I am considering hosting my own website at home using a regular PC, and software like Appserv. However, many people say that such solutions are only good for testing and are not secure enough for internet hosting. I want to know how to either make my website hosting more secure, or how to implement other professional solutions like installing and setting up windows server.
Search/download XAMPP, it has Apache, MySQL, FileZilla, and few other services.
Get a PC in your home that mainly no one works on
Install it over there
Go to your Router/Modem, and insert the local IP of the PC you chose in the DMZ box
Go to DynDNS, or buy only a domain, and redirect the domain to your router’s IP.
*Risks*
There’s dDos, be ready to shut off your internet once that happens, a dDos will burn the least MB bandwidth you still have, so you better keep your website on low-profile. 
If anyone had access to your FTP, he/she can upload a malicious upload, run it through HTML and gain control over your PC… so better watch out on FTP.
If you have a slow internet (512KB or 1mbpits), I don’t encourage you to host one since if many people are going to view your website daily or keeps refreshing, you’ll run out your bandwidth in less a month and will leave you with like a 12 KB/s download speed till the end of the month.
Generally, what those people say is true. It isn’t considered safe to run a web server from your home machine. If you do decide to do this, it’s definitely recommended that you get a machine dedicated to the web server, so you don’t open your desktop machine up to security hole’s.
Beyond that, you will want to just generally follow whatever security practices the developers of your web server recommend. Apache tends to be an easily securable web server, though there are probably better ones that focus on security.
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Work for a web hosting company.
It’s rather simple to setup a website that doesn’t need to access company databases, run secure apps, etc. If it’s just a company site with input forms and a general mysql or sql server database to store user preferences you can set it up quite securely with just about any os and add nice interactivity through ASP or PHP and javascript.
Security isn’t a problem if you know how to secure it. You’ll be using the same web servers other hosts use, a microsoft, lamp, or windows os with apache setup. The problem is how you’ll maintain the system and configure it to be secure, which is more complicated than can be discusses here, especially if you’re running Microsoft database enabled apps. You’d want to hire someone to set it up with quality hardware and appropriate redundancies, and you’d need to budget for maintenance, repairs, and data recovery.
I don’t know who’s telling you that hosts are more secure. Most businesses run their own web sites. Hosts are however more reliable than the average home user or home office can be, and of course, they have static IP addresses, which many home offices can’t get from their internet providers.
References :
Search/download XAMPP, it has Apache, MySQL, FileZilla, and few other services.
Get a PC in your home that mainly no one works on
Install it over there
Go to your Router/Modem, and insert the local IP of the PC you chose in the DMZ box
Go to DynDNS, or buy only a domain, and redirect the domain to your router’s IP.
*Risks*
There’s dDos, be ready to shut off your internet once that happens, a dDos will burn the least MB bandwidth you still have, so you better keep your website on low-profile.
If anyone had access to your FTP, he/she can upload a malicious upload, run it through HTML and gain control over your PC… so better watch out on FTP.
If you have a slow internet (512KB or 1mbpits), I don’t encourage you to host one since if many people are going to view your website daily or keeps refreshing, you’ll run out your bandwidth in less a month and will leave you with like a 12 KB/s download speed till the end of the month.
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References :
My friend once hosted a gaming servers on one of his old 2003 laptop and everything went pretty good (he also gained few $ for hosting them.
I’ve also hosted a website from my PC and a game server for 8 month without any troubles until I became a torrent addicted and couldn’t stand the slow speed. ;D
Do you really intend to pass such an expensive and complicated process? You should know your site would be unavailable whenever your PC is turned off, and you’re leaving yourself open to attacks. So I recommend get a reliable company to do that in return for a few dollars.
As an experienced webmaster I recommend BH web hosting which I’m sure it would work for you and fulfill all your requirements. They have a really great offer for hosting & I have used them for over 3 yrs now, and have never had a single problem with them.
You can reach reviews about this web hosting provider and its latest DISCOUNT COUPONS at:
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Only $3.95 /month (with discount coupon)
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Hope this helps.
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