I'm planning on hosting public websites on VMware

[shoyrumaster11]

Hi, I'm planning on hosting a free and public website with VMware. It's VMware Workstation version 9. And if you don't know what VMware is, it's basically an emulator that can emulate both old and new operating systems and a computers components, including RAM, CPU, Hard Disk, Keyboard, Mouse and basically everything that a real computer would need. Back to the point, I'm trying to host a public website that anyone worldwide can visit, but don't have the money or time to own a dedicated website. Please note that this website differs completely from the one on my signature. Does anyone here know about any way I can host a website anyone around the world can visit just by using a few VM's?

 

[raulpica]

Why not just run an Apache/nginx server directly on your own PC, instead of virtualizing it on your PC?

 

[shoyrumaster11]

Why not just run an Apache/nginx server directly on your own PC, instead of virtualizing it on your PC?

I could try that, but i'll need a tutorial, does it work on Windows 7 Home Premium? Can my websites go public? Will it work once I switch my computer off when I need to? I'm not trying to push you here, but can you please give me links to this information? Also, can I host multiple websites? Can I also wirelessly connect my site to other servers worldwide?

 

[raulpica]

Why not just run an Apache/nginx server directly on your own PC, instead of virtualizing it on your PC?

I could try that, but i'll need a tutorial, does it work on Windows 7 Home Premium? Can my websites go public? Will it work once I switch my computer off when I need to? I'm not trying to push you here, but can you please give me links to this information? Also, can I host multiple websites?

Indeed it works. You can use an easy all-in-one package like Xampp for Windows.

You'll still need to read a bit of stuff on how to configure it.

Now the difficult part: you'll need to open the appropriate ports (port 80, usually) on your IP (which I hope that it's static, otherwise you're gonna need something as no-ip.com) and then you'll be accessible from outside.

If your computer is off the website will obviously be unreachable (and that's why everyone ends up buying some website space anyway).

As for multiple websites, yep.

 

[shoyrumaster11]

If your computer is off the website will obviously be unreachable (and that's why everyone ends up buying some website space anyway).

Alright! This is going to kill since my computer is a laptop and I constantly have to give my laptops charger to other people in my house because they have no working chargers. And the last time I plugged my old computer in for too long, the battery became toast real quick, so unless I manage to buy a desktop PC, connect it to my internet and use it for dedicated hosting, my visitors (including my friends in my personal life) will be really annoyed by the constant downtime. Wish there was a way past this!

 

[raulpica]

Wish there was a way past this!

Just use a free website space? There are lots of them out there. Obviously they won't offer you more than 500MB/1GB of space for free.

 

[shoyrumaster11]

Wish there was a way past this!

Just use a free website space? There are lots of them out there. Obviously they won't offer you more than 500MB/1GB of space for free.

I wasn't really on the lines of free website space, I guess I may have to save $896+ or more than that just for a desktop PC to be used as a server! If that's possible and, my laptop will be used for uploading the files to that server than. Speaking of servers, if I decide to just use my laptop, will Dreamweaver have already uploaded my files to the web? or will i need to do something strange like upload the already uploaded or create a separate partition on my Hard Disk?

 

[FAST6191]

Edit- I see a whole other conversation happened as I was tapping this out. Will have to read it all but raulpica looks to be steering you in the right direction.

Truth be told if you have to ask these sorts of questions I would not suggest setting up your own public server from scratch- you probably will not be doing enough to get hit badly (unless of course you are using it to learn some form of SQL and scripting in which case you will be at risk) but security wise it does not sit right with me. By all means mess around on your own LAN with it, it is how I and I imagine most others learned much of it, but zero to full public facing server... a rather steep learning curve.

Setting up a web server is fairly straight forward assuming you only want a *AMP stack- many linux distributions, which virtual machines VMware are geared to support seen as that is their mainstay in commercial use, do it from the box (I tend to float between debian and centOS these days for servers but there are many others). If you want something to mess around on with windows (and you are not going the full windows server route) then http://www.uniformserver.com/ works well for me although just as many like XAMPP (some of the licensing was a bit odd so I do not tend to go for it).

Anyway assuming your ISP has not blocked the ports just open them in your firewall/set up port forwarding for port 80 (they usually block email ports though) and point it at the virtual machine and get people go there. If the ports are blocked you will have to use a non-standard port which works if you are doing it but non technical people seem to have a hard time with them. Likewise I would not expect to be able to run a proper email server; most big email providers will not accept the mail even if the ISP has not blocked the port.

