Please talk to me about servers

Davidc316

I have a problem. My webhosts are constantly taking my site offline because it uses up too much bandwidth.

Whilst, I can appreciate that they have to do this to keep a grip on things... bla bla bla, it's a real pain in the neck from my perspective.

Anyway, I've been thinking about the possibility of buying and setting up my own server (and literally having it right here beside me in my bedroom). I've noticed that on Ebay you can buy servers for what seems like fairly reasonable prices. But the trouble is it's very hard to find good info about how to set up and run your own server.

To cut a long story short, I'm not even sure if it can be done AT ALL or is this all pie in the sky.

Can anyone give me some advice?

Thanks

LordShryku

Getting the physical server and getting it setup software-wise is the easy part. The real pain is in the connection. You'll need to have a good connection to run all that bandwidth (sounds like you consume quite a bit) and you'll need to get a name server (can probably be run form the same server). This can all be a fairly expensive venture....

Davidc316

Thanks, but can I just ask... what do you mean when you say.. "need to get a name server". Do you mean, I'll need to get my domain name linked to my IP address?

Can I also ask, in terms of getting a good connection, would a broadband cable connection be good enough, do you think?

PS- I realise that this is probably a mammoth subject I'm tackling here but if I can just get a few general pointers it would be great.

Moonglobe

most cable companies (around here anyway) wont let you run a server off a standard account. you'll probably need to buy a server account with them, which also comes with a fixed IP (two if they're good)

LordShryku

Yeah, you need an internet addressable IP address, and the DNS to run to it.

Now, I don't know if cable will do it for you. For one, most cable internet providers don't allow you to run a web server off this connection. Mine is very strict about this rule, and will kill your internet within minutes of you bringing up the webserver. Also, take in consideration that most hosting companies will use a shared T1/T3 or greater connection to run their servers. Now, if you were eating up too much bandwidth there, you're cable modem would be smoking in no time.

Merve

Rogers wouldn't even let me run Apache! Sympatico was great about it...IIRC, they offer a broadband service. You should check into that, as that might be the kind of connection you want.

Davidc316

That sounds great, but unfortunately I haven't even heard of any of those guys. I live in Scotland.

But, can I just ask... have you any idea how much would you expect to pay for the line rental if you were to get (let's say) a T1 connection?

LordShryku

It's quite a bit. The lowest I've seen out here is 300 USD / month

piersk

David, check your private messages (PMs). I sent you details of a company that provides ADSL and don't mind people running servers.

I didn't want to post it here cos it may be misconstrewed as advertising.

Davidc316

Thanks for that.

Piersk,

I have PM'd you with one or two questions about those guys. I hope you'll take a moment to check out your PMs.

The_Chancer

David - I've sent you another option as well... someone I am using at the moment... look @ PM's.

dalecosp

How hard is it? Not much harder than writing good PHP.

Of course, I'm still not writing good PHP, but I've 3 webservers running about two dozen domains right now (not all are public doms, though...) I use throwaway hardware ... the fastest of the servers on pub domains was a P2 400Mhz until a month ago or so, now I think I've got a 475 Athlon...and the servers do http, smtp, dns, ftp, pop3.

And I find it hard to accept your suggestion that finding info about setting up the box is difficult. The Internet will teach you how it works, but you gotta take the time to look for and read what's out there.

dalecosp

Originally posted by LordShryku
It's quite a bit. The lowest I've seen out here is 300 USD / month

And I wonder if that's really anything like a T1 .... My wife's boss got a "T1" at his home, something like the price you describe. Fast, yeah---but I've not tested it. I did start an ISO download, estimated time was 7 hours. Plus, just one static IP, and some idiotic hardware firewall that sits there with M$ netbios 137-139 open (??!!) No control of the in-addr.arpa zone ... sucks by comparison.

Last company I worked for had a T1, Class C, and some serious bandwidth, reverse DNS, etc. Same fricking NSP, but the cost was $1000/month, and in the end it shut them down out here in the sticks....

Incidentally, davidc, are they saying how much bw you're using? And why don't they just limit the bw instead of "taking it offline". Heck, I use dummynet so that my son in the house can't take my total modem bw at shockwave.com....

Davidc316

Hi,

in answer to that, my bandwidth limits have been set at 1 gig per month. But, that seems to only last me about a week or two. They (the hosts) don't literally take the site down, what happens is that you visit my site and all you get is a white error screen that says something like "this site has exceeded its bandwidth. Try again later".

It's a real drag. I must be the only web guy in the world who sitting at home HOPING that nobody visits my website!

dalecosp

That does reek. I'd do some cost analysis right away. Over here, about 70 bucks/month gets a commercial cable account in the nearest town. AFAIK, no bw limits --- of course, maybe I've just never come close to that kind of transfer ... but then again, I probably have. The two boxes down there back up to each other nightly, that's probably a couple gig or more per day....

Merve

Smaller ISPs generally can give customised small business plans for sites with high bandwiths; check into one of those...I only know the ones for my city, but I'm sure that there are some local ones on your end of the Atlantic Ocean. But be forewarned...stick with a well-known small one (kind of oxymoronic isn't it) because the really non-well-known ones are usually just crap...there's a small well-known one here lots of people use: Storm. Rogers and Sympatico (big ones) are also popular, but Rogers is decreasing in popularity because they're a bunch of corporate b******ds like M$. But those are here in my town, and they don't apply to you, but I hope I gave you an idea.

The_Chancer

Hey ho - I know mine is OK... file sharing shows near enough 1GB per day.... let alone what hits the webserver....

Tomz

Hi guys,

Interesting discussion!

I have been running a webserver for a few months now. Mostly I just use it as a testing server for my PHP scripts and websites and just use my IP to access it.

What if I want to put a domain on it? How does it work with DNS?

Thomas

stolzyboy

you can either run a couple DNS servers or you can just get a domain and point it to your IP.

Keep in mind that running DNS servers is much more complicated than running a webserver, so if you're not up to the task I'd let someone else point the domain.

Also, you'll be better served using a static IP rather than a dynamic one, most ISP's give dynamic ones so you'll want to check.

LordShryku

Don't forget the IP needs to be internet addressable. It's one thing to get the webpage by IP when you're on your network, but in order to run it full blown, the IP needs to be able to be reached outside of your network...