Would it? I was told that bots search numbers to find insecure sites on the web to attack. I don't want this happening to my web server, since I'm still an apache/php newbie.

If so, how would it be, and why?

And one last question: I know you can easily get the IP to a domain name by simply using ping,(or maybe even `whois`) but I don't know if there is a good reason NOT to give my IP to others, to try something out at my web server/site.

Thanks in advance!

Since ip address is fairly easy to get from a domain name (there is probably more programs that can do it than I can count), I don't that has anything to do with being secure. After all a domain name is just a set of letters that are "aliased" to an ip address so it's easier for a user to type linuxquestions.org to their browsers -- and rememer -- than always type an ip address. People usually like to use names instead of long series of numbers. And one aspect of domain names is what the name tells to a person: if one wants to find information about, say, Linux, the person is more probable to try out http://www.linux.org (or .org or .com or something), than just guess something like http://83.38.72.27. I really doubt if it has got anything to do with security, having or not having a domain name, since if somebody would like to write a bot that searched specific kind of machines from the web, it would create no problems getting the ip address from the domainname -- and after all, ip address is just an address of a machine on the net, it doesn't reveal any information about the machine being secure or not.

Thanks b0uncer, I was just making sure if there was anything I sould be aware before giving out my IP address. Since I have not paid for a domain yet.

There's nothing insecure about having, or not having a domain name. Bots will find you if you are connected to the Internet in any way.

What you need to be worried about is your PHP code. PHP exploits were 43% of the security vulnerabilities last year, most of it from very basic mistakes in handling input in PHP pages. Do your home work on secure PHP coding practices or you will surely regret it.

Will do. :X Thanks again!