Help Me Set Up A Web Server

[em2ab]

I wanted to post this on a forum where it would get a lot of traffic....

Despite Shaw's Acceptable Use Policy (http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/AboutShaw/TermsofUse/AcceptableUsePolicyInternet.htm) stating the following:

The residential Shaw Services are designed for personal Internet use. You may not use the residential Shaw Services for commercial purposes. You may not run a server in connection with the Shaw Services nor may you provide network services to others via the Shaw Services. Examples of prohibited servers and services include, but are not limited to, mail, http, ftp, irc, dhcp servers, and multi-user interactive forums. Some business services may be exempt from these limitations.
I'm going to try and set up a web server to see how well it holds up. I just need some help in how to do it.

I've got:
Shaw Extreme-I service with 10Mbps down, 1Mbps up
Windows XP Pro
AMD Athlon 3500+ CPU in Asus board with half a gig of PC3200 RAM
80 gig hard drive, 40 gig hard drive

What I'd need?
Apache
Linux (any specific version)
Desktop environment (would SSH be good enough)
some MySQL database program
PHP
Static IP (I think I'd be fine as I am, Shaw only changes their IP every few months I think)

What I want to do:
I've got 2 websites generating 80,000 - 100,000 hits per month each with a total of about 2000 unique hits per month each. Most of the hits are Google bots and stuff, as usual. I want to host these 2 sites and all their plugins which include a Gallery installation with 3300 pictures, streaming video for movies and smaller videos, Guestbook and PHPBB install. Possibly also a content management system like Joomla and some sort of e-commerce plugin but that's not important right now.
I also want to be able to use the desktop to play Day Of Defeat which runs on the Halflife 2 engine (so ya, I guess I need a desktop environment). I can't remote into it via my laptop to do this because the CPU and graphics card in my laptop aren't good enough.
I also want to run a blog on it, and possibly some webcams that I can look at over the internet to see what's going on at home. Or possible use for security.

So would it suffice to have my desktop tower sitting in a corner hooked to my projector and simply remote into it to watch movies at home? And have it running my websites at the same time?

[adam c]

you can use IIS, it's located on the Win XP cd

if you're going to use your current desktop as the webserver you will want to upgrade the ram for starters. you will also have to configure your router to allow incoming connections for your computer

[Grogador]

Not really worth it with the price of hosting in a datacenter nowadays, and I wouldn't even consider hosting anything I remotely care about from home on a Shaw line. Not only is it a measly 1mbit, the peering sucks.

Can't understand if you plan on doing this on the XP desktop, or having a separate server and just SSH'ing into it. SSH is fine to edit configs and check the status of things, most other things like Gallery and blogs are configured via web anyway. You can forward X stuff and use some Windows client (Hummingbird?? other?) for it but I have no idea how to do that... Playing games and movies on the "server" isn't a good idea, it'll slow the services immensely and games occasionally crash or hang the machine...

For the server, something like an Athlon 2700+ with at least a gig of RAM would suffice. Put two 40 or 80GB harddrives in it (or some faster SCSI) and mirror them for speed and data security (along with backups of course). Then install FreeBSD (http://www.freebsd.org) (or that Loonix thing) along with Apache, mysql or postgresql, php5 and extensions, Gallery, whatever it needs.

Static IP is a good idea since DNS can take several hours to propagate (after you notice and modify it), meaning your sites will be unreachable during this time.

[em2ab]

It'll be done on the XP desktop.

[BlackArcher101]

That's quite a few hits... but what's really important here is what bandwidth do your websites go through each month?

That's an awful alot of services to be running on a single desktop.

[Doozer]

^^^That's not that many hits. I mean, that's what, about 65 uniques a day? I've hosted a website at home through Shaw in the past, with triple that (which is still jack-all), and didn't get a peep from Shaw. It wasn't multimedia though, so you have to be careful because streaming video, etc, can really bring the attention to you.

I would agree though, that the machine seems definitely underpowered if you want to do more. It would be fine for the hosting alone, as-is, but again, it depends on the amount of media content you're serving up.

[em2ab]

The media will only be for my viewing at home which will probably run straight from the machine and not over the internet, and the occasional movie stream done by my brother on the other side of the country if he so wishes.

Besides that I'm going to have probably 20 small 5 minute videos on my site that people can stream anytime they want.

And I might do ShoutCast as well so people can listen to my music.

EDIT - Actually the smaller videos will probably be hosted on YouTube and streamed from there via my site. So they will not be stored, nor hosted, nor streamed from my server. I forgot about that.

[bball2]

I'd have to agree with Grogador, for the things you're trying to get out of the webserver (hosting a relatively large site, with multiple databases, and streaming media), your shaw 1mbps up connection really won't hold up.

Anyways I've been looking at purchasing a dedicated server for a little while now, I have it narrowed down to these hosts if you wanna check some out as well:

http://www.server4you.com/us/index.php

http://iweb.com/dedicated/server-deal/

http://www.hostway.com/dedicated-servers/promo/tf/index1.html#

http://www.serverpronto.com/

EDIT: Well 2,000 uniques really isn't a lot, consider just getting a shared host? Dreamhost with the coupon code "AW97" will get you $97 off, that's less than $2/month.

[adam c]

i like canaca.com for hosting. never had a problem and their space and transfer is pretty good for the price you pay

[AllGoNoShow]

I use godaddy hosting myself, use godaddy for all my domain and hosting management. Very stable, repuitable company that has been around for awhile now.

[cityhunter2501]

get more rams

for streaming online videos, instead of hosting them on your server you could just host those on shaws ftp server.

I use http://www.dyndns.com/ so that I don't have to memorize my external IP.

I have a P3 with 384MB running as a Ubuntu LAMP server, I don't generate that much traffic as its only for my personal use and host for my forum sigs, but I often use it to SSH on my network and RDP to my vista computer

[em2ab]

Cool, maybe I'll set it up one piece at a time and see how it handles it.
So let's say I want to access a very simple HTML page via the IP.......just to simplify everything at the beginning. What do I need to do?

1. format hard drive
2. download Ubuntu to laptop and burn to CD
3. download Apache to laptop and burn to CD
4. insert Ubuntu CD to desktop and install
5. insert Apache CD to desktop and install
6. Install MySQL and PHP
7. configure modem for incoming connections
8. configure Apache
9. access simple HTML page via IP

[Stine]

if you want to use windows, why not just use Wamp?

Wamp has PHP Mysql and Apache all pre configured so all you do is run it.

For small sites its great! but for larger ones it wont handel the stress....

if your going to use Linux, make sure you read all you can about the commands lines, its not as simple as click and install!

[Grogador]

so the "desktop" will be formatted and used as a dedicated server? i was under the impression you wanted to keep windows and use that as well, or something

you don't need to download and burn Apache, not sure how gaybuntu handles packages but it should have a decent package manager that will install it for you...

[claxx]

You can save your self a few steps by doing a ubuntu "lamp" install follow this guide (http://www.ubuntugeek.com/ubuntu-710-gutsy-gibbon-lamp-server-setup.html)
there is no wm so less taxing on ram all command line.
ssh into the box to make any changes you want.

[adam c]

or you can just use IIS as I stated before

[em2ab]

All good ideas, I'll review them all, thanks.

I probably won't run Windows as well, I don't want to have to shut down the server to boot into it.

[A790]

Believe me, you're going to regret setting up your own server for such low traffic requirements. It's a huge pain in the ass. Why not rent a server somewhere?