Buying A New Server

[scotty2006]

hello i have recently made a online mafia game and i am now ready to take the nxt few steps to puting it online.i am looking to buy my own server but i dont know much about this type of thing so i am asking is there anyone out there that can lead me in the right direction to wat i need i am using php and mysql db for now with about no more that 50,000 users so what would be the best and wat would it cost around about to buy thanx

[boen_robot]

Look at the offers at this topic or perform some Google searching. If that doesn't help, tell your criterias in the topic and hopefully, someone would know a host which is good (enough) for you.

[dcole.ath.cx]

I know alot about running your own server.. I run my own server.Any computer can be made into a server... a server is just a computer with web server software install (apache, ISS...)New real servers can cost $1,000 - $4,000 basicly... you can find them at any range but that's what I've seen.My first server cost me $0! My parents were going to though it away... my 2nd server cost another $0! because were were no longer using the computer (it's a 6 year old gateway, with 40 GB of HD space, ~650 MB of RAM, Fedora Core 5, and Apache)Computers and servers cost about $3 a year for power, this may very depending on how big the Computer is and many different factors but it's really a small number. Then domains cost around $10 a year to own, you can find sub-domains for free.The down side to owning your own server is when you add other devices to the network that innerfer with ports (wireless cameras for example... GRR) Also faulty routers is another one... yeah defective stuff is hard to work with but you can't blame the server on other hardware...With Fedora Core 5, web server setup is very easy... You don't need alot of knowlege (really!)With owning your own server, you don't have alot of the limitation that being hosted by someone else has.. You don't have to log on to FTP or use a special program, with my server I use it just like a normal computer but with web pages. Alot of people will tell you that hosting your self is a bad idea because when bad stuff happens. Well unless you buy every new toy for your network yet no nothing about computer, then you will have problems. If your making web pages with out a template, then you can have your own server.--- ---How to get your own server set up:1. Get the URL (web address) to your house.. sign up for a domain or subdomain and put your external IP address for the location to send to. (you can even search google for My IP Address if you can't find it... websites can view your external IP address)2. Get the server set up, get the web server started... it will automaticly accept all incoming web address, maybe make a TEST page.3. Log in to the router if there's more than one computer on your network. Go to port forwarding and forward port 80 to the internal IP address of the Server.DONE!If you run into problem with setting up the web server software there is alot of help on the internet. Apache forums, Fedora Forums, this forum... I've always found help with my advanced setting in the web server and what I was just talking about is 50 times easier, so if I can find help on the impossible you can find help on the easy stuff.

[Err]

What happens if you have a Static (or was it Dynamic? Were your IP changes) IP Address then? Can you still run your own server like that?

[Little Goat]

but aren't there some security issues that you need to fix bfore you do something like that?LG

[boen_robot]

