Hi All,

I have a friend who authors web pages for clients. Currently she has those web pages hosted by web hosting sites. She has been wondering if it would be better for her to host those web pages herself.

I looked online for books that might give her the type of information she may need to make that decision but found only some fairly old books (and maybe outdated):

• www.amazon.com July 1995 (special order)
• www.amazon.com April 1996 (out of print)
• www.amazon.com January 1997 (special order)

Does anybody know anything about the quality and usefulness of the content of these books? Does anybody recommend any books/sites/resources that may be useful in determining what it would take to host your own websites?

I know of the very basic requirements (ie, web server) but I do know there are other things that may be very important, especially when begin dealing with authentication, databases, shopping carts, money transactions, etc. I don't know how much of that would be required but it would be good to have this information available.

I expect that the result of our research will suggest that for her purposes using web hosting sites is sufficient and hosting her own web sites will be cost inefficient... but we'll see!

Thanks for your help!

--Rajaat

You would be much better off asking here or searching the Internet for any specific questions.

Is she looking to host the pages on her home computer (connected through broadband) or lease a dedicated server?

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Web Hosting Tips | Career Advice

Hello Rajaat,

If hosting websites yourself is as simple as those books make it out to be, then more than half us here would be doing it already. There's a reason why we choose to host our websites with webhosts.

Your friend may get her webserver up and running and may even get her website up but what about security? Will she be able to cope with all the updates and upgrades required to stay 'safe' from hackers? Will she even know where to look?

But if she has all the time in the world to figure this out, then why not? Everybody has to start somewhere! Instead of getting a book about web servers, she should decide on the OS she is going to be hosting on and get a REAL good book about the OS first. For example, if she wants to host a site on Linux, she should get a good book on it written specifically for Admins.

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J de Silva
Learning Journal | GIDForums™ | GIDNetwork™ | GIDWebhosts™ | GIDSearch™

I actually am in charge of our company's web server - installs, upgrades, maintenance... I can tell you first hand that it can be a pain, but the nice thing about Linux servers is that they don't need to be rebooted much as long as your hardware can handle the traffic. Sometimes I wish our company would just take all of their domains and run them off some hosted space. Eventually, when the company phases out my department (when the company phases itself out, basically), the customers outside my immediate organization will just have to get some seperate web hosting.

Anyway, when considering to do this yourself, consider the cost of:

1. You internet connection - better be T1 or more if you're going to have a serious web site(s) hosted.

2. Cost of server - if you're hanlding alot of traffic, you should use a sun server (Sun workstations are pretty good too), or a 2 GHz Pentium (preferably multiple processors) with lots of RAM. You better be using a RAID array and doing tape backups.

3. Cost of time to learn and set everything up. On my first try, it took me 20-30 hours, because one of graphics libraries wouldn't install with PHP correctly. If you use a hosted provider, you get all the services you want without the hassle of installing them yourself. Linux/Unix services aren't plug and play like Windows programs. They're not always as simple to install as running a 'setup' program. If you're operating environment isn't configured correctly, many unix services won't install. With Linux, they try to save you some hassle with RPM files, but these are sometimes dependant on having other RPM files installed.

4. Updates have to be made from time to time, whenever vulnerabilities are found. OpenSSL and libpng were two services that ended up having vulnerabilities that I remember, in the past year. A good hosting company will keep up to date with patches, and latest versions of software, so you don't have to do any updates that are critical or otherwise. Sometimes there is no RPM file of the updates needed - you have to recompile, and sometimes the program you're trying to install doesn't like how things were setup with your other services setup with RPM's... in a nutshell, you end up doing alot of troubleshooting to get things to configure, and install together.. I never use RPM's for this reason, which gives me better control of how things get installed.

Anyway, I would save alot of time and grief and pay a good, reliable hosting service. Putting together your own for a business is just inviting more trouble than is worth. If you work for a big company and installing, updating, and maintaining servers is all you do for a living, then you run your own webservers. If you're a real computer geek, and enjoy the challenge of running your own servers (like me!), then go for it. But if this sort of thing isn't what you plan to spend alot of time on periodically, then I would go with the hassle free approach... rent the space...

Maybe now folks reading this will have a better appreciation for the Unix admins setup and maintain these servers at the hosting datacenters.

-Jason

you will need to leave ur pc on for 24/27 and u need good internet connection

Well if you know the basics, I would say do not bother with those books. If those books have not been updated in 7 years, that might not be a good thing.

Can you get a test server & play with it? Do you know *NIX or Windows better? Start with the platform you are most comfortable with.

Usually databases are kept in a folder not accessible via the website. You need an SSL certificate for each website that will capture CC data on their website. You will also need an IP address for each SSL cert.

You can offer SSL certs from different companies (geotrust, thawte, ChainedSSL, Verisign, etc).

A few payment gateways require a few files to be installed on the server as well.

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Corey
Merchant Accounts | Toll Free Virtual Solutions | My Merchant Account Blog

Definitely Internet connection plays a major role! Since server uptime is very basic other wise your site will face many down times.

Since I've posted this reply, a span of a few months, I have reconsidered my position on hosting websites on your own webserver. After seeing my website down on two servers with the same hosting service - each because of hardware failures (IDE drives died), I have decided that it is time for me to take my websites and host them on my own Linux server this year, at a local collocation center. The price was definitely right at $50 per month, offering 240GB of bandwidth. I'm going to build my own system with SCSI drives, since they withstand heat alot better than IDE drives, which are a joke when it comes to using them with a loaded webserver.

If you have a website that makes you some money in advertising revenues, it just isn't worth leaving it to the mercy of a hosting service that has perhaps 100+ other sites being hosted on the same server. I need to take control of my own situation here,and I recommend that if others are having problems with their virtual web server hosting accounts, to do the same, if it will benefit your bottom line. If you have a site that doesn't do much, anyway, as far as revenue or traffic, then whether you have a little down time or not shouldn't be a problem - just be sure you're not being overcharged for that service.

I figure, I'm paying x amount of dollars per year for a server I'm being offered unlimited space on, and unlimited domains, but in the end, I know this place isn't going to satisfy my needs in uptime and reliability. They promised daily backups, but when they restored my site, it was 3 days old - thankfully I had my own database backups taking place, transferring it off their server each day.

So I'm now preaching the following:

(1) Learn Linux or hire/find someone who does
(2) Buy or build your own server that is minimally vulnerable to heat issues (use SCSI drives!)
(3) Setup your own web server/services (Apache/MySQL/PHP/SSL/FTP/SSH)
(4) Colocate that server someplace that's reliable and economical
(5) Setup a test domain to point at your new server
(6) Learn how to do your own backups daily.
(7) Learn how to configure DNS
( Learn how to setup your own mail server.
(9) When comfortable, move over all your web sites/domains to the new server, and cancel all of those stinkin web hosting accounts.

I plan to have my own server built and installed by the end of January. Any questions? Don't hesitate to ask.

$50 a month for co-location is pretty cheap. How much cabinet space (1U)?

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Web Hosting Tips | Career Advice

Yes, it is for 1U. They gave me some standard specs for the case. They'll allow me to use a tower with certain dimensions, but it still has to have standard rails attached to it.

So far, I'm pretty impressed with the operation, just talking with the sales guy. He's going to schedule a tour of the facility for me. 2 servers is $100, and I think if you lease out a whole cabinent, they give you a deal.

I like how they have redundant carriers, as well, and good ping times. I can't wait to get things moving along - I'll have the LLC registered on Monday.