questios from a beginner

[root]

I think that before decided on a suite of packages, you should decide what you want to do with the site.

I'd never heard of XAMP before, this seems like a good idea, (especially for a beginner), personally I'm comfortable installing and configuring all these things separately, but I'm imagining that you aren't.

but before you put on MySQL two versions of PHP (one old and insecure) web tools for being able to administer your DB online FTP programs and mail servers. you might want to consider what you actually want to do with this site.

if you only intend to have static pages that don't change, then you don't need half this stuff.

if the web server is on your home network and you can see the box and use file and folder sharing to get to the folders where the web pages will be, then you don't need an FTP server, if you can get to the box with remote desktop, then do you really need phpmyAdmin when there are GUI tools provided with MySQL for windows that are actually pretty good.
if you're not sending mail, do you actually need a mail server? also even if you are sending email, does your ISP provide an SMTP server for your account and would you do better using this rather than installing your own mail server (which may or may not be exploitable) and is just something else for you to look after.

what I'm saying is that if you only want to have a basic site,
something like a home page with welcome to my farm,
a page of picture
a page of about us with pictures and writing about your farm/family.

then all these pages are static, you don't need anything other than a webserver, (don't need PHP, don't need MySQL, don't need Mail Server, Don't need FTP, don't need MySQL tools).

if you plan to have a forum, then you'll need php and mysql, but you still don't necessarily need a mail server/FTP server db admin tools etc...


a very basic rule when dealing with servers is everything that you put onto a server is fundamentally a new possible exploit.
i.e don't run a mail server if you don't need mail.
because you'll probably forget you've even got it there, and before you know it, your box has been hacked using some unlikely attack vector that you forgot even existed.

(this is the reason most Linux servers don't actually run any kind of windows manager, just having Xwindows on a system introduces a vulnerability.

 

[iamchickenlover]

i would pretty much need just static pages and i would like to have email accounts on it for us though. i really don't need forums or anything it is mostly so if someone googles Scottish highlanders we will be somewhere on there to be found and we can sell some cattle to them.

 

[root]

if you only want static pages then you won't need PHP or MySQL or the admin tools (unless you want to play about with those).

you may choose to use the mail server that comes in that package though.
Mercury Mail Transport System 4.52

again I've never even heard of this though.
so I suggest that you do a google search and decide what mail server you want to use. look at some screen shots etc and decide which one you want to use.

after that I'd suggest just downloading and installing that mail server.
(once you've decided on the mail server software, then is the time to start thinking about how to point the mail traffic to the mail server).


did you decide if you're going to use IIS or Apache yet or get a chance to play with either to decide what you;re most comfortable with?

 

[iamchickenlover]

if i go with apache or IIS do those have e mail?

 

[root]

No, neither are email servers, they are web servers.

however, your choice of email server can be set by the OS you choose, When you want a mail server I'm guessing that you want your own domains and such as thefarm.com

so you want www.thefarm.com to point to the web server that you are setting up.

as a secondary thing to this you want to create some email addresses to go with that domain,
such as chickenlover@thefarm.com

for this you'll need a mail server.

the choice of mail server can come down to your choice of OS,

if you want an enterprise level solution then you'd be spending a few thousand buying exchange.

however, if you've already settled on windows you should find that the pop3 service that ships with windows is sufficient for just having a couple of email addresses, you can set up outlook express to check these also.

Or you can choose to download another mail server and install that.

 

[iamchickenlover]

alright, i talked to my mom last night she says i can build the site for sure. i still have not settled on windows because this is gonna be a learning project i may just have roll with Linux on this and learn how to use it and apache. I have Ubuntu on my laptop i have only had it there for a few week so i have not learned it well. How do i go about making the actual website? and can i make it on my laptop and then later transfer it to the sever at my house? (i am at boarding school).
also that www.thefarm.com is pretty cool.

 

[bilbus]

what the hell are you telling him.

No your isp wont let you, and you dont have a static ip so you cant.

Goto www.godaddy.com sign up for web hosting and let them run your webpage for $5 a month its all taken care for you .. all you do is upload content.

for imap email you can get it for $1 per user per month.
for exchange email you can get it for $6 per user per month.

If you want to setup a server for home because you want to learn .. do it .. but dont run a buisness this way.

Your power goes out, website down.
Server crashes, website down.
Internet goes down, website down.
Are you going to do backups?
Who you going to call when your server crashes?
Ill fix it for 120 a hour.
I dont know of any buisnesses that run their external website localy .. perhaps ones that maintain their own datacenters

 

[root]

what the hell are you telling him.

No your isp wont let you, and you dont have a static ip so you cant.

Goto www.godaddy.com sign up for web hosting and let them run your webpage for $5 a month its all taken care for you .. all you do is upload content.

for imap email you can get it for $1 per user per month.
for exchange email you can get it for $6 per user per month.

