Stupid Internet questions

[pkd_lives]

Right this may or may not be the right place, so bear with me, if its wrong I'm sure a moderator will shift it.

How do I go about setting up a website?

Oh my god you are now saying to yourself, I cannot believe someone is this dumb, well I have never had anything to do with the Internet at this level so I'm learning.

I have been donated a PII 233 with 240MB of RAM, and 8GB HDD the only problem is it has the old large style PS/2 connector for the keyboard. Now last time I just removed the connector and put a small one in it's place so I can resolve this issue (or buy a fitting keyboard or adaptor). I want to set this up as a website for some friends, and I need to know how (I don't want to get ripped off).

I have ransacked the Linux Documentation Project. And will be using that to teach myself how to set up Apache for the server, and how to do lots of other stuff that I need to do in Linux. It's not the actual learning that is going to prove difficult, and I need to locate a HTML tutorial (I know NOTHING about web design). I doubt any of this will give me troubles.

What I need is a breakdown of how it all works, the different options, etc. basically I want to do   it all myself, have this computer feeding one two or several sites. And I want to own the .com, .net, whatever, so where do I get these. Again it is the theory I'm after here. Does this make sense to anyone, and can anyone help me, I am feeling incredibly stupid right now?

Or help by offering the right types of keywords, so I can search google more efficiently would be helpful. Now the answer maybe that I will learn this stuff if I just read all the way through say the Apache manual, well that is fine just let me know.

Why have I not found this out myself, the trouble is searching google for net related stuff brings up page upon page of chaff - now I'm an engineer I don't read dummies guides because I know they will not teach me what I need to know, such simplistic guides rarely satisfy the deep craving for knowledge that constantly pounds around my head, begging me - feed me information, feed me information, feed me information.

So any pointers in the right direction would more than satisfy. Like I say it's the theory of how the net works, how I set up a server and feed into it. This info has probably been posted before, but I can't find it through searches on this forum.

[Master of Reality]

well.. you want this computer to run a website. Therefore the computer will be called a webserver. I am running mine on an old P MMX so its not like you need a real top of teh line computer for a website that gets litttle traffic.
I would tell you a lot more but i have to go right now.  
How fast is your internet?

[pkd_lives]

Thanks MoR, I had to go as well - It was Pie Baking time. So I should be searching for setting up a webserver?.

My connection is DSL, so not terrific on upstream I know. But this site will be for some local musicians, and I don't expect heavy traffic, this is as much a teach myself how, I have a few others who are interested in having a website (more poor musicians doing it for the love of their art).

[Calum]

so do you want info about all of the following things?

1) setting up a server from home
2) configuring your firewall for a server
3) setting up a domain name to point to your machine
4) writing html/php/perl/xhtml and so on
5) embedding video, forms and web applications into websites
6) maintaining an email server
7) actually designing a website correctly so it will display well on as many systems as possible, is easy to understand and will not make people want to leave your site

Now i know little to nothing about most of those, and ordinarily i would say ask MoR, since he has done all the setting up/domain name stuff himself, but i was just posting to try and break down the things you might want to do into more easily digestible sized chunks, you know that old riddle: Q. how do you eat an elephant? A. one bite at a time...

[Calum]

for the domain name i would google for 'domain name registration' and look for a good price. basically all the people who will sell you domain names are agents and they all tack on their own percentage, so compare and contrast. And for html, i suggest going to w3c.org as your starting point.

[flap]

I'm no Apache expert but, at its most basic level, there's really nothing to running a webserver. You just put all all the files comprising your website under the directory specified by the 'DocumentRoot' (should be something like /var/www by default) in the Apache main config file /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf (that path may vary) and start the httpd service.

[pkd_lives]

Thank you, that is what I need. And you should not really say you know nothing about these things, after all you have a website all of your own, and that is essentially where I want to get to.

Yes yours seems to be a good methodology, and that is kind of what I need. Like I say I don't want point and click just guidance.

