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DIY Webservers Part II
OK, In the previous article I explained a bit about the software you can use to run your own personal webserver. But what about the hardware? That's the fun part.
If you want to get the most out of your server you won't want to use your main machine. You'll need a dedicated box that you can leave on. This ain't like the good old BBS days where you could post hours so that callers would know when they could connect. (But if you did want to set your webserver to only serve pages during certain hours you can easily set your router to behave that way.) The web is on all the time and your friends will be disappointed to find that your site is down because you're playing MOH or because you've got your machine on Standby so you can grab some shuteye.
The solution is a dedicated machine that can serve pages 24/7. But Chess, servers cost an arm and a leg. I can't afford one! Can't you? I just set up my server and it's a badass machine that only cost me $25.
Forget Blades and X Servers! My server's got a damned SKULL on the side! No matter how much you're willing to pay, Apple won't ship an X Server with a skull on it. I know. I called. And it's got a crazy plastic security door with a light sensitive panel on the front. It's totally Star Trek! None of the front panel indicators seemed to be working though so there was no way to tell if it was on or not: this machine is quiet like bricks aren't. But it turned out that the connectors were there, just not connected to the mobo. Long story short, I finally got the HD LED working. So now if I want to know if the machine is on or not I just format C: and if the panel lights up I know that the machine is cranking. And check out the cooling fins on the FRONT OF THE CASE!
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Have you ever seen that before? I doubt it. This computer has everything! Everything except the following:
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I bought it for 15 cold ones. That's bucks. When I got it home I ripped out the CD-ROM, floppy, MODEM, game port and everything else that I either didn't need or that didn't work. Then I tore out the PC speaker because I don't like things beeping at me. Next I installed a NIC I found in a box of junk for $5 and then I spray painted a badass skull on the side. I used a special tactile CIA-approved paint that lets you "read" the skull in the dark using your hands only. After that, I went to Value Village and bought a keyboard with an EMBEDDED TRACKBALL so that I could interface with the machine. That cost me $2.99.
Not even a damn pirate would have
a machine as cool as this.
Check out the specifications on this BAD BOY!
This computer consists of a CPU, a
video card, some RAM, a HD, and a MOBO.
That's it. No onboard USB, no optical anything,
no sound card, no nothing.
This machine is no joke. It's a stone cold killer out for blood. The best part is that it only has one fan--unlike the 3 on my Compaq--and draws very little juice as a result. An important consideration when picking out a computer that you're going to leave running all the time. The worst part is that the fan sounds like a rusty chainsaw. I lied when I said it was quiet. It's damn loud.
Win98 was already installed on it but I thought I could do better and so I tried Knoppix, FreeBSD, Fedora Core 2, SUSE, DeLi Linux, Beatrix, and Damn Small Linux. I wish I was kidding. It was especially difficult because remember this computer doesn't have a floppy, optical drive or USB port! After all that, I ended up going back to Win98 because all the versions of Linux I tried had problems like not having a GUI or not being able to recognize the NIC. Besides, I'm all about security and stability. After I finally got an OS back on there and the NIC drivers installed I was ready to go.
Now I had everything set up and I was ready to go. The only thing missing was a router. I went to my local Radio Shack and scoped out a D-Link 604 but they wanted near a hundred bucks for it. Searching on Tiger Direct I found the same router for considerably less. It showed up in the mail a couple of days later. Back to the thrift store for an Ethernet cable which I found for $2. The 604 comes with a cable but I needed a cable from the modem into the router and 2 cables out of the router to each box. That adds up to 3 cables total and I only had 2. I would need one more!
The first thing I installed on the server was GuildFTPd so I could shuttle files over to it on my LAN. I set up an account and sent all my webpages and a few install files I'd need like the server software.
Remote desktop up and running.
After I got that hooked up I decided the easiest thing to do would be to install some remote desktop software so I could control the server box from my main machine without having to switch the monitor cable all the time. Originally I tried Anyplace Control but it didn't crash as often as I liked so I switched to the 100% free Beyond Remote. Now anytime I want to use a real mouse instead of a damn trackball I can do so by logging into my server from my main computer. Works great.
Then I installed the server software. I settled on KF Web Server because it's free and because you can use it to run multiple websites at once. You'll need that once you start charging people to host their sites on your super server. But there are tons of other free non-Apache servers you can run. Check out any of the following:
The next step is to grab your IP address, log into your router and then tell the router to redirect any page requests coming to your IP through Port XXXXX to the server on your LAN. You're going to plug in your server's NAT address as the place for page requests to be directed to.
Then if you really want to be fancy, you visit dyndns.org and set up a redirect so your friends don't have to memorize your IP address.
Then, because I'm a charitable guy I thought "Hey! What can I do to help people while my computer is turned on?" After rejecting crazy Internet pyramid schemes like Folding@Home I settled on SETI@Home. Now my computer is doing double duty by being a web server and an alien life disprover. Whadda machine!
OK, so when all is said in done, I've used my elite hacking skills to put together a professional grade super server that sits on my desktop and crunches numbers NSA style and it only cost me a few bucks! The only downside is that trying to get this jumble of junk to work took me around a month of trying. Luckily, my time has no value.
Unfortunately, since most ISPs prohibit running a server the next step is shutting it all down again.
Have fun!
