Home Server (static IP)

[#1]

Hi,

If I've understood correctly, I could host a website (ie custom domain) on my home PC, but only if I have a static IP. Is this correct?

I'm planning to open a webpage for my small business, and I'll feel better if the website is in my own house. Is anyone doing this at the moment? I apreciate any advice, tutorials, how tos etc.

Cheers.

[#2]

You don't have to have one, you have alterative means like DynDNS, but for a fiver it is definitely worth paying as it makes it so much easier. Well worth it.

I used to have a home server (before it died) and remote desktop into it from work. I had a A record on my domain, called home.mydomain.com. Saves me from remembering the IP. 😉

[#3]

Alright. Thanks for the intel.
It doesn't have to be home.mydomain.com, right? It could be just mydomain.com or whatever.mydomain.com, I hope.

[#4]

@mrspock  it can be any domain name that's registered to yourself.

For serving your web pages I'd use Apache on Linux so a Raspberry Pi in a DMZ is a good all round solution.

[#5 · Accepted solution]

Yep as has been said, you don't need to have a static IP - there are alternatives. They're a lot more hassle though and you're better off paying PlusNet the fiver as it will make life a whole lot easier. It is well worth it.

Then set up two A records, one for yourdomain.whatever, and one for www.yourdomain.whatever. I can't remember if you can do a CNAME for it now (been ages since I did DNS).

Bear in mind whatever device you have it hosted on will have to be on at your home 24/7 or your site won't work!

The only other thing I can think of is you'd have to allow incoming connections on port 80. So you'd need to enable that on the PlusNet firewall and also any software the device you're hosting it on (I am thinking any kind of firewall blockers such as anti virus software).

EDIT: Saw your previous post, yes it can be anything you want before your domain, or just your domain you just need to setup the DNS up so it knows.