OK I've had enough...........

Indeed, it sounds easy. But here's what you'll run into. If you have a mission critical site that needs to be online at all times, you wouldn't be in good shape if the power goes out. By having someone else take care of your web server, you don't need to worry about things like that (assuming they are reliable).

What platform are you going to be running on? Windows or some Unix variant? I would suggest Linux, but that probably isn't an option if you're a windows user and you need this site up soon. Windows software is expensive and resource intensive. Sure, you can use Apache, but what about an email server and dns server? The cheapest email server I know of is Worldmail server by Eudora, and even that runs about $250.

You probably won't run into too many problems configuring your web or email server software, but DNS is a completely different beast. In case you didn't know, a DNS server is what links your IP address to your domain name. It sounds simple enough, but I can't tell you how long it took me to figure out DNS. So what I suggest for you is to outsource your DNS. I have used easydns.com in the past, and they are great. I think it's only like $30 for a year of DNS hosting, so it is relatively inexpensive and will save you a lot of headaches.

Well, good luck. This forum is always open for more questions, which I'm sure you'll probably have...

There are a couple of other things to consider. First, start with whoever is providing your 24/7 connection. If it's T-1 or T-3 you're probably okay, but many ISPs offering DSL or cable will prohibit using that connection to run a full-time web server. It's best to find out in advance before your usage patterns trigger a flag on your account and your connection disappears without warning.

Second, consider security. Probably the biggest battles full-time web professionals face is securing the server against attacks. Even the big boys like Yahoo and Microsoft fail from time to time and by comparison, whatever security measures you manage to have in place would look like Swiss cheese to a hacker looking to get through.

Third, how much is your time worth? A lot of what you intend is pretty easy. Downloading, installing and configuring the core components like Apache, Perl, a mail server and any other add-ons like database support, other scripting languages, etc, isn't hard at all. But that's only a fraction of the time you'll need to spend. Keeping things working on a day to day basis, making modifications and correcting problems will be a big job. If you're spending even a tiny amount like 5 hours a week to save $100 a month in hosting costs you're working for less than minimum wage.

The important thing is to think this whole thing through and be sure that you understand the commitment involved. There are a lot of bad hosts out there and it's easy to wind up dissatisfied or screwed. But there are good ones too, hosts that can keep a domain up 24/7, keep it secure, fix problems quickly and competantly and do it all for a reasonable price.

There are good reasons for and against doing your own hosting:

pros:
- complete control over everything: mail servers, DNS, web servers, FTP servers, custom server apps
- easy access: log files, web application files, etc.
- you get dedicated server hardware
- it can be a fun learning experience (if you're up to it)

cons:
- complete control over everything: mail servers, DNS, web servers,...
- have to pay for any software you use (instead of sharing the bill with all the other hosted sites)
- have to evaluate and select software for many things that otherwise would be provided by your hosting provider
- hard but not impossible to achieve high reliability
- represents additional work that may be a distraction from what you're really trying to do with your site
- it can be a frustrating learning experience (if you're not up to it)

I'm currently doing my own hosting. In my case, I decided to do it because:

- I needed NT hosting (Windows 2000 server); its more expensive than linux hosting
- I had special apps (GIS software) that I wanted to run, which would make my hosting bill get more expensive
- I wanted to be able to add new sites without having to shell out for each one at a web host
- I know a guy at Microsoft who got me all the MS software I need for free (legal copies): Win2k, SQL Server

Some tips that have worked for me:

- I'm not hosting my own DNS server, I'm using a free DNS provider (www.centralinfo.net), that has worked flawlessly so far
- I'm hosting via a cable modem (RoadRunner); its a business account (which they're just now starting to offer), which means that it costs twice as much, but no worries about being "found out" running a web or other server
- I tried hosting via residential DSL before that (Earthlink); it was too unreliable, I cancelled it after 6 months of losing hours per day with dropped connections; also it was dynamic IP (my cable is static), which made things more difficult (but not impossible)
- in addition to whether you ISP allows web server hosting, you should also check whether they block any ports; Earthlink for example blocks port 25, so you can't host your own SMTP server, which means I had to forward all my outbound mail through their SMTP server; and several months in, they stopped allowing my relaying. RoadRunner on the other hand does not block any ports
- I'm using a freeware mail server called ArGoSoft Mail Server; they also have a more spiffy version which is shareware, but the freeware one was fine for my needs. Very simple to install/administer, and works nicely
- I had to write a little VB utility that polled to check whether my connection was up, so in case it went down, I could try to do something about it; with Earthlink, this was basically a wee morning wake up call every other night, RoadRunner has been much more reliable; let me know if anyone wants this utility, I can post it
- you'll need to provide your own log analysis tools, which otherwise would be provided by your web host; there are a few free ones available, and from my experience even the for-pay ones aren't very good.
- if you host via dynamic IP, you'll need a dynamic IP DNS service, I used dyndns and dtdns while I was on a dynamic IP; dyndns was nice because you could hook your Netgear DSL router to automatically tell the site to update your IP when the router changes it; I switched to dtdns later on, which didn't have that ability, but for other reasons worked better for me (and I switched after dyndns went poof for several days in a row, and I got fed up waiting for it to wake up again).

Hm, I'm sure I've forgotten some other things, oh well, enough for now. If anyone out there cares a hoot, I'll be glad to spew some more

Brad