Hosting my own images/files

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:11 pm

I want to host my own images/files that I post here and other forums but need some help getting there....I have everything I need (I think) to get it done ..I don't care what my ISP may think ...I'll deal with that when or if it comes. I'm not dealing in large volumes or anything remotely close....

..I know some of you do this and would like some help ...I've read a bit here and there and all the info is so overwhelming and quite frankly I'd rather post and than sift through all the garbage through Google...like I said it's just for me. I'll gladly compensate in some way shape or form for the help...PM me if necessary

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:40 pm

i use my roadrunner free web space to host small files less than my 10MB allowed total web space.

i use a free FTP program called filezilla to upload to my roadrunner space.

they will not allow me to hot link images to forums, but i can still post them as links, kinda sucks but for free i guess it is okay.

for images here i use the space Philip gives us, works fine

any help to ya ?

or are you talking about running your own server from home, a big no no for home accounts AFAIK

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:54 pm

Mark wrote:i use my roadrunner free web space to host small files less than my 10MB allowed total web space.

i use a free FTP program called filezilla to upload to my roadrunner space.

they will not allow me to hot link images to forums, but i can still post them as links, kinda sucks but for free i guess it is okay.

for images here i use the space Philip gives us, works fine

any help to ya ?

or are you talking about running your own server from home, a big no no for home accounts AFAIK

Ya, I got a premium account here and a photobucket account. I would like to do it from home on a spare machine...I've got server 2003 already installed and ready to go...

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 7:24 pm

Izzo wrote:Ya, I got a premium account here and a photobucket account. I would like to do it from home on a spare machine...I've got server 2003 already installed and ready to go...

sorry, i can't help ya on that

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 7:48 pm

Mark wrote:sorry, i can't help ya on that

I know what you can help me with .....is there such a thing as a special plumbers deep well socket? ...I have a leaky faucet in my bathroom and the nut is flush to the wall/tile ..apparently there's a rubber washer in there that needs to be replaced ...I'm afraid if i pull too hard i'll mess up the pipes...my deep wells are just a hair too short

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 7:58 pm

yes there is a special tool for that, any home center should have them........

http://www.superiortool.com/tools/specp ... /03755.htm

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 8:02 pm

right on ....

stevebakh · Post by **stevebakh** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 10:25 am

Izzo, it sounds like you basically want to set up a small web server. Apache would probably be the way to go.

Setting up the webserver itself is easy (all instructions can be found on the Apache website: http://www.apache.org/ You could even go for a smaller, lighter webserver called lighttpd http://www.lighttpd.net/

The key issue, after setting up your server, is whether or not you have a fixed IP address from your ISP. Normally, if you don't, you can pay a tiny extra fee to make it static. This way, you can point a Domain name towards your IP for easy access and if you don't want to have a static IP, there are free services available to point a domain name towards a dynamic IP, though it requires that you run a daemon on the computer.

If you have a dynamic IP and don't want to switch to static, look at http://www.dyndns.com/services/dns/dyndns/

Hope that helps =]

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 10:32 am

Yeah, I've installed Apache Http server last night... any good references for editing the httpd file? I'm unsure of what's needed or if a specific module is needed to host the images/files...I don't a have static IP per say but I'll keep until I power down my modem ...so for all intents and purposes it is.

stevebakh · Post by **stevebakh** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 10:49 am

Izzo wrote:Yeah, I've installed Apache Http server last night... any good references for editing the httpd file? I'm unsure of what's needed or if a specific module is needed to host the images/files...I don't a have static IP per say but I'll keep until I power down my modem ...so for all intents and purposes it is.

You don't need any specific modules or settings for displaying or sharing image files. Just start up the server and test it's running by typing localhost or 127.0.0.1 in your browser address bar. If you've changed nothing since the install, you should see a default Apache welcome screen. You can go into the document root directory and delete all the apache html files and stick your own directories and images there.

To make the server accessible to the Internet, you will need to forward port 80 to the local IP of your server. You shouldn't have to manually specify port 80 in your router, it should be under uPnP port forwarding, along with FTP etc.

Finally, you should be able to access the server directly using your external IP address, or by pointing a domain towards your IP. It sounds like you're ISP is similar to mine, in the way you keep your IP until modem reboots, so, if that happens quite rarely, you can purchase a domain name quite cheap (can get them as low as $6 a year), then you can point it to your IP and just change the IP everytime it changes (or use the free service I linked above, that will track your IP changes automatically).

Good luck

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 11:22 am

Local host says it works but when I try and 'start' it gives me an error I cannot remember at the moment (I'm in my office) ... it appears to be that I've left the IP address settings blank.... which I assume I would need to set somewhere...I already have a couple of domain names I can use and probably will ...So..no need to forward port 80 to the IP my router is handing it ( 192. X.X.X) even though I have 3 PC's connected to it?

stevebakh · Post by **stevebakh** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 12:34 pm

Izzo wrote:Local host says it works but when I try and 'start' it gives me an error I cannot remember at the moment (I'm in my office) ... it appears to be that I've left the IP address settings blank.... which I assume I would need to set somewhere...I already have a couple of domain names I can use and probably will ...So..no need to forward port 80 to the IP my router is handing it ( 192. X.X.X) even though I have 3 PC's connected to it?

