Tell me if I am crazy - creating a web server at home!?

[Alexander Barnes]

I spent a few hours last night looking around to see if I could actually set up my own web server at home - mostly for exploring, learning, experimenting (not for commerce or even blogging, etc.).

My LAN is connected to the internet via a cable modem behind a Linksys WRT54G2 router. My own dual-boot box is on the LAN (nothing of value and perhaps little or no personal information either as I'm very cautious about my privacy). However, my housemate (Dad) has a Windows box on the LAN too, with tax software, online banking, and other activities of a confidential nature. We've set up limited accounts for general use, have a Norton firewall and AV, and to the best of my knowledge have been fairly safe from crackers so far.

My plan was to have a simple system with LAMP installed and go for it - forward port 80 traffic to the server, and keep it away from the other machines.

So, am I basically going to be asking for a rootkit on the XP box in a few hours...or if I "do it right" can I hope for a reasonably secure setup to work with? Should I be dissuaded from this madness? Any experiences good or bad?

Thanks for your input!

[sithlord48]

Re: Tell me if I am crazy - creating a web server at home!?

i run serveral servers from home on an xp machine for years. you should have no issues if you do it right ..
be sure to check out www.dyndns.org to get an dns so you don't have to know your ip.and your router will auto log in and update as well.(check out DDNS in the router to set that up) but you just get a dynamic dns there free and your good to go.

edit:
forgot to mention that "server" is part of a larger network in my home consisting of several machines with diffrent oses. in there is a mac (os 10.4.11), xp(sp3), and kubuntu 8.04, kubuntu 8.10 (32 on one and 64 on another). and some other older machines but the point being if you set up your port fowarding correctly you should not have a problem.

[Alexander Barnes]

Re: Tell me if I am crazy - creating a web server at home!?

Ah, good. I was at dyndns last night so I guess I can get an endoftheinternet.net domain still. Or, boldlygoingnowhere.org 8)

I saw some information suggesting using a different port besides 80 - maybe to keep more casual traffic away. Does that seem like a good idea to you? My gut feeling is not to worry so much and just focus on making sure my router is forwarding requests correctly and the rest of my network is properly secured. I'm pretty pysch'd up - seems like many of the curtains are being lifted this year and I'm seeing how things work at last.

[HavocXphere]

Re: Tell me if I am crazy - creating a web server at home!?

Just make sure that its always forwarding to the right PC/ip and you should be OK.

[sithlord48]

Re: Tell me if I am crazy - creating a web server at home!?

My gut feeling is not to worry so much and just focus on making sure my router is forwarding requests correctly and the rest of my network is properly secured.

yes i would go with your gut

[diddy1234]

Re: Tell me if I am crazy - creating a web server at home!?

I have created one at home as well (kubuntu 8.04).
We use it for our home page as it has all of the favorite links.
We also have some flash based games as well.

I also have the router setup to allow this connection through.

There is one really good add on that I setup as well.
Each users home directory can also host their own web site.

infact you can check it out here :-
http://82.16.210.140/

[sithlord48]

Re: Tell me if I am crazy - creating a web server at home!?

thats a cool little page joomla is fun i used to have my page all nice w/ e107 then i had to format and lost all my stuff in the dir (forgot to back it up, let that be a lesson to us all!)
i fixed my page, been doing some machine shuffleing. just need to sit down and update it alot
http://dopplereffect.shacknet.nu