Public IP addresses are not fun to send people and even less so if they are not static, assuming you do not have a static address then get a dynamic DNS server. Dyndns were formerly the de facto standard but they now want a credit card and cancel after the first month to get the free service so might want to shop around.
If you do have a static address or a nominally static one you can just fiddle with the DNS options for a domain (don't run your own DNS at this stage). The dynamic DNS services will tend to want money for them to support your own domain but you can get around that by setting a cname entry in your DNS (I prefer cnames but you can do forwarders as well) and point it at your dynamic DNS provider domain, this does of course include the option for no subdomain and the www subdomain which is what most people will call the internet.

Finally I assume you do not pay a power bill though as leaving the average desktop machine (especially one deemed capable of doing vmware for a server) on 24/7 will quite quickly run up a higher bill than paying for some cheap and cheerful low grade web hosting that will be all set up for you and probably have a better upload.

 

[raulpica]

Wish there was a way past this!

Just use a free website space? There are lots of them out there. Obviously they won't offer you more than 500MB/1GB of space for free.

I wasn't really on the lines of free website space, I guess I may have to save $896+ or more than that just for a desktop PC to be used as a server! If that's possible and, my laptop will be used for uploading the files to that server than. Speaking of servers, if I decide to just use my laptop, will Dreamweaver have already uploaded my files to the web? or will i need to do something strange like upload the already uploaded or create a separate partition on my Hard Disk?

Seriously, I still don't get why you need to waste $1000 on a desktop PC, when with the same money you could pay some of the best webhosting in the world for 6 years.

You can configure Dreamweaver to access the files directly via FTP so you won't have to upload them, but you're bound to use an FTP client sometimes to upload stuff (images, dirs, files).

 

[shoyrumaster11]

Public IP addresses are not fun to send people and even less so if they are not static, assuming you do not have a static address then get a dynamic DNS server. Dyndns were formerly the de facto standard but they now want a credit card and cancel after the first month to get the free service so might want to shop around.
If you do have a static address or a nominally static one you can just fiddle with the DNS options for a domain (don't run your own DNS at this stage). The dynamic DNS services will tend to want money for them to support your own domain but you can get around that by setting a cname entry in your DNS (I prefer cnames but you can do forwarders as well) and point it at your dynamic DNS provider domain, this does of course include the option for no subdomain and the www subdomain which is what most people will call the internet.

Yeah. I was really wondering about how I can change ###.###.###.### to something like www.sitenamehere.com and if that had anything to do with the tedious DynamicDNS, especially since my internet is run off a router. I might end up ruining the internet for everyone else who lives in the same roof as me!

 

[raulpica]

Public IP addresses are not fun to send people and even less so if they are not static, assuming you do not have a static address then get a dynamic DNS server. Dyndns were formerly the de facto standard but they now want a credit card and cancel after the first month to get the free service so might want to shop around.
If you do have a static address or a nominally static one you can just fiddle with the DNS options for a domain (don't run your own DNS at this stage). The dynamic DNS services will tend to want money for them to support your own domain but you can get around that by setting a cname entry in your DNS (I prefer cnames but you can do forwarders as well) and point it at your dynamic DNS provider domain, this does of course include the option for no subdomain and the www subdomain which is what most people will call the internet.

Yeah. I was really wondering about how I can change ###.###.###.### to something like www.sitenamehere.com and if that had anything to do with the tedious DynamicDNS, especially since my internet is run off a router. I might end up ruining the internet for everyone else who lives in the same roof as me!

You don't, you need to buy a domain (it's cheap) and redirect it to your IP.

Also keep in mind that your internet will be awfully slow (Usually 1MB/s in upload) when compared to what a specialized webhosting can offer you (100MB/s up to 1000MB/s).

This means that the visitors on your site will download stuff at an abysmal speed. And pray that there aren't more than 5 downloads at time, otherwise they'll download even slower!

