Sandbox

Part 1

Hi all, I thought I would write a tutorial on how to host a website from home, thus eliminating the costs of domain name and hosting fees. This is from my experience, so please feel free to add any comments/ideas to improve apon this tutorial.

As we know, the amount of web sites and pages grow on the web at considerable speeds. Every one wants a site/page, and so they should! the web is an easy way to get ones points,ideas and anything that one would like to share with the world out in the open. The costs of doing such an expression of ones self can, at times going through the wrong channels, be very expensive. There is the yearly cost of a domain name, hosting server and page development. Hopefully this tutorial will chang all that. My goal is to let others know of a different option.

Hosting from home.

When hosting from home, the costs are kept to a fraction of what they would be otherwise. With the help of Joomla!, this has become easy and relitivly enexpensive. All one needs is a good internet connection, wether that be 2 - 8 mb broadband or a T1-T3 connection (the faster the mb a second, the better performance the site will have). Alot of people believe that an expensive server is needed to run a webserver, this is not accurate. For hosting at home, usually the best servers are the old computers that you upgraded form because the were so slow. If you haven't gotten rid of that dinosuar, then your in luck. It still has a use! Not just as a  webserver, but an extra firewall as well.
Ok, well enough rambling about the uses of old comps and on to the tutorial right? Right!

What will be needed is:

server software (apache, wamp5, ect.) I use wamp5 for now and can be downloaded here http://www.en.wampserver.com/

your old computer, or one picked up for a reasonable price

latest stable Joomla! or Mambo cms

An account with Dydns http://www.dyndns.com/ (It's free to create an account and is used for redirecting requests from the net to your ip address. You can set up a free domain name like 'yoursite.gotdns.com' and save on the domain name fees.)

operating system (from my experience windows xp series, although one can go with the option of instlling server os or linux. For now we'll use the easy way with xp and wamp5)

A good internet connection (unfortunantly those with dial up will not be able to host from home due to the nature that the webserver must run constantly or your site will be down, and the connection speed 56k is not sufficent for the workload a site requires.)

mailserver software (for the time being this is needed to connect to an smtp mailserver. Not always though, when you have a mailserver on your computer you are bypassing the isp mailserver and will normally be sending straight from your computer to the smtp server to whom you are sending the mail to) I would suggest Postcast server pro for this. It is easy to use and can be configured to only send and not recieve mails. the added security fuction of this program will also limit access to the mailserver so as to keep unwanted mail spamers from turning your server to a spam airport. You can find Postcast here. http://www.postcastserver.com/

(I am currently looking for a way to use the phpmailer and or smtp mailer in php to do this with out the need for an additional mail server. I will post my findings when I have them)

Ok, now to the installation.

With xp on our old machine, install wamp5 and follow the directions. When it asks what is to be the root directory, just click on next (the defalt www root is the best config to use).
You will then be prompted to locate your browsers .exe (this is generally in the programs folder under local disk. the path would be C:\program files\"your browser". I would suggest using firefox as your main browser, explorer is not very good at handling webpages. got to firefox.com to download this if you do not already have it. The pathway for the firefox .exe should be C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox.)
After selecting your browsers .exe click on next to finish the config setup.
Ok, now you have the webserver installed on you computer.

Next would be the Joomla!/mambo installation to the server.

if you did not opt the server to start after the installation was complete, then go to your start menue and look for the wamp server folder in all programs. start it up and we're ready to go!

Unzip the joomla/mambo stable release (if you use winRAR, right click on the release and click on extract files. A window will pop up asking where to extract to. click on local disk, your C: disk, and then on the wamp folder. In the wamp folder you will see your www folder. Click on it and click ok. Click on yes to overwrite all. Now the files are extracted to the www folder.) and place the files in your www folder. To get to the www folder click on the icon for the wampserver in the taskbar at the right and select www directory. Click on yes to overwrite all. Now your files are set.

In the taskbar to the right, click on the wamp5 server icon and select the localhost option. Your browser will now popup with the joomla/mambo install screen. Don't install just yet though, we need to still set up the database and user/s in phpmyadmin.

In your firefox browser go to file and select new tab. Make shure you have the new tab selected by clicking on the tab when it shows up in the browser. Now go back to the taskbar icon of wamp5, click on it and selact phpmyadmin.

This part is relativly easy.... Although spelling is not! 

In the Create new database section at the top enter the name of the data base you want to create and click create. You will be given a window that says database created. at the top you will see Server: localhost, click on that to return to the original page you started from. Now click on  Privileges and you will get the user window. Click on add a new user to do what it says.

*Now this is important, Follow the exact instructions*
Enter your user name
under host select localhost
enter a password
retype password

next to Global privileges, select check all then go to the button go at the bottom right of the screen and click it.

Ok, with me so for?

Go to your tab with the joomla/mambo installation page on it and follow the instructions. When you get to the page asking for input, the top line will be Localhost, Then your user name (exactly how you entered it on the phpmyadmin page), your user password (same as the phpmyadminpage) and then the name you have chosen for your data base. Click on next to get the window for the name of your site. Enter it into the box then click on next. This window shows you your configuration. enter your email address and CHANGE THE ADMIN PASSWORD! Change the password to something you'll remember. click on next and your almost done. When it talks about the installation folder go to your www directory and change the name of the installation folder to just that, Installation folder. (we have done this instead of deleting it because if something ever went wrong, we could use the installation folder again to repair it). Go back to your browser window talking about the installation folder and click on view my site.
TA DA!
you have a working site now! Yeah! 

