Just out of curiosity, what all goes into owning your own server(s)? What kind of hardware would that take, what would be a good brand to go with, what OS to run on it, etc.? Also, is it possible to set up a website on your own server and not pay for hosting? What other expenses go into a website?

Well, in most cases you'd be probing system services to see if they can be exploited. Another common route is probing installed web scripts to see if they can be exploited.

If one gets in via a web script, they can use commands such as "exec" to run items on the OS that are sometimes owned by the apache process which are commonly in a superuser group which cann execute just about anything.


Well, any hardware capable of running Linux or Windows 2000/2003 would be acceptable.

As for OS, well, Windows 2000/2003 if you want Windows, or say CentOS for a linux distribution as it's common as a webhost's OS.



Technically, however, I doubt you have the proper bandwidth to support a semi-popular site, or even a traffic surge on a standard residential connection.

Costs? Well, connection if a big one if you have a dedicated server, then the server, domain, maintenance, coding, blah blah blah...

Drak over at HostNuke is rollling out some really good VPS' now, if you want access to the system you use for hosting to install and manage the server aspect, then a VPS is what I'd recommend (think of it, you can have the versions of software you want, vs what a webhost says they want to give you).

okay, so if someone had a dedicated server, ISP subscription, self maintained/coded, etc., the other required expenses would be domain and what else? Do you only have to pay a domain registration fee, or do you have to pay some monthly expense for a domain? Is it possible to self proclaim a domain?

A domain is a yearly expense.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Self proclaim a domain"...

Basically, domain points to server, server does everything else...

Now, if you just want to host a site, you don't need to own your own server, or rent one, a standard webhost would work, however, you'll only get what they want you to have (as in whatever they install you're stuck with, as it's not a dedicated or virtually dedicated machine)

To dive more into Gizmo's explanation, getting a domain, not that expensive, just a pain to find one that you like and that is available from sites such as godaddy.com, or you can obtain a free domain name from a site like freedomain.co.nr/ you just have to be willing to put up with them tagging on an extra bit to your domain name.

In regards to the server, if you are going to just run a personal sort of website, nothing to big or fancy you can find plenty of web hosting sites out there, they give you a reasonable amount of space, email address, stuff like that for a low monthly fee.

The downside of this is you have no direct access to the server and limitations on what you can actually host there.

If you go with a VPS (Virtual Private Server) it costs some more money, but you get direct access to your VPS via ssh and can do more things with your site, these like web hosts limit the amount of processing power, space, and other resources that you can use.

If you go with a dedicated server, it costs a lot more money but you have full access to the server and can do anything you want with it (As long as it is within the hosts TOS) Its like owning your own server just having it located somewhere else with a faster network.

When deciding with option to go with you need to assess what your are going to do with your website, IE:

Personal Website (John's Home Page)
- With pics, blogs, small web board
A web host would be fine for this sort of plan

A web forum, larger site, advertising
- Containing downloadable file, large user hits
A VPS would be fine for this sort of plan as it has more HD space, a bit more memory, and a faster network

A larger site, IE: Torrent Site, Large Web Forum
- Containing a large amount of users, databases, files
A dedicated server would be better geared towards this setup, as you have full control over the server, full usage of the servers resources, and a fast network.