 

[shoyrumaster11]

Public IP addresses are not fun to send people and even less so if they are not static, assuming you do not have a static address then get a dynamic DNS server. Dyndns were formerly the de facto standard but they now want a credit card and cancel after the first month to get the free service so might want to shop around.
If you do have a static address or a nominally static one you can just fiddle with the DNS options for a domain (don't run your own DNS at this stage). The dynamic DNS services will tend to want money for them to support your own domain but you can get around that by setting a cname entry in your DNS (I prefer cnames but you can do forwarders as well) and point it at your dynamic DNS provider domain, this does of course include the option for no subdomain and the www subdomain which is what most people will call the internet.

Yeah. I was really wondering about how I can change ###.###.###.### to something like www.sitenamehere.com and if that had anything to do with the tedious DynamicDNS, especially since my internet is run off a router. I might end up ruining the internet for everyone else who lives in the same roof as me!

You don't, you need to buy a domain (it's cheap) and redirect it to your IP.

Also keep in mind that your internet will be awfully slow (Usually 1MB/s in upload) when compared to what a specialized webhosting can offer you (100MB/s up to 1000MB/s).

This means that the visitors on your site will download stuff at an abysmal speed. And pray that there aren't more than 5 downloads at time, otherwise they'll download even slower!

Speaking of server stuff, do you think i could connect my computer to other servers using wireless connection if ever i plan to upgrade the website, but keep my computer?

Also, how do I redirect a bought domain to my IP, sounds hard just thinking about it. Will it slow me down?

 

[raulpica]

Public IP addresses are not fun to send people and even less so if they are not static, assuming you do not have a static address then get a dynamic DNS server. Dyndns were formerly the de facto standard but they now want a credit card and cancel after the first month to get the free service so might want to shop around.
If you do have a static address or a nominally static one you can just fiddle with the DNS options for a domain (don't run your own DNS at this stage). The dynamic DNS services will tend to want money for them to support your own domain but you can get around that by setting a cname entry in your DNS (I prefer cnames but you can do forwarders as well) and point it at your dynamic DNS provider domain, this does of course include the option for no subdomain and the www subdomain which is what most people will call the internet.

Yeah. I was really wondering about how I can change ###.###.###.### to something like www.sitenamehere.com and if that had anything to do with the tedious DynamicDNS, especially since my internet is run off a router. I might end up ruining the internet for everyone else who lives in the same roof as me!

You don't, you need to buy a domain (it's cheap) and redirect it to your IP.

Also keep in mind that your internet will be awfully slow (Usually 1MB/s in upload) when compared to what a specialized webhosting can offer you (100MB/s up to 1000MB/s).

This means that the visitors on your site will download stuff at an abysmal speed. And pray that there aren't more than 5 downloads at time, otherwise they'll download even slower!

Speaking of server stuff, do you think i could connect my computer to other servers using wireless connection if ever i plan to upgrade the website, but keep my computer?

Wireless connection isn't good for this kind of stuff, it's really really slow (except if things you're going to connect are really near and there aren't any interferences at all) and servers need to communicate at uber-fast speeds.

Also, if there are people on your website doing stuff (uploading, downloading) the internet in your house will be SO slow that it'll be unusable.

Just go for a cheap ($50 yearly) webhosting, it'll be AGES better and cheaper in the long run, considering that you'll pay more than that in electric bills to have a PC on 24 hours on 24.

 

[shoyrumaster11]

Public IP addresses are not fun to send people and even less so if they are not static, assuming you do not have a static address then get a dynamic DNS server. Dyndns were formerly the de facto standard but they now want a credit card and cancel after the first month to get the free service so might want to shop around.
If you do have a static address or a nominally static one you can just fiddle with the DNS options for a domain (don't run your own DNS at this stage). The dynamic DNS services will tend to want money for them to support your own domain but you can get around that by setting a cname entry in your DNS (I prefer cnames but you can do forwarders as well) and point it at your dynamic DNS provider domain, this does of course include the option for no subdomain and the www subdomain which is what most people will call the internet.

Yeah. I was really wondering about how I can change ###.###.###.### to something like www.sitenamehere.com and if that had anything to do with the tedious DynamicDNS, especially since my internet is run off a router. I might end up ruining the internet for everyone else who lives in the same roof as me!

You don't, you need to buy a domain (it's cheap) and redirect it to your IP.

Also keep in mind that your internet will be awfully slow (Usually 1MB/s in upload) when compared to what a specialized webhosting can offer you (100MB/s up to 1000MB/s).

