[Jonathon28]

I am looking to set up a web server on a Windows 2003 server environment. I was wondering what hardware and/or software will be required to do this.

I have a wireless router and switch.

also, is there anything I will have to pay for? i.e. Hardware? software etc,

This is new to me, although I have a wealth of experience in Windows 2000 and 2003 server.

Many thanks.

[Cew27]

you may want to look into buying cpanel software however this isnt cheap

[Jonathon28]

thank you for that information Cew27.

Do you run it? What are the basic steps then to setting it up?

I will look into that, however, does anyone know of a free way to set up a web server? (I guess it will be harder)

I also assume with CPanel, this only sets up an IP address for the website not an acutal domain name. Will this be an extra cost?

[Cew27]

i run cpanel on my webservers, however i think they are running linux or bsd they are the best server operating systems

[serverguy]

I have a web server running at home hosting a few sites. It runs Server 2003. I also have another server doing DNS and Mail duties. They are not up at the minute though because I am making major changes to how it is set up. I may post about it one day...

cPanel is only available for Linux type servers and is only available to big companies, IE it costs thousands.

It is a fun challenge setting up a webserver at home. But it is not easy or cheap. And it will cause a lot of frustration I guarantee you.

Windows Server 2003 is good. If you have lots of experience with it I would have thought that you would no more about running it as a server but perhaps not.

The server needs to be running Web Server software. Windows 2003 includes IIS or you can install Apache.

You will also probably want to install a Mail Server. I am sure you know about this if you have Server experience.

You will need a DSL service that allows the running of a server. Many don't! You can loose your contract if you go against the rules. I have a business type line and can do whatever I want with it and have no ports blocked.

If you still want to have a go at it you need to have a real good read of both these sites.

http://www.diywebserver.com/

http://www.dslwebserver.com/

They have a huge amount of information. It was the first site that inspired me to do it in the first place. They are both running off home brew servers.

This is a site running from my home so you can get an idea of what sort of speed you can expect.

http://swanmoor.homeserver.com/history

I think this line is 286 KB/s upload. Not that fast. My other line is at 512 but this server does not server on that line.

(The site is something I have been developing for a teacher at School. It is not on a 2003 box but is on my Windows Home Server for now.)

If you have more questions feel free to ask. I would be more than happy to help you.

[Jonathon28]

Thank you server guy. I am definitely interested in setting up a web server, however, my ISP is Sky broadband, and after checking my IP twice (yesterday and today) I guess I do not have a static IP address but a dynamic one.

I have read somewhere it is still possible, however, if you know any further information, I would be grateful of your help. Apache sounds good seeing 65% of most internet sites use it.

[serverguy]

Yes you can still host a website with a dynamic IP. The website I linked to in my previous post is on a dynamic line.

You have to have a system to automatically update the records, like DynDNS

Originally Posted by DSL Web Server

Dynamic IP Address - DNS

What if you're on DSL or Cable and have a dynamic IP address? Can you still run a server? The answer is a qualified "yes". Running a server on a dynamic IP address takes more work and isn't as reliable as having a server on a static IP address. Your dynamic IP address is assigned to you by your ISP and depending on their configurations, the IP number may change often, or it may not change for weeks at a time.

One trick to keeping your IP from not changing is to keep the computer or router that receives the IP address on all the time. This way, the computer never "let's go" of the IP address. The other way to keep your IP from changing is to keep the line active. We'll talk about this a little later.

DNS with a dynamic IP address is difficult because most DNS services take 3-4 days for their nameservers to updates to take effect. This means that every time your IP changes, you have to manually edit your zone file and wait for their nameservers to update. This is the case with GraniteCanyon.com. Changes made at GraniteCanyon.com take a few days to spread across the Internet.

Other DNS services such as ZoneEdit.com are more useful in the case of a dynamic IP address because changes to your zone file are updated on their nameservers almost immediately. However, like GraniteCanyon.com, you must update your new IP number manually.

