RSS Feeds: How to Set Up Dedicated Servers at Home
I used to run a dedicated server at home and the only applications that were constantly running on it were a web server, a mail server and an FTP server. I had a low-traffic website that I constantly worked on as part of a learning experience. A friend of mine recently asked me how I did it, so I thought I'd share the information as best I can.
Why?
There are more reasons to run dedicated servers at home than I could possibly imagine. One reason, if your Internet service meets the prerequisites, is to save yourself from the torture of shared web hosting (and some VPS web hosting) and the expense of dedicated web server hosting.
I set up a dedicated server twice, once with a stripped down version of Windows XP and once with Debian Linux. That was back in 2002 and 2003. I'm getting ahead of myself but at the time, even shared web hosting cost more than the amount I was willing to pay for it.
Prerequisites
While you can run dedicated servers anywhere and with any kind of Internet connection, anything less than cable Internet will cause you more grief than it's worth. Technically, you could do it with a dial-up connection, but why would you want to deal with that? You could do it with a DSL connection, but DSL performance could be as flaky as it is where I'm living right now.
Even if you have cable Internet, your ISP has to allow you to run a server from that connection. The one I dealt with required a business connection in order to run any kind of server at home. I ended up having two connections – one residential and one business. The business account was still cheaper than any dedicated server online at the time.
If you use a Windows operating system, like I did at first, you're going to have problems unless you have a heap of memory and a fast CPU. Almost any modern computer will do the trick. I did it with Windows XP and a Pentium 200 machine, but I stripped down Windows to the bare necessities with a program called XPlite. I still have a copy of the latest revision.
Considerations
If you set up a dedicated server on a Windows machine, you'll have to use the best applications available to get the most of out of it. The applications don't have to be expensive, but they have to be designed to work without hiccups. Luckily, the best web server I know of, Apache, runs on Windows without any problems if it's set up right.
Way back when, I bought an FTP server application called Serv-U, before it was bought out by Rhino Software. I have a lifetime upgrade license for it, and I have the latest version, but I never use it anymore. It was before Gmail existed (or it was just starting, I don't remember which), so I used the Mercury Mail Transport System. Mercury Mail is still available as part of XAMPP for Windows. If I was going to do it with a Windows machine today, I would just use XAMPP for everything.
If you set up a dedicated server on a Linux machine, and unless you specify otherwise, the necessary software will already be available to you. I'm not familiar enough with all the variations to continue with the line of information and I don't want to feed you falsehoods.
As far a RAM is concerned, a Windows machine (because of the GUI) will require more memory to run the equivalent servers on Linux. With Windows, it would also depend on which version of Windows you're running. I'm only familiar with running it on XP and I can tell you that you would need a minimum of 1 gigabyte of memory for a stripped down version and 2 gigabytes if it isn't stripped down. A server hitting the swap file isn't a good thing.
Ideas
I wouldn't recommend setting up dedicated servers at home if you have one or more websites with heavy traffic, unless you know what you're doing to begin with. If this is the case, you're going to have to deal with load balancing, overload prevention and things of that nature. I'm talking about multiple machines, firewalls, bandwidth managers and the like.
If you run only one server application per machine, you could get away with running Linux on a cluster of three or more netbooks and spend less than you would on a single good desktop machine. You could use one for a web server, one for an FTP server, one for a SQL server (preferably MySQL) and possibly one for a mail server, all connected via a simple cable router. Neither an FTP server nor a mail server is required if you don't plan on accessing the machines from outside the network and don't need the branding of your domain name for your email.
If you use regular desktop computers, you don't need monitors for each of them. You could have one monitor connected to all of them with a multiple-port KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switch. I used a dual-port KVM when I was running two computers (one of them being the server) side-by-side.
Stuff I've Left Out
I don't like to get too long-winded, but I've provided the basics. I'm more than willing to provide more specific information if you want me to, but I could turn this into a book if I don't watch myself.
I didn't mention upload speed, which translates to download speed for the people accessing your website. I didn't mention the cost of a business account. I'm sure there are more things I didn't mention and I won't go into detail about setting up a network because everything I just mentioned can vary widely depending on your location and Internet connection availability.
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The point to remember here is that managed dedicated servers are the one in which all servers used by the business are actively managed and supported by the hosting company. The hosting company is responsible for setting-up, installation, technical support, privacy and security. You only need to focus on growth of your business… This should suit most of us, dont you think?
For the majority of people, yes. There is, however, a growing number of people who can do it better by themselves than any hosting company can.
Interestingly, I thought you put the dedicated server at home to cut costs with hosting. I'll take and read more about the subject to enhance the knowledge and mature this idea.
Very interesting article. But my opinion is that one dedicated server bought from one hosting provider is better.
Why ? It's better secured, lower cost and many other advantages. But for big websites , one home dedicated server is okay.
The security is much better if you use a hosting provider, it's too much work to keep it at home. Nice article anyway, thank you!
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Of course,there are tons of Dns services,I use Enom
you can also use easydns.com
with both,you can manage the nameservers to point to your static Ip
If you are hosting your website at your home server,why would you need a hosting company?
As an advice,it would be better to seperate Dns management and web hosting
By the way all web hosts provide dns and Ip forwarding services even if you dont host with them,yu just need to register the domain with them to have that.
Big Time Muscle
dedicated server at home, hmm i am not sure will do it because internet connection in my country is too slow
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This is interesting! Setting up a dedicated server in your home can really cut up cost with your hosting. And there's nothing more rewarding than seeing all your system up and running in the comfort of your own home, right? Thanks for this information, RT.
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