Go to part 2

Part 2 is coming in a day or so, in this part we will be configuring the server to host locally using dydns to reroute site inqueries to you server.

Kayrin

Good stuff Kayrin

Just to add...
One of the problems is if a home user has a dynamic IP connection they will have some problems using a domain and email services...

The way to solve this is to use a Dynamic DNS servis such as EasyDNS to set where their domain is each time the IP changes.
to solve the email issues (most ISPs now block emai from dynamic IP servers) you can use your ISP to relay through an email account they do accept.

windows xp as an online webserver?
a nice idea but not a good suggestion.

i personally think that using linux would be a better choice, because:
- linux has a better resource management than windows.
- linux has less hardware requirement than windows.
- we can opt in linux to have only runlevel 3 (without gui) rather that loading all
  the unneeded services like windows xp would do.

Yes Eddy I agree a Linux server is better for many reasons but the sad truth is you have to really know what the hell your doing and know the nuts and bolts of the internet to get one set up properly...

Rarely is there a GUI that you can control and a large part of the proccess is finding the appropriate conf files, loading them in a text editor, changing settings, restarting the service and then hope it did the trick!

With a Windows enviornment you simply open up IIS Manager and change settings...

Add to that is the fact that it's not just apache you have to set up it is also your email service if you want your site to send emails for activation and other things...

It can be a daunting task in a Linux environment if you have never done it before...

So I understand why some people would choose a windows system to start off with...

If anyone wants to try the better Linux system I suggest they go and get a copy of Suse Linux 9.3 or above since it's YAST control panel gives the newbie some form of GUI to help get their server set up properly.

You won't regret the decision and will find you have many more features at your fingertips when you do use this...
I not only have FTP, Web and Email running I also have a fully functional IRC Chat service running that I can use on my site...
So much better than all those klunky PHP and Flash chats people use to try and fake an IRC chat!

Kayrin - what you have done is so important because you lay a roadmap for ANYONE to participate. EXCELLENT work. Amongst the best. Props! Amy

Thanks for your replies.

Asphyx, you are correct. I thought I mentioned about dydns, but after reading my posting again i see i forgot to mention it. For those that do not know, dydns is free to create an account and has a download for automatically updating the dynamic ip address strate from your computer. Still working on part 2 where I will go over how to configure Joomla and wamp to host a local site along with how to bypass the blocked ports that an isp might have. (Most believe that port 80 is for internet, but any port will do so long as your comp is not already using it.)

As for linux, this is another valid point. Most people use a windows platform though so I thought I would statr with a windows tutorial. The next one will be a linux tutoril.

Sorry about the delay with part 2, I've been working really hard lately and just had a car crash yesterday. The only thing that was hurt was my car (and my pride) so priorities come first.

Thanks again for all the replies.

Kayrin

regarding dynamic i.p.'s you may also check DUHC from no-ip dot com.
they have a free service for this.

but as mentioned i dont consider hosting an apache server/web werver in a windo*s box.

however this will practically work with less traffic web servers.

- g

G - LOTS of us use windows boxes. Can we still be friends? If not, I'll try to learn linux. lol! Amy

AmyStephen wrote:G - LOTS of us use windows boxes. Can we still be friends? If not, I'll try to learn linux. lol! Amy

lolz. of course!
what im trying to say in the previous post is that this gives a quikie solution to those which doesnt have a linux box. but not a good one to setup to host larger or sites with great traffic. since its very obvious that hosting in win xp will eat a lot of hardware resources while even accomodating small amount of traffic compared to a linux box.

so bottom line:

this solution is still good as a quickie solution specially to those without a linux box.
but on larger scale, not a good one.

so really depends on the needs or the requirements of each user.

- g

Got it! Thank goodness!

I kind of looked at this post differently, I think. I looked at these instructions as being a great way for people to GET STARTED with Joomla. I was even picturing the profile of these end-users as young college kids or first time web-wanna-be's. 

What I liked about this so much is that it removes barriers. Perhaps someone doesn't have money for monthly website hosting or they don't have access to web services they can use. Well, this post still provides them a getting started approach.

If their site really gets rolling, a second more permanent step might be possible later.

Hosting from home is not a good permanent solution - windows - linux - whatever. But, it will get some people into the game -- that's what I really like about it.

Thanks!
Amy

well in my opinion, hosting from home is an excellent way to have a web presence. With the correct software/virus protection/firewalls hosting from home can be ideal for any site, large or small. The only factors are internet speed and, for the larger sites, good hardware (good hardware in terms of large hd, excellent fans for air circulation and a good fast networking card). Alot of people have their site hosted because they do not want the hassel of updating and maintaining the site. If your willing to take the time to patch security holes as they come out and insure all is running smoothly, then this is the cheapest most efficient way to host your site. I would recomend that with the bigger sites, an internet speed of 5-8 mb is ideal if not more. One has to bear in mind that when hosting from home, with more then one computer on the same connection, the total speed is reduced considerably. Also, when ya really want to host a site it would be preferable to have two computers. One for personal use, and one for the site. In doing this, you protect your personal info on one computer that is firewalled while the other is hosting the site. With the correct setup, you can literally protect your personal pc behind three firewalls; The router, hosting pc and the firewall on your personal pc. Talk about security! *Note* Wouldn't advise using the same firewall for the two pcs. If one fails due to a security hole, the other will fall due to the same attack.

One thing that should be mentioned, most ISPs do not allow this sort of practice.  Read the terms of service for your ISP very carefully before you do this.