How To Host Your Own Website At Home

If you are reading this tutorial it means that is working fine because this website is hosted on my computer at home and I have done exactly what is written on these pages.

I'll try to explain to you my personal experience in doing all the steps to host a website on your own PC at home, from registering your Domain name, configuring the dns server, the router and the web server.

If you're planning to have your own website, you've got different options for hosting it , depending on how big your web site will be and how many visitors is going to have. Obviously , for a professional web site with thousands of daily visitors it is recommendable to have the support of a dedicated server and professional hosting. But if you want to be on the net only for pleasure and with a small budget, you can try to host your website on your own at home.Oh yes,you could go on one of the free services that you can find on the net, but doing that you will have a lot of limitations .
The first would be the limit of space .

Instead hosting on your own you are really free,and you have the full control of your website.You can also host other websites and make money with that.

The first step to start with is ,assuming you have a website , having a look at what minimum hardware and software you need. Click here to check Requirements

The next step is to find a name for your website and then register that domain name.Here how to register in a step by step tutorial How to register your Domain name

When you have your domain name,to make it available on the Internet you need a DNS Server that will do all the job to serve your IP Address to the requests from the Net.Click here to learn How to configure a DNS Server

Now you have done all the external jobs it's time to start getting your computer ready to host a website.If you don't have it already , Install and configure IIS (Internet Information Services) the Web Server supplied by Microsoft.Here a step by step tutorial on How to Install and Configure IIS

At this stage we can configure the router and open the gate to the external world at the newly hosted website.Follow this tutorial Configuring Your Router

Finally you can check whether the ports on the router are actually opened. Click here Check computer port

Domain Registration

The first step to get your website online is to find the right name and to register it .There are lots of dedicated sites for that and you can have a look around and choose what you think is the best. Personally I registered my web site with www.domainmonger.com for just $13.00 for 1 year but now they raised the price up to 17.00 dollars. It doesn't really matter on which site you register your Domain name because , basically,you have to do the same . This is ,step by step ,what I have done:

Go to www.domainmonger.com You will be asked to register a new account first, but it's free and quick.After that ,on the page below you can check the availability of your domain name by typing it on the left under Find a domain Name and click Search.

Here you can select the name of you website and proceed with the checkout.

After the payment you will be redirected to the page below ,where you will have to type the primary and secondary DNS servers that you'll obtain from www.zoneedit.com where you'll have to register.But you'll learn about it in the next step.
Now just leave these fields as they are.
Make sure that Use Your Own Name Servers is checked

Go to the next step Find and configure your DNS Server

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Source: ComputerMania