jawaking00

[Log in to get rid of this advertisement]

I've been running a small website for about a year now that is hosted on a professional server that I have to pay for. The use of the website has been dwindling for some time and it now mostly used to host photos and share them with family and friends. Also, I use it to store files when I need access to them from multiple locations. I would really like to be able to run a web server in my house and have complete control over it and not have to pay for anything other than a domain name.

The problem is that I don't really know where to start. I have some experience with Appache, SQL and PHP, but most of it was done on a Windows box. Also I have no idea how to actually make my computer visible to the outside world, while at the same time keeping the rest of my computers safe.

If anyone has any suggestions on where to go for information (books to buy, tutorials to read) I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

2damncommon

A dedicated software firewall/router (Smoothwall, IPCop) or a hardware firewall/router will route port 80 requests to your webserver and help with internal security.
Using a service such as No-IP or DynaDNS will allow you to seem to have a static address even if your IP is not.
Getting started with Apache basics is easy. Make sure it is installed and running then create a main index page.

fouldsy

Further to the previous post, there's a couple of good guides under the 'Tutorials' section on this site, plus a well respected site it http://www.linuxhomenetworking.com which gives step-by-step instructions for setting up Apache to be access from outside. Hope you get things going, isn't that hard!