Dawn of the Geeks

One of the nice things about being able to run a server off your home internet connection is that you can do whatever you want. You can build the server you want, install the software you want, run the web-sites you want. The downside is that home internet connections aren’t always reliable. They’re also much slower than you can get with a hosting company like GoDaddy.

However, they are a good way to test out web-site concepts before spending the money on hosting them somewhere else. There used to be a lot of misconceptions about the cost of running web-sites and they probably still exist. The biggest misconception is what hardware is required. A “server” is just a PC. My home server is a run of the mill dual core Intel processor running at 1.7Ghz per core. The motherboard and the CPU cost less than $100 combined. In addition I have four harddrives (OS, website files, database files, log files) although one would suffice if you’re just getting started. Everything is contained in a standard mid-tower case which cost around $35.

You can purchase more expensive computers that are designed to handle high volume traffic. But you don’t need to. I think the misconception about what hardware is needed comes from what server computers typically look like; long and flat. That’s because they are typically stored in a rack and every unit of rack space costs money. A lot of money. With a home server you don’t have to worry about saving money by not having to pay for space to store your system. It can be as bulky as you want it to be. That means you can buy whatever parts you want. You don’t have to buy expensive parts designed to fit into a confined space.

So now you know that you don’t need special hardware to run a web-server. You can build from parts or buy a pre-built desktop system. The next misconception is the software. The software is really what separates a server from a home computer. A lot of people will probably tell you that you should run Linux because it’s “faster” or “more secure.” Both things are essentially false. If you happen to like Linux and want to use it then great. But more than likely when you bought he system or built it, you put some version of Windows on it. You can leave Windows on it. I would actually recommend it. There’s enough to learn about the actual server software that you shouldn’t subject yourself to a foreign operating system.

When people talk about “Linux” being faster or more secure in the context of web servers, they’re not talking about the operating system. They’re talking about Apache and IIS. Even professional highly paid writers who specialize in technology often can’t tell the difference between an operating system and applications. IIS is the web-server application that comes with professional and server versions of Windows. Apache is a lightweight web-server application that was originally made for Linux but, guess what, it also runs on Windows. Apache is just as fast and just as secure on Windows as it is on Linux.

I prefer Apache although I also develop for IIS. Apache is free and will run on anything. I once handled over 1 million requests in a month with Apache running on Windows Millenium. The simple fact is, the operating system doesn’t matter. It’s the software that runs on top of it that matters.

The typical software that people use to run hobby web-sites is Apache, MySQL, PHP and Subversion. All the software is 100% free and runs just as well and just as securely on Windows as it does Linux.

The security of Apache comes from the fact that it does the bare minimum. It only serves up web-pages. The lack of security for IIS (or the difficulty of making it secure) comes from the fact that IIS does a lot. If IIS only did what Apache did it would be just as secure out of the box.

What makes the operating system secure is only having the ports open that you want people to use. Namely, the port that Apache is using to serve up web-pages. Typically that’s port 80. A $30 router will lock down your network as well as anything.

So you can see that running a server may involve a bit of education on your part. But it doesn’t require a lot of money. The software is free. You can use any old computer you have lying around. And then you can go to town making whatever web-sites you want to make. If a web-site becomes very popular then you can look into other options for how to host the site. But until then, don’t waste your money.