This is not so hard to do given your described scenario. You need to
consider a few things when you start hosting websites.
First of all is the web serving software. Windows XP professional
should come with a program called Microsoft Internet Information
Services (IIS). It may not be installed by default however. This
software provides the ability for you to run a web server and an ftp
server on your computer. It is high powered, but it is somewhat
difficult to set up and use. If you want to choose this route, I
recommend reading microsoft's IIS webpage getting started guide [
http://www.labmice.net/BackOffice/IIS5/start.htm ]
Because the complexity of IIS can be hard to get over, I would
recommend the Sambar server [ http://www.sambar.com ]. I have
personally used this web server program for several years and have had
no problems with it. Setup is straightforward and easy to do. If you
find this program unsatisfactory, download.com has a number of
freeware and shareware web and ftp server products available for
download [ http://download.com.com/3150-2165-0.html?tag=stbc.gp ].
To set up a web server, you would have to use its control panel to set
up virtual hosts for your system. This basically says "if someone
connected to the server from this domain name, send them to this file
on the hard drive as the default documents directory". Also, you would
want to setup user names and passwords for ftp access for each user
that needs to update the web pages. All of this is very easy with the
free sambar server. The basics of setting up the sambar server are
well covered in the "installation" link on the documentation page for
sambar server [ http://www.sambar.com/syshelp/index.htm ].
The next important thing to consider is your internet connection. A
dsl line should be sufficient for the amount of traffic you seem to
expect, but there are a few things you need to keep in mind. Firstly,
some internet service providers have restrictions on the kinds of
servers you can run, and wether you can do so for profit. Some ISP's
actively block you from running web or ftp servers, whereas others
don't even care at all. You should contact your isp or look at your
contract to see what their take is.
The next important thing to consider about your internet connection is
your ip address. Any webserver needs a static, non-changing ip
address. Your isp should be able to provide this for you for a small
additional fee, if they don't do so already. If your ip address is not
"static" but it doesn't seem to change more than once every few
months, you can get away without paying the fee, but if your ip
address changes you will need to update your dns records. A change of
ip address would cause all websites that you are hosting to be
unavailable until at least 1 day after you make the corresponding
change to the dns records.
Which leads me to the third consideration, which is dns. When you
start hosting your own website, you will need to change the dns
records for the websites you are hosting to point to your computer's
ip address. Your current webhost or possibly the domain registrar for
your site's domain names probably provides you with dns services
included in the deal. Therefore, you may need to provide these
services yourself. Although you can run your own dns server this is
very complicated and difficult to learn the intricacies of the DNS
standard.
Therefore I would recommend a service such as Domainmonger [
http://www.domainmonger.com ] to provide dns services for you. I have
found domain monger to be very reliable with excellent customer
service. If you register your domain with them, dns service is free,
or they will provide it for $5 per year per domain. This includes
email forwarding if desired, and includes an easy to use interface,
where you simply enter the ip address of your server and it does
everything else. Some other companies offer this type of service as
well, but I have no personal experience with others that I would
recommend.
Finally, your pc has to be reliable and running a stable operating
system. Obiovusly if people are to access the website, your computer
has to be running 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Windows XP pro
should provide a stable operating system upon which to run a web
server, although windows 2000 is more often used among the windows
platforms when running a webserver. I would not recommend using the
server computer for your day to day computing unless your hosted
websites can withstand a few minutes of downtime per day for the
occasional crash and subsequent reboot that is likely when using the
computer for personal use.
Search terms used:
installing and configuring IIS xp
I hope this fully answers your question. If you feel there is
something I left out, please request a clarification of the answer, as
I will be glad to provide any information you may need to meet your
needs. |