This means that the visitors on your site will download stuff at an abysmal speed. And pray that there aren't more than 5 downloads at time, otherwise they'll download even slower!

Speaking of server stuff, do you think i could connect my computer to other servers using wireless connection if ever i plan to upgrade the website, but keep my computer?

Wireless connection isn't good for this kind of stuff, it's really really slow (except if things you're going to connect are really near and there aren't any interferences at all) and servers need to communicate at uber-fast speeds.

Also, if there are people on your website doing stuff (uploading, downloading) the internet in your house will be SO slow that it'll be unusable.

Just go for a cheap ($50 yearly) webhosting, it'll be AGES better and cheaper in the long run, considering that you'll pay more than that in electric bills to have a PC on 24 hours on 24.

Gotta make some $50 than. I don't want to kill the internet in my house. I guess i'll use my laptop as a starting point.

 

[raulpica]

Gotta make some $50 than. I don't want to kill the internet in my house. I guess i'll use my laptop as a starting point.

Trust me. Start with a free webhosting. Try your way around HTML and PHP and see what you can do.

Making a website isn't easy stuff, and you gotta practice with it before potentially wasting $50 in a webhosting you might end up never using.

I'm sure that a freewebhosting will be enough for all your uses for the first 2-3 months. Then if you feel confident in buying a space, you can just place a redirect to your new shiny www..com site on your old address and that's it.

 

[shoyrumaster11]

Gotta make some $50 than. I don't want to kill the internet in my house. I guess i'll use my laptop as a starting point.

Trust me. Start with a free webhosting. Try your way around HTML and PHP and see what you can do.

Making a website isn't easy stuff, and you gotta practice with it before potentially wasting $50 in a webhosting you might end up never using.

I'm sure that a freewebhosting will be enough for all your uses for the first 2-3 months. Then if you feel confident in buying a space, you can just place a redirect to your new shiny www..com site on your old address and that's it.

Yep! Makes sense to me! gonna have to go through and figure out quite a bit of stuff that I don't know. And soon, i'll have a website for everyone to go onto. I'm going to plan out a heck of a lot of stuff tomorrow and hope for the best that I can get a shiny and fully functional website up and running without DDOSing my own houses limited and expensive internet connection!

 

[FAST6191]

Rather than redirect an old host to a new one why not buy a domain (PS general rule of thumb is never buy a domain from the same people hosting your site) and redirect it to your free hosting? I have never been terribly impressed by any free hosting (too many restrictions and them wanting to add adverts to your site) especially when you can buy a month on somewhere that at least allows you something resembling full control.

Anyway as for the how do I turn an IP address into a website- when you buy a domain if you have a good registrar they will also offer to run DNS and a few other things for you (web redirections, email redirection.... preferably at the unlimited amounts for free level)- here you go into the DNS options and you can set all sorts of records for various things including a-names. Find/make one for www and the plain domain and point it at your IP for your house and as long as you have forwarded ports to it (and waited for the various records to adjust) then you will have a website with a fully qualified domain name. This said Most ISPs the world over thought it would be a good idea to change said address every day or (sometimes even every few hours) and it can take as long for updates to the DNS to trickle up and down through all the various DNS servers in the world (in addition to the tedium of having to change it all the time) unless you pay them for static IP address or use a dynamic DNS service.

Oh yeah running an upload will tend also to kill things like skype for people which tends to be a bit of a dealbreaker if you have to share a connection.

 

[SifJar]

I have used this free host before: http://www.000webhost.com/

Never had any problems doing what I wanted to do, although then again I never did too much (just fiddled with a few things a little bit). If you want a free domain temporarily while you experiment etc., you can try http://www.dot.tk/en/index.html?lang=en; if you do decide to use this site, when signing up for the domain, select the "Use DNS" rather than forward the domain. This way you can access other pages using the domain (e.g. example.tk/secondpage.html; with forwarding, this would still load to the index.html instead of secondpage.html). Note that you can only get a ".tk" domain, but I personally prefer that to the domain you'll get when you sign up to 000 (it'll be yoursitename.somethingelse.com, where "somethingelse" will vary; for one of my sites, it was "hostoi").

Obviously when you want to launch the site properly, you'll probably want to spring for a .com or whatever, having the .tk won't impair that ability at all.

Also, I know this isn't too relevant any more, but a free dynamic DNS service that seems decent would be http://www.no-ip.com/