If you want to setup a server for home because you want to learn .. do it .. but dont run a buisness this way.

Your power goes out, website down.
Server crashes, website down.
Internet goes down, website down.
Are you going to do backups?
Who you going to call when your server crashes?
Ill fix it for 120 a hour.
I dont know of any buisnesses that run their external website localy .. perhaps ones that maintain their own datacenters

firstly, a lot of business (especially small business) run their own websites, and if their power/connection goes down then the site is unavailable, that's it but for a small business, that's generally not a problem, I mena OK I'm not expecting bill gates to run microsoft.com on his home DSL, but for your average small home site this is definitly not a problem.

no, he doesn't have to go to a professional service and buy a domain name and hosting,

in actual fact he can use a service like no-ip.com to be able to host a freesite for a dns server and then host his own records for a .com name. (in fact I do that same thing for my.co.uk name).

power goes out an business site goes down...
yes, this is true, but also if the power goes out his home computer is down, it's not like he can get to hos externally hosted site or emails to do business anyway.
any emails sent will just be queued on the outgoing smtp server anyway, so it's no great loss.

same for if his internet connection goes down.

backups? there is nothing to say that he can't do his own backups, either to the same box, or another box, external HDD, monthly dvd backups etc.

plus if his site is static then backups aren't really needed, just one folder on his local machine with the website stored as pages.

and mail, he can download to his local machine and either choose to delete from the server or store on his local machine and the server, so email backups are effective each and every time he checks his email it's replicated to somewhere!

if his server crashes, well, he can try turning it off and back on again, or he can rebuild the machine, that's rather the point of learning how to do it, he doesn't know how to do it now, but after setting it all up he'll have instructions and can do this quite easily.

for a static site, it's easy enought to do a bare metal rebuild in less than a day if you know what you;re doing. so there isn't much of a problem here.

I know plenty of small business that host their own site from their own line. and people who use their own sites as DR sites in case a data centre goes out.

but that's it they are small businesses, what you;re saying is go out and spend money buying a domain, buy hosting, buy email accounts and pay fo them each and every month. all this just so his family can test an online presense to see how it works out for them?
to me that doesn;t sound worth it, it seems much better to spend nothing, use a machine you've already got, learn a little along the way and setup a small site. if it all goes great then perhaps he'd do well to consider professional hosting in the future. but right now, that's possibly a step to far in terms of expense for a small business.

 

[bilbus]

alot of money? 10$ a month?

You are talking about a ton of work to save $100 a year. You could pay for that by going out to dinner 2 or 3 times less that year.

 

[iamchickenlover]

firstly, a lot of business (especially small business) run their own websites, and if their power/connection goes down then the site is unavailable, that's it but for a small business, that's generally not a problem, I mena OK I'm not expecting bill gates to run microsoft.com on his home DSL, but for your average small home site this is definitly not a problem.

no, he doesn't have to go to a professional service and buy a domain name and hosting,

in actual fact he can use a service like no-ip.com to be able to host a freesite for a dns server and then host his own records for a .com name. (in fact I do that same thing for my.co.uk name).

power goes out an business site goes down...
yes, this is true, but also if the power goes out his home computer is down, it's not like he can get to hos externally hosted site or emails to do business anyway.
any emails sent will just be queued on the outgoing smtp server anyway, so it's no great loss.

same for if his internet connection goes down.

backups? there is nothing to say that he can't do his own backups, either to the same box, or another box, external HDD, monthly dvd backups etc.

plus if his site is static then backups aren't really needed, just one folder on his local machine with the website stored as pages.

and mail, he can download to his local machine and either choose to delete from the server or store on his local machine and the server, so email backups are effective each and every time he checks his email it's replicated to somewhere!

if his server crashes, well, he can try turning it off and back on again, or he can rebuild the machine, that's rather the point of learning how to do it, he doesn't know how to do it now, but after setting it all up he'll have instructions and can do this quite easily.

for a static site, it's easy enought to do a bare metal rebuild in less than a day if you know what you;re doing. so there isn't much of a problem here.

I know plenty of small business that host their own site from their own line. and people who use their own sites as DR sites in case a data centre goes out.

but that's it they are small businesses, what you;re saying is go out and spend money buying a domain, buy hosting, buy email accounts and pay fo them each and every month. all this just so his family can test an online presense to see how it works out for them?
to me that doesn;t sound worth it, it seems much better to spend nothing, use a machine you've already got, learn a little along the way and setup a small site. if it all goes great then perhaps he'd do well to consider professional hosting in the future. but right now, that's possibly a step to far in terms of expense for a small business.

thanks for all your help, but i think now all i got to do is just go do it and if i need help i will be here asking for it. i sadly will not have enough time to do any of these things until thanksgiving so until then i am just gonna do some research and explore apache and all the other things you have told me.