Another Newbie
 

Hi everyone. I have never had Linux before but now that I do I want to know everything about it. I plan on attempting to set up Apache and PHP later this week. I have been doing tons of reading about it and I think I'm just about ready. I am still a bit confused about the domain name and the dns server? I can't get a straight answer whether I can make my own domain name or not and if I do then I have to have it on two different servers? I think at that point in the reading my head started to spin.:confused: I'm running red hat 9

you can make your own domain name (however if you want that domain name accessible from the internet then you will need to request / register the name to the tune of about $17 a year (I think).) But if this is a private little home network you can create domains to your hearts content.

hope that helps,
jpbarto

Ok, so now I understand that. That has to do with interNIC and ICANN then. I thought I understood what was going on there. How about just setting up the server for now using my ip address. I have several PCs behind a linksys router and I have set the server as the DMZ and forwarded port 80 to the interal ip. Now I think that I have to change something in the server so that it casts out on the net. Is this correct?

I'm not sure if this matters but I am on a cable connection and my IP address changes every few months. I figure that I can just change the settings in the server when the IP changes. I am going to be moving the domain name over after I feel like I really have the hang of things. I already have a domain name from godaddy and have it hosted on hugehost but I would later prefer to host the site and domain name myself.

very sorry but I'm not sure I know the answer to this one. Could it just be enough if you tell the client PCs to use the router as the gateway (I'm not completely familiar with what affect the DMZ server has on routing tables etc).

the only problem I could see with the IP changing every 30-60 days again is if you have an internet accessible website. If you register your domain name say mysite.myweb.org then that url will of course get mapped to a specific IP. If that your assigned IP changes then that domain name will no longer point to your webserver.

sorry if I'm getting the problem / question confused.