Hosting your own website?

I'm cheap, and I want to host my own website, from a virtual machine. Googled and didn't find jack squat.

Is it possible to host your own domain? I have Server 2008 R2 on the virtual machine I want to use. I want to pay $0, of course except for the cost of having internet service, =P and I dont want to use an outside hoster with annoying rules about what I can post on my website. Hence the hosting own everything.

Absolutely, but 1st thing to do is check your ISP's Terms-of-Service to make sure there's no heartburn there.

Culbrelai said:

I'm cheap, and I want to host my own website, from a virtual machine. Googled and didn't find jack squat.

Is it possible to host your own domain? I have Server 2008 R2 on the virtual machine I want to use. I want to pay $0, of course except for the cost of having internet service, =P and I dont want to use an outside hoster with annoying rules about what I can post on my website. Hence the hosting own everything.

Click to expand...

Nice. Please send me the url for the new porn-site.

The process is fairly simple:
* Setup your DNS. For a first-timer, I would recommend using the DNS service that your registrar has, it is typically free. You want the domain's A record to point at your IP, you probably also want a "www" record to do the same (CNAME?).
* Next, do your port forwardings on your router/firewall. Forward port TCP/80 for HTTP. This should go to your server's IP.
* Then choose a webserver software, install and configure it. The most popular are: nginx, apache, IIS (in no particular order).
* Finally, make content and test.

You will want to be dilligent about security. Keep your server, webserver software, and anything else you install (eg: wordpress) up to date on patches.

There are a lot of moving parts here... you probably want to set a static IP on your server so it doesn't change IPs one day. If your router gets a new IP, you'll have to update DNS -- your website will be down until you do this, and maybe for a while after (DNS propagation). If you have a powerout or your internet goes out, your website will be down. Although hosting stuff yourself is neat, beware of the disadvantages.

And, as mentioned by ihrsetrdr, make sure your ISP allows you to run servers, otherwise you'll find yourself disconnected one day.