I’m looking at setting up my own website, both for the experience and to allow hosting of some files for a game I’m making. What I’d like is to register a domain, probably (myrealname).com and/or .ca, both of which are available, set up a wiki on it, and host a few(reasonably large) files. Thing is, I have a computer that stays on 24⁄7, and I’m generally competent with computers, so I suspect I can probably get by without paying for hosting, which appeals to me.
Can anyone link me to guides on how to do this? My Googling is turning up shockingly little, just “Pay someone for hosting!”. I’ve registered domains before, but never done any hosting.
What’s your ISP’s upload speed and stated policy towards home servers? A lot of ISPs prohibit servers for residential customers, though actual enforcement is rare.
Are you sure you’re up to the task of handling security for your home server that will be exposed to the ’net?
What’s your ISP’s upload speed and stated policy towards home servers? A lot of ISPs prohibit servers for residential customers, though actual enforcement is rare.
You’re right, it’s prohibited. That doesn’t concern me too much.
Are you sure you’re up to the task of handling security for your home server that will be exposed to the ’net?
Frankly, no, I’m not sure at all. Good point :/
Follow-up question: What sort of domain/hosting sites can give me, say, a gig of storage and a few gigs a month of bandwidth for a low price?
You can run a small server on EC2 for free for a year. After that there will be cheaper options, but not necessarily cheaper enough for you to care. http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/
You’ll need to configure and run a web server on your computer. The most commonly used, publicly documented, free and accessible to people just trying stuff out is LAMP). You’ll then need to point your domain at the IP address of your server.
Thing is, I have a computer that stays on 24⁄7
What kind of hardware are we talking about? How much traffic are you looking at supporting? What kind of internet connection do you have at home? Are you familiar with the concept of mathematical multiplication?
Regular home PC, fairly dated at this point. Not much traffic is intended, though—it’ll have a fairly quiet home page for my job(I’m not allowed to have more, for tedious reasons of legal compliance in advertising), and a hidden wiki that’ll be seen by maybe a dozen friends. It’s a toy site, not anything serious.
Re mathematical multiplication, I assume you don’t mean 3x4=12. Is this some sort of traffic collision issue?
Re mathematical multiplication, I assume you don’t mean 3x4=12.
As it happens, I do. Depending on what you’re planning on hosting, even trying to serve “a few reasonably large files” may be unreasonably slow on a home internet connection. Divide your upload speed by the number of concurrent users you expect—that’s the theoretically maximal download speeed they can expect from your site.
Ah, fair. I have 10 Mbps nominal upload, and the files in question are a few hundred megs(so too big to pass around by things like email, but not large by the standards of the modern world). I’m not terribly worried about upload speed, if it takes five minutes.
Acquiring hosting is straightforward. Pick a company with a good reputation, a reasonable price, and all the features you need, sign up, and pay. (I can’t be of much help here, as I’ve used the same hosting company since 2004 or so, and I’m not sure if I could get a better deal elsewhere.)
The remainder is more specific, and that might be why you are having trouble finding tuturials. E.g., uploading and setting up a wiki could mean you read tutorials on SSH or FTP, tutorials on file permissions, and/or tutorials on the wiki-specific details of setting up a wiki. All of this depends on your experience level. When I started out, I knew none of this, and I basically figured it out as I went along.
Start by paying someone for hosting. That’s enough to learn about. Maybe start by paying Amazon nothing for a year of EC2 hosting. Once you understand how to host a website, you can migrate it to your home computer, where you will run into additional difficulties, like installing a base webserver and automatically updating your DNS. But probably you should stick with paid hosting. For static files, Amazon S3 is extremely cheap. For a full-fledged webserver to install your wiki, Nearly Free Speech will do, and is probably cheaper than Amazon, especially at your usage level.
I’m looking at setting up my own website, both for the experience and to allow hosting of some files for a game I’m making. What I’d like is to register a domain, probably (myrealname).com and/or .ca, both of which are available, set up a wiki on it, and host a few(reasonably large) files. Thing is, I have a computer that stays on 24⁄7, and I’m generally competent with computers, so I suspect I can probably get by without paying for hosting, which appeals to me.
Can anyone link me to guides on how to do this? My Googling is turning up shockingly little, just “Pay someone for hosting!”. I’ve registered domains before, but never done any hosting.
The two relevant questions here are:
What’s your ISP’s upload speed and stated policy towards home servers? A lot of ISPs prohibit servers for residential customers, though actual enforcement is rare.
Are you sure you’re up to the task of handling security for your home server that will be exposed to the ’net?
You’re right, it’s prohibited. That doesn’t concern me too much.
Frankly, no, I’m not sure at all. Good point :/
Follow-up question: What sort of domain/hosting sites can give me, say, a gig of storage and a few gigs a month of bandwidth for a low price?
You can run a small server on EC2 for free for a year. After that there will be cheaper options, but not necessarily cheaper enough for you to care. http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/
You’ll need to configure and run a web server on your computer. The most commonly used, publicly documented, free and accessible to people just trying stuff out is LAMP). You’ll then need to point your domain at the IP address of your server.
What kind of hardware are we talking about? How much traffic are you looking at supporting? What kind of internet connection do you have at home? Are you familiar with the concept of mathematical multiplication?
Regular home PC, fairly dated at this point. Not much traffic is intended, though—it’ll have a fairly quiet home page for my job(I’m not allowed to have more, for tedious reasons of legal compliance in advertising), and a hidden wiki that’ll be seen by maybe a dozen friends. It’s a toy site, not anything serious.
Re mathematical multiplication, I assume you don’t mean 3x4=12. Is this some sort of traffic collision issue?
As it happens, I do. Depending on what you’re planning on hosting, even trying to serve “a few reasonably large files” may be unreasonably slow on a home internet connection. Divide your upload speed by the number of concurrent users you expect—that’s the theoretically maximal download speeed they can expect from your site.
Ah, fair. I have 10 Mbps nominal upload, and the files in question are a few hundred megs(so too big to pass around by things like email, but not large by the standards of the modern world). I’m not terribly worried about upload speed, if it takes five minutes.
Acquiring hosting is straightforward. Pick a company with a good reputation, a reasonable price, and all the features you need, sign up, and pay. (I can’t be of much help here, as I’ve used the same hosting company since 2004 or so, and I’m not sure if I could get a better deal elsewhere.)
The remainder is more specific, and that might be why you are having trouble finding tuturials. E.g., uploading and setting up a wiki could mean you read tutorials on SSH or FTP, tutorials on file permissions, and/or tutorials on the wiki-specific details of setting up a wiki. All of this depends on your experience level. When I started out, I knew none of this, and I basically figured it out as I went along.
Start by paying someone for hosting. That’s enough to learn about. Maybe start by paying Amazon nothing for a year of EC2 hosting. Once you understand how to host a website, you can migrate it to your home computer, where you will run into additional difficulties, like installing a base webserver and automatically updating your DNS. But probably you should stick with paid hosting. For static files, Amazon S3 is extremely cheap. For a full-fledged webserver to install your wiki, Nearly Free Speech will do, and is probably cheaper than Amazon, especially at your usage level.
Why exactly would you like to avoid paying someone for hosting? It seems like a good candidate for a service to be outsourced.
I enjoy developing skills in assorted fields, and my finances are tighter than I’d like at the moment.