You can make your Windows XP PC as an Internet Web Server right from your home. Be sure you have: - Internet Connection (of course...) * either Dial-up or Broadband but Broadband is highly recomended. - An HTTP Server (ex. Apache, IIS, etc.) - A DNS server ( try DynDNS for free sign up) - Static IP Address* * if you have a Dynamic IP Address you can download the automatic IP Changer to eg. DynDNS. First, Configure your Http Server Then, assign your Public IP to access your systems Local IP Address Then, if you are using a Broadband or DSL modem configure it to port forward to your assigned port. last, Check your Homepage.... if you see your page then you successfully turn your pc into a web server...

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I'd seriously advise reading into this a bit more rather than just following the instructions above. For example, various modifications are needed if you want to actually make the server secure and cover up the security holes it leaves. Also, if you are behind a router you will need to set up incoming traffic on port 80 to be forwarded to the PC acting as a web server.

Also, a bit more work is needed if you want to get PHP or MySQL running too, and to get a web server that can hold forums and scripts etc. Also, be careful as some ISPs do not allow you to host a web server using their service.

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The job of installing the web server (apache) + Php and Mysql and some extra tools can be done with xampp
This work for linux and windows and can be (free) downloaded at their site http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

Setting up the router can be found at the site http://www.portforward.com/
And the ports you have to forward depends on the service you want to serve.
port 80 for http:// and port 443 for https://

Watchout some ISP's block everything below port 1000.

The you can do a port translation in your router or just move the server to another port.
When you want to reach the server you have also to mention the new port because teh default is 80.
ex http:// [ÿour alias].homeip.net:[new port] /

The next option is checking your firewall that it doesn't block the incoming requests.

A big disadvantage is that your PC must be powered on most of the time, otherwise no one can reach your site.
You are using bandwith on your internet connection.
If you have many visitors you need upload speed (witch is most of the times rather low).

 

 

 

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to keep a webhost up, you need a lot of RAM, a high-speed processor (the rest of the pieces matter less) and a veeery good bandwidth, otherwise your visitors will leave before the page is fully loaded

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Thanks but, the sort of tutorial is very incomplete, i am sorry to say so.

You must explain things a litle bit more, a lot more in my opinion, you must think like this, imagine you wanted to really learn how to convert your xp into a web server, would this tutorial be enough? i hope you understand what i mean now.

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Not neccessarily. If you asked Opaque how much RAM he had running in one system he might say 4gb (Im not sure, dont quote me!). Then think on how many people he's hosting. Hundreds and hundreds. If you just wanted to host a website for yourself you wouldnt need an extremely fast computer. But you would have to leave it on..

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Even if you did have Broadband, you'd have to make sure your upload speed is ver fast. And some ISPs block all outgoing traffic for port 80 (internet).

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still alive i never hear win xp can be used as web server, but after read in this therad i know!!!!!!

wekekeekeke

but what is minimal specification for single server for web server????

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Minimal configuration , it depends on your OS.

The only thing that you need more is RAM memory.
Each concurrent user is using some RAM memory, so you need at least 512Mb (for a low profile server).
Most of the time the 2nd problem is your internet connection.

But you can find servers with less memory (256 Mb) but then you have to patient to get your webpage.


So I should say : try with the hardware that have , run some stats on it and see where you can improve.

Note :
A webserver runs better on a linux box , since it doesn't need a graphical interface.

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