Alternatives?

There is something that can help us called "Dynamic DNS Services". A Dynamic DNS Service will allow you to use a subdomain of their own domain name. For example, if your desired website domain name is "coolguy" then:

* Domain - "http://www.coolguy.com"
* Sub Domain - "http://coolguy.dynamicDNSservice.com"

Note: "dynamicDNSservice.com" is not a real site (I think) just a generic term for those types of services. Replace "dynamicDNSservice.com" with the domain name of the service you choose.

Basically, in a subdomain, you're piggy-backing on somebody else's domain name. There are several services out there that will let you hitch a subdomain onto their domain for free.

There are a bunch of these services and they are listed at the bottom of this page. They are located all over the world so I advise you to pick one that has the features you need and also is geographically close to your webserver.

Wait a minute! I thought we were talking about DNS here not domain names! What's the point? Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that these Dynamic DNS Services allow you to direct that subdomain to a specific IP address, namely your dynamic IP address. Each time your IP changes, you go to the dynamic DNS service's website and update their database and within a few minutes, your subdomain gets directed to your new IP number.

This is the cool part: most of these sites (all but 1) have automatic update programs/clients that notify the dynamic DNS service of your most current IP address of your DSL/Cable line. This way you don't have to do it yourself or wonder if you typed in the correct IP number. Very nice.

You can then access your site by typing in your subdomain. It might look like "http://coolguy.cjb.net". The IP number will automatically update and you just have to remember the URL to your site. If you find a service that has a domain name that you can live with, then you can stop here and forget about getting a domain name. It's free and almost as good as a domain name. Almost. If you want a full domain name, read on.

Attach your domain name to a Dynamic DNS Service

If you have a domain name and aren't satisfied with a subdomain off somebody else's domain name, there are two hopes for you.

1. Some Dynamic DNS services like ZoneEdit's Dynamic DNS allows you to attaches a full domain name to a dynamic IP address. In the previous paragraphs, those Dynamic DNS services allowed you to use their subdomains, but here we're talking about full top level domains. This is very cool.

2. Alternatively, you can use a domain name redirecting service like ZoneEdit's "Web Forward" service to forward all visitors from "http://www.yoursite.com" to "http://yoursite.dynamicDNSservice.com". "Web Forward" like many other domain name redirecting services redirects visitors to any valid Internet URL, and that's what your visitors will see when they visit your domain name. If you check the cloaked option, then your visitors won't even see the long URL -- they'll only see your short domain name.

Either way, you have a full top level domain on a dynamic IP number. Not bad at all. Here is a Step-by-Step guide on how to use the DirectUpdate.net Dynamic IP address client with ZoneEdit's Dynamic DNS service: Installing and Configuring DirectUpdate Dynamic IP Client

Alternative 2 - The Ping of Death

The other way to keep your dynamic IP address from changing is to keep the line active. Many ISP's may disconnect your IP address after a period of inactivity even if you have a router holding onto the IP address. How do you keep your line active? Try FREEping. This program was actually designed to monitor your network by pinging specify computers. However, it works great at keeping your DSL/Cable connection alive and prevents your IP number from changing by maintaining traffic on your network. Pings a specific IP address or domain name at an interval you specify. Works only with Windows.

Here's a little trick that I picked up for Windows NT and 2000. Most of the time when you are not using your server I assume that you log out of your computer so that it is inaccessible from grubby little hands. However, if you have a program that is not designed to run as a service, the program will shut down when you log out which is a big problem. The trick that I found was to hit "Control, Alt, Del", then select "Lock Computer" which will basically log you out. The difference between 1. logging out of your computer and 2. locking your computer is that authorized users can still log into 1. while for 2. only there person who locked the computer or an authorized administrator can unlock it. Since I now use FREEping, which isn't designed to run as a service, I can't log out of my server but I can still lock it for an additional measure of safety.

Update: You can run FREEping as a service using FireDaemon which is the best way to go.