How many people here actually host their own sites?

[flexnds]

I've seen some pretty good tutorials here on how to host your own sites, but how many people actually do it? I would probably never host all of my sites myself, but I am considering tinkering around with hosting a few. What are network security risks like?

 

[GokuSS4]

Are you referring to having your own hardware plugged to the net? sounds interesting.

 

[flexnds]

Are you referring to having your own hardware plugged to the net? sounds interesting.

Yeah, sorry, I wasn't very clear.. I'm talking about building your own server/pc to host your sites.

 

[fatboy]

For most of my front end wordpress install I have a cpanel reseller account, but for a few accounts and the busier parts of my sites I have on a VPS. Ubuntu is nice and easy to configure for hosting and you can do a lot more with it if you have total control

Must admit I have never gone as far as building my own server to colo - just renting a dedi in a DC makes it easier. If the hardware fails they have to sort it. Quicker than me getting a visit sorted to the DC and finding spares, then travelling and changing things out.

 

[InternetMayhem]

I have been leasing a VPS for several years... I have considered running a server from my place but I heard its not worth it unless you have a really fast Internet connection.

 

[Hostwinds]

What do you do when.........


the power goes out?
The cable company needs to perform maintenance?
Your servers Power Supply fails?
Your Hard Drive Fails?
You Max Your internet connection?
You ISP calls you and shuts off your internet for violating the TOS you agreed to, (most major ISP's prohibit using residential services to host websites)
You ISP Shuts off your net cause you get a DMCA
Someone hacks your server and defaces all of your websites, and uses this a stepping stone to your home PC.


If you have answers to all of the above questions, then I think your ready , this is asuming you have basic networking knowledge, and knowledge of how websites work, DNS etc.


--Peter

 

[flexnds]

What do you do when.........


the power goes out?
The cable company needs to perform maintenance?
Your servers Power Supply fails?
Your Hard Drive Fails?
You Max Your internet connection?
You ISP calls you and shuts off your internet for violating the TOS you agreed to, (most major ISP's prohibit using residential services to host websites)
You ISP Shuts off your net cause you get a DMCA
Someone hacks your server and defaces all of your websites, and uses this a stepping stone to your home PC.


If you have answers to all of the above questions, then I think your ready , this is asuming you have basic networking knowledge, and knowledge of how websites work, DNS etc.


--Peter

Only one way to learn. Also many of the scenarios you've mentioned can happen just as easily with hosting company.

 

[kingofbigmac]

The idea of hosting your own site is great, but you don't get a 99% uptime guarantee as some web hosting companies are promoting.

 

[H3ktor]

For fun the idea is okay but for business the idea is crazy. Even the largest hosting sellers like Hostgator do not run their own data centers. They rent them.

 

[Noahqw]

I host my website on my own hardware, I have a laptop that runs 24/7... every week I do a quick restart. It runs on Ubuntu and powers my Gaming QnA website.

 

[*zap*]

I'm talking about building your own server/pc to host your sites

Your time could be better spend, I have a server setup in my spare room. used it for about a year hosting 20/30 domains. Which sounds great but you can spend days fixing just a small problem, so now i use it as a testing ground for sites before i move them to my current host

 

[TezzSun]

What do you do when.........


the power goes out?
The cable company needs to perform maintenance?
Your servers Power Supply fails?
Your Hard Drive Fails?
You Max Your internet connection?
You ISP calls you and shuts off your internet for violating the TOS you agreed to, (most major ISP's prohibit using residential services to host websites)
You ISP Shuts off your net cause you get a DMCA
Someone hacks your server and defaces all of your websites, and uses this a stepping stone to your home PC.


If you have answers to all of the above questions, then I think your ready , this is asuming you have basic networking knowledge, and knowledge of how websites work, DNS etc.


--Peter

An amazing way to say why not to host your own site lol

 

[dichotom]

There are way more cons than pros to hosting your own site (from a practical standpoint). I have done it myself in the past but mostly as a learning experience. Web hosts are too cheap to really justify doing it these days BUT you gain a lot of answers to questions that you do not even know how to ask right now.

I say go for it, there is a lot of insight to gain from it. At the very least it will give you a good test bed for script writing. You don't really even have to have any new hardware, just run your server in a VM and host a domain or two on it. You can always have your site setup and ready to go on your real web host, then all you have to do is change the DNS entries if you have a problem.

 

[lotar]

I host all my own websites and always will. I like the freedom of having "root" access and not having to dive through layers of tech support and hours or days of waiting for them to respond before something can get fixed.

... but then again that was my jobby job for many years, and I've gotten over the learning curve. The learning curve for basic web server admin isn't all that hard though, if you compare it to something like programming.

Also, if you've got a high traffic site, you'll be glad you have some knowledge of how to do it. I've been able to tweak a server to support 8 million uniques a month on a single server with a quad processor and 16GB of RAM ... the server cost us $400/mo. Try getting that performance on the cloud or on shared hosting... it won't happen.