chances you will be able to afford a good one.; ▶ Reply to This