The whole domain name thing is kind of scary, but I'll just dive in. Thanks for those starting tips.

I am going to be reading deeply of Apache thanks Flap, but I do have a question I have heard of this program called Tux that apparently runs commands within kernel memory space or something, making it a lot faster. Would you suggest I learn Apache first or even touch this other stuff (at my beginner status at least). In fact is Tux even a really viable option?

[ January 10, 2003: Message edited by: Linux Frank ]

[voidmain]

You can get a host name on several predefined domains for free from http://www.dyndns.org/ which is where I got my voidmain.kicks-ass.net name (although I did give them a donation because I have several host names from them but it's not necessary). So in effect it will not cost you a penny more than what you are already paying your cable/dsl provider. Just point that host name to the IP address of your Linux server, set up the httpd.conf for Apache according to that name and IP address and stick in your web site content (usually under /var/www/html by default  on some distros, just look at the DocumentRoot directory in the httpd.conf as mentioned above).

Many distributions come with Apache configurations that will work right out of the box with no changes (other than starting the service). My web site took all of 10 minutes to set up (and it shows) not accounting for the amount of time it took me to write the content (also not long as you can see).

Now, there is a little more to it if you want your web site to work for any length of time. You really need to take security into account so as not to get owned. You should set up a firewall and only expose the necessary ports and you should apply any security updates to the software you do have exposed (apache, ssl, ssh, etc, etc). And if you have services other than apache exposed you should restrict them to specific IP addresses or ranges if possible at the firewall (like don't allow ssh access in from anywhere). I call that "minimizing risk".

[ January 10, 2003: Message edited by: void main ]

[Master of Reality]

alright. You might want to first try looking at security before you even setup a website but remember that if your site isnt working try turning off all the firewall stuff to see if it is blocking it. I wrote my own firewall in IPTABLES which i think i posted most of but void thinks its to paranoid. (just because i'm paranoid doesnt mean they're not out to get me).
Then Make sure that you have only the services that are necassary running and have them configured properly to not let internet traffic to things you dont want to be public.

If you install apache with the OS then it should be setup pretty good. And will be almost the same on most Linux(es)
You will need to change a couple things in the httpd.conf Like the server name. If your site doesnt work on the internet at first you might want to try and run it on another port since many ISPs are now blocking web traffic to port 80. I am running mine on 8000.

I'm not sure how fast CGI or PERL will run on a 266 its slow on mine but i got 32MB of RAM and 200MHz.

Do you want email for people too? If you dont then you might want to take off (or at least shutoff) sendmail. And if you do want email you might want to switch to Qmail i believe it is supposed to be more secure than sendmail, in fact they offer $500 to anyone that has can hack it (or has had there's hacked i think).

If you are providing space for other peoples websites, how would you like for them to upload stuff? FTP? I use proftp and i find it to be really good. But you must make sure you edit /etc/ftpusers to deny any system users and anonymous connections.

the domains, you could do what void said or you could go to http://www.tk and get a www.domain.tk that points to your IP with no ads for free. Or you could pay $5 and get a fuckmicrosoft domain that points to your IP (i have one). Or http://has.it can give you one like http://mor.rocks.it for free.

[ January 10, 2003: Message edited by: The Master of Reality / Bob ]

[pkd_lives]

Wow, all that is incredibly helpful.

I have found w3c.org to be a great site for the basics of writing a website, and I shall start there. First things first I shall write up the site, in a basic format, at least. And then I shall see about putting things on the net. This may take a while, but I'll get there slowly.

I already have some questions about networking, but I have a fair bit of literature to read and need some practice time so I will wait until I have filled in some knowledge gaps.

Thanks for the moment.

[choasforages]

setting up apache on my OpenBSD server took me 10 minutes, 5 to figure out if httpd was installed by default and 5 to configure it, read the docs a few times and read the conf file, it should be a well documented file unlike a few others. and easy to setup up for a small site. and make sure that you use an obscure port if you are hosting it under a cable modem. im fuxxored if the cable nazis catch wind.....

