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Running my Own Server

Posted by Tom on the 10th of January, 2010, at 2:16 pm.

Since Microsoft gives out to students some free software, I thought I'd try Windows Server 2008, and try running my own webserver.
There are good and bad things about this.

Good

1. Windows Server is much easier to set up than a LAMP stack. Not that I've tried the linux route with any real vigor.
   Linux is great and all (being free), but a paid developer is a happy developer, and happy developers do more work. This, however, is the subject of another post.
2. There were a bunch of interesting easy-to-install applications available through MS Web Platform Installer. I'm trying Wordpress, a wiki, and some others. On shared hosting, installing these takes a little more time, and therefore exploration is slower.
   It also might be interesting to note the pros and cons of using some spiffy pre-made system like Wordpress versus a shitty-but-fun system like this site. But not interesting enough to tempt me.
3. Remote Desktop is awesome. And it works properly in Windows Server 2008, unlike the buggy implementation in Vista Ultimate. Unfortunately, the computer I really need to access with RDP is my Vista Ultimate XPS laptop, which I leave on most of the time while I take me netbook around with me. Time to try running a server OS as a desktop OS, maybe?
4. I learned some stuff about port forwarding. And that might well come in handy for some cool stuff in the future. For instance, I set up our router for remote access. Although it doesn't really need to forward its own ports, now does it?
5. It's handy around the house. Or at least in theory. It only has around 60 GB free, but, with a 1TB internal drive, it might be useful for centralized backup. Or maybe we should get one of those NAS boxes instead? Really, I should aim to set up a media center box. Maybe for my Mom's birthday. Fill it with Pride and Prejudice, Clue, James Bond, Batman...you know, typical gravel bangers.

Bad

1. It's slow. The "server" I'm using is a Dell Dimension 3000, with a 2.0 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM. Our ISP (Comcast) throttles our upload speed to a max of 2 MBps, and that's shared amongst all the other people in that house. In comparason, my free hosting service is blazing fast (and usually online, too).
2. It's insecure. You idots on the internet are sure to infest and destroy my server, now that I have it open on four or so ports and I have no real idea of how to properly secure the thing. I guess I could do some reading, but who has time for that?
3. It uses a lot of power. Especially since I'm using an out-of-date desktop instead of an energy-efficient purpose-designed server. I really can't justify leaving it on 24/7. It's also noisy—I left it running at home, and my dad sent me a email asking if he could "turn off the noisemaker."