No, you will always need to forward port 80 if you want external traffic to have access to the server. For example, if I try to view an image on your server, my browser will send a request to your IP address. It will be intercepted by your router and thus, it needs to know where to route that request. That's why you need to forward port 80 to the IP of the machine that's running the web server. If the machine that runs the webserver was connected directlty to the Internet, you wouldn't have this issue... it's just that the router actually routes traffic and for inbound traffic, it needs to know where to route it. This isn't related to domain names. =]

You're saying accessing the server using localhost works, but I don't understand what you mean by 'start'. Do you mean you receive an error when first starting the server daemon on boot up?

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 1:19 pm

Ya, in fiddling with it there was an icon in my notification area/taskbar...I stopped/exited it and then when I try to 'start' or 'restart' it I'm given an error .... my apologies as I'm not at my desktop at home otherwise I'd quote the error....the error appears to be similar to the properties box of the TCP/IP settings of a network connection. I'll post it up later.

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 10:41 pm

Ok..So, I think It's working ok ..Do I need to remove the # sign before the local IP address within the httpd file? I assume I do...

stevebakh · Post by **stevebakh** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:06 am

Izzo wrote:Ok..So, I think It's working ok ..Do I need to remove the # sign before the local IP address within the httpd file? I assume I do...

Not that I'm aware of. The problem is, I'm running Apache under linux, so perhaps the config and setup is slightly different. Your windows hosts file will already be poining `localhost` towards 127.0.0.1 (the loopback device). I can't imagine why you would need to add the machines local IP to the httpd config file, it shouldn't make any difference. If you can access the server locally in your browser, then it should be fine, you just need to make it accessible to the outside world now.

Have you tried to access your server externally by entering your external IP in the browser address bar, or by getting somebody else to try it?

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:52 am

stevebakh wrote:Not that I'm aware of. The problem is, I'm running Apache under linux, so perhaps the config and setup is slightly different. Your windows hosts file will already be poining `localhost` towards 127.0.0.1 (the loopback device). I can't imagine why you would need to add the machines local IP to the httpd config file, it shouldn't make any difference. If you can access the server locally in your browser, then it should be fine, you just need to make it accessible to the outside world now.

Have you tried to access your server externally by entering your external IP in the browser address bar, or by getting somebody else to try it?

Just tried it from work and "It Works!"

Now I just gotta figure out how to forward my domain from Godaddy and I'm in business...

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 2:21 pm

For security reasons, and so you don't get slammed by script kiddies trying to hack your www server, config apache to listen on a different port such as 8080 or 8090. (I use 8090) Look for a line in apache.conf or in ports.conf and change to:
listen: 8090
Save & restart apache.
Config router port forwarding to forward 8090 to the lan ip of comp running apache.

Your images will still load in forums using the url like

Code: Select all

http://ipaddress:8090/image.jpg
or
http://domain.com:8090/image.jpg

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 2:32 pm

Thanks, Tony. I will most certainly not be using the default port for that exact reason. I have nothing in there at the moment other than the default index.html page so I'm not worried about losing anything at the moment and even if they did they can't access my other PC's as it's a different network.

I'll be fiddling with it tonight...I sifted through some of godaddy's help pages to forward my domain to that host but couldn't get it done last night...

there is certainly a lot of garbage out there.

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:37 pm

I keep my domains with domaindirect.com.
They have a free domain forwarding service. I use it for domains hosted on my home server. For example, http://www.turrisi.org winds up at my home via domain direct. I just forward the name to my ip address and port.

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 10:03 pm

I've been reading some of the pages and it's still confusing ... If i want to manage my domain ...example dot com....to my PC here do I enter my IP address as shown below or ???

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 8:31 am

Yes, forward to ipaddress:port

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 1:28 pm

doesn't seem to be working....I keep getting the default/parked page from godaddy...

zooner · Post by **zooner** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 4:49 pm

http://www.no-ip.com/
http://www.tzo.com

those are two services that i've successfully used in the past.

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:11 pm

got the DNS issue straightened out ...and my domain name redirects to my home server....although it still shows the IP in the address bar...hopefully when the masking updates everything will be good to go.....thanks for the help everyone...

TonyT · Post by **TonyT** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:45 pm

and the url is?

stevebakh · Post by **stevebakh** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:08 am

Izzo wrote:got the DNS issue straightened out ...and my domain name redirects to my home server....although it still shows the IP in the address bar...hopefully when the masking updates everything will be good to go.....thanks for the help everyone...

Forwarding a DNS isn't the same as pointing it. Forwarding your DNS has just set it up so that any visitor that goes to your URL, will just be redirected to the address you entered (be it IP or URL). You can normally enable URL masking, when forwarding, however, I don't see why you simply don't point the URL directly toward your IP address.

Izzo · Post by **Izzo** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:57 am

stevebakh wrote:Forwarding a DNS isn't the same as pointing it. Forwarding your DNS has just set it up so that any visitor that goes to your URL, will just be redirected to the address you entered (be it IP or URL). You can normally enable URL masking, when forwarding, however, I don't see why you simply don't point the URL directly toward your IP address.

I won't pretend to know exactly what I'm doing just yet...I did point it directly toward my IP but as I mentioned I kept getting godaddy's parked page when I entered my domain name...when I entered the IP address however, it worked.

I e-mailed their support and they gave me an IP address to change under my DNS/MX settings and it worked.