Thinking about hosting my own server, any tips?

[Fyod]

I have quite a few sites that are live and running and I'm generally getting sick of multihost services so I'm thinking about making my own server.

This would be on a 60Mbit/down 20MBit/up cable ISP without FUP.

It would host about 5 oscom based site, a couple wordpress sites, and a couple plain php/html sites. Some have a couple thousand visits per month.

I would leave the most important/visited sites on the payed services until the system is well tested.

I would possibly like to offer basic hosting in the future.

 

What would you guys recommend for hardware? The multihost I pay for has about 700MB RAM and with all the stuff I have running there, Wordpress sites crash the server pretty often.

What would you use for a complete administration system (ftp, sql, etc.) for setting up access, emails, domains...

Anyone tried EasyPHP WebServer? My current host has a simple system. I have also worked with cPanel in the past.

 

Any other tips?

[♥geoffreywalton]

If you are asking for tips I suspect you would be better off using a hosting service.

 

At least you have access to an "expertly" configured server with cpanel correctly installed.

 

Unless you want to learn a whole new skill set it would probably be cost beneficial to concentrate on improving web sales through your web site rather than setting up and running web servers.

 

Still it is very rewarding geting web servers up and running.

 

Cheers

 

G

[MrPhil]

If you try hosting a live site on the Web on your own equipment, prepare to have your head handed to you. Hackers are going to eat you alive. About 80 to 90% of running a host is behind-the-scenes security work, and you have to be up on all the latest tricks. Offering hosting services opens up a whole 'nuther can of worms, both regarding your legal liabilities and what your clients might do to you.

 

I would suggest getting a better host (or at least, server plan) if your current arrangement is falling over with such a small load. Is this a shared server account? You might have to move up to a VPS or even a dedicated server. In any case, it would be better to leave the security matters to the pros.