[TheQuirk]

If you're using RH, read this: http://tille.soti.org/training/linux/book1.html

Also, read this: http://tldp.org/LDP/solrhe/Securing-Optimizing-Linux-The-Ultimate-Solution-v2.0.pdf

And install this: http://www.bastille-linux.org/

OR

This: http://forum.rackshack.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14401

[voidmain]

quote:Originally posted by The Master of Reality / Bob:
I wrote my own firewall in IPTABLES which i think i posted most of but void thinks its to paranoid. (just because i'm paranoid doesnt mean they're not out to get me).

I can't imagine I would have ever said you were too paranoid. I don't believe you can be too paranoid about security. And I actually have 2 firewalls in a double layer of security, one of which also uses iptables. Some might consider that to be paranoid. Most Linux firewall configurations use iptables. It's how you configure it that counts.

[ January 10, 2003: Message edited by: void main ]

[Pissed_Macman]

You don't need to set up all these fancie-shamncie servers and stuff. If it's going to be a small website for a band, just use Angelfire or something. After you get an Angelfire account the rest is pretty self-explanitory. Keep your images in your images folder and all the rest of your pages in their own directories. If you're struggling with HTML, just go to funky-chickens.com and copy and paste the codes there until you have them memorized. If you're going to start a business, do all that fancy stuff, but in your case just keep it simple.

[ January 11, 2003: Message edited by: Macman: Mac Tro0per / boB ]

[edustind]

Are you are going to run this at your house or office on some type of high speed connection such as cable or DSL?  If so, here are a two other things you will need to consider.  One is whether you will have a static IP address and two is whether or not your ISP will allow you to host a website on it for the level of service you are on.  To explain further.

When you purchase your domain (such as yourcompany.com), you will need to have someone setup DNS to point www.yourcompany.com to an IP address. The IP address is like a mailing address and tells other computers where to go on the internet.  DNS is used to convert the friendly names such as www.yourcompany.com to an IP address.  Some registrars have DNS services built in, such as register.com.  Many people will have their ISP do it for them, often at a price.

Some ISPs give their users static IP addresses, as in they won't change.  It will be assigned to your location and will identify you on the Internet.  Most ISPs will give out dynamic IP addresses for their residential customers.  In that scenario they will have a pool of IP addresses and you will be assigned one every time you login or connect to the Internet.  Those can and will change.

Typically you will be hard coding the www.mycompany.com to a specific IP address in your DNS service.  To do that you will have to make sure you have one that doesn't change.  Many ISPs will offer (incorrectly named) business class services on DSL or cable that will give you a static IP address.

If can't afford that or it isn't available and you have a dynamic IP address, then you will need to use a dynamic DNS service, such as dyndns.org.  Those will be setup so that something called the time to live (or TTL) is very short.  This makes other DNS servers not cache the data for a very long time.  It will require more lookups to your DNS provider, but with that you can safely change IP addresses and not have to wait a day for the rest of the Internet to know about it.  You will then run some type of client on your computer that will automatically tell DNS service if you have a new IP address.

Finally, I've been told by some friends that some ISPs (Time Warner specifically) will block port 80 from their residential users to the Internet.  What that basically means is that you will have your webserver up and running, but the rest of the Internet will not be able to connect to it.  You will need to call your ISP to find out if that is true in your case.  IF so, then you may need to upgrade to a business service to allow you to host the site.

As an easy alternative, however, you could purchase a webhosting service from an outside company.  They will have webservers setup at their location, usually with a very fast connection to the Internet.  On each machine they will host multiple websites.  You will be given a space to place all your files and some method of uploading the files, such as FTP or Frontpage.  You will pay a fee of something like $20/month for the service.  In that scenario, you will only need to create the website and upload it to their servers.  

Hope that helps