Well, dcole.ath.cx outlined the basic stuff. I too know what he means. I have my own Apache and other stuff setuped, so I know the drill.For the security part, it's important to have an antivirus application if you're going to allow people to upload stuff on your server. You wouldn't want anyone else to download it and stop visitng your site just because he encountered a virus there, right? Not to mention you yourself might start such an uploaded file and get infected. You should also have a good firewall that would stealth all the ports of the machine which accepts the requests. That way, network scanners won't detect, thus try to hack your site and you'll be immune to worms (a kind of viruses which travel on ports... no special action is requred from the user like the "ordinary" viruses for which the antivirus takes care... revealing which ports you have opened and closed is enough).Dynamic adresses change in a certain interval of time. Static ones don't. If you have a dynamic IP adress, then you need to either change your ISP to some which would offer you a static IP or get a domain from a register that also offers a tool for detecting each of your new IPs. If you use Dial-up, you should infact forget about hosting on your own PC. Not only the IP is always dynamic, but the speed is slow, giving you and all of your users a really bad time.But there's also one more deal which dcole.ath.cx mentioned, but not in much detail. You should have an outside IP adress, not internal one. Outside adresses are assigned from the ISP and are visible from the whole world. Internal ones are assigned from rooter (with or without other rooters behind it) which use that outside IP. The internal IPs are only visible from within that rooter's network. Computers outside the network can only get to the Ouside IP adress, unless the router was preconfigured to pass incoming request to an inside machine.You can check your outside IP adress across the internet on every page which shows you that adress. For example, there is one at the W3Schools' TCP/IP adressing. Check what's after "This is your IP address:". If those numbers match your inside IP, then you're most probably having an actual IP adress on your PC and are lucky. I for one have. My ISP serves only "real" (as they call them) IP adresses . Just incase you don't know how to check your internal IP adress:Go to "Control Panel > Network Connections". Open your connection (most often called "Local Area Connection") and in the opened window, clikc "Support". The IP adress shown there is actually your internal one.If you have an "unreal" IP adress, then you'll have to configure the network router to pass HTTP requests to your internal IP. Settings may vary, you may not have control over it, or the ISP (which may be the actual holder of the router) would probably not allow you to alter those setting, etc. etc.... you may be in a lot of pain if you don't have a "real" IP adress.A note if you succeed in using internal IP as a webserver: NAT routers are most of the times completely insecured. They reveal all of their opened and closed ports and there's no way of installing software to do otherwise. By doing so, they succed in protecting the PCs behind them (scince incoming requests only reach the router), but fail to secure themselves, which leaves a big security gap. If you're going public, security would become a big issue. This NAT router note woulnd't be that important if you only need a testing server on your own computer (use your internal IP).

[justsomeguy]

With regard to ports, if you want to see how many ports you have open, you can check at www.grc.com and run the ShieldsUp test.*edit:To anyone running their own server, do you see a lot of attacks in your logs? We have a server that gets hit all day from all over the world by people looking to log in, do you see the same thing?

[boen_robot]

*edit:To anyone running their own server, do you see a lot of attacks in your logs?  We have a server that gets hit all day from all over the world by people looking to log in, do you see the same thing?

Back when I had Notron Internet Security 2006 installed (oh, the best Firewall I've ever encountered. I miss it.) I saw daily messages saying "Norton Internet Security prevented an attack against your computer. The Attacker IP is below:". Now when I have NOD32 and still have a webserver running, I don't see any messages. This would have been great, if only I didn't set NOD32 to warn me, instead of keeping it quiet, so I'm a bit worried. Either I'm completely secured and no one ever attacks me, or something is happening without me knowing it.By the way, I just made a ShieldsUP test here at work, where I have router and the results were somewhat interesting... all ports closed, except MS services ports (135, 139, 445, 1025) being stealth and web server ports (21, 22, 23, 53, 80) being opened . In comprarrison, the last time I made a check at home, all ports were detected as stalth, though in truth, 80 (http) and 21 (ftp) are opened for people to use .

[dcole.ath.cx]

My sever is run off of a dynamic IP address... when I startup a new server I have to update the IP address every week (for me it was saturday at 9:58, always at the same time, umm) but once the server has been there for a couple of weeks my dynamic IP address never changes, on my old server the IP address changed every 6 months...I've never had bad any bad things on my server like hackers or virus, worms, spyware... Myself and a friend try to hack on to my server all the time. Most holes get patched months before anyone else can think of them. I guess a really hacker could hack my site but what's the chance of them finding a small website like my own, and then why would they hack me? they hate me, want to do it for a laugh, they want some data that's on my server (I have none by the way... any info that you want, you could just ask me for or fine on my website...) I could give you all my personal data that's inside my server right now, I'm Dan Cole...

[justsomeguy]

Hackers don't necessarily need a reason to break in. But if they do get in, they might install some software to run a spam server, or send keyloggers to your users, or things like that. The place I am at now got their old NT server hacked into a few times, and I think they set up a public FTP site to trade warez or something. But the new Server 2003 machine seems to be doing well. There's a Linux machine that keeps emailing me the logs every day where I can see who is connecting to it. Apache should be keeping logs like that, I think you can also get programs to parse through the Apache logs and display more friendly information.