First off, have you determined that that is actually your current IP address? You can browse to http://www.chienworks.com/webinfo/mybrowser to find out.

How are you connecting your server to the internet? Are you using some sort of router/firewall/switch box so that you can have more than one computer connected? If so, browsing to your IP address will show the login screen for that router until you configure it for forwarding.

If you need to make some sanity checks, you can dig up an old 98SE box and activate PWS (Personal Web Server) which has no permissions or security whatsoever. Connect this computer directly to the cable modem. You should then be able to see PWS' default index page. If this works then you at least have one less variable to worry about.

IIS doesn't use "index.html" as the default page. It uses "default.htm". Change your start page to this and it should work fine.

there are also MANY free small webserver programs out there. My friend hosts my site (and his) on a linux server. That, of course, requires a dedicated computer. :)

I see a page titled "Web Publishing Information"

So another quick question, if I end up registering a domain name at go daddy or another place, do I have to set a dns name server with w2k3 to have a domain automatically resolved to the IP address?

"I see a page titled "Web Publishing Information"

Excellent. That means its working. Woohoo.

In your Godaddy.com account you'll activate "total DNS control" for that domain and set up "A" records for @ and www that contain your IP address.


If this is the only domain on your computer then you're all done and ready to go. It takes about 5 to 30 minutes for this DNS change to propogate through the 'net, so be patient before checking it.

woohoo. Much thanks.

Another question and I promise no more. If run a dual boot of w2k3, will I be able to host multiple sites on my server or do I need additional IPs from my provider or is this where running dns comes into play?

Patrick, accessing the IP address worked here too.

Dual boot won't help. In fact, if you want your website on 24/7 then dual boot is something won't even want to consider.

"Virtual domain name hosting" allows as many different domain names on one IP address as you wish. I have one IP address with about 50 domains. You will resolve all the domains to point to the same address. In Apache (the web server software that i and most of the world uses) you create entries in the server configuration file to map domain names to separate directories on the drive. I'm sure the same thing can be done in IIS, but i wouldn't know how.

Be warned that virtual domains only work with newer browsers, such as MSIE 3 or later, or Netscape 2.1 or later. Hopefully few of your visitors will be using browsers older than these. If they do, they will only see your default directory no matter which domain name they use.

You yourself most likely won't ever run your own dns server. Godaddy.com provides this service for free when you register domain names with them, so there's no reason to do it yourself.

Go ahead ... ask another question. You know you want to! ;)

Ok I want to make sure I understand this.

If I use virtual domains, lets say I have two domains abc.com and efg.com. When the user puts in one of the domains, it will resolve to my sticky ip and then my virtual domain server will route them to the default page for that domain correct?

Correct. As i said, i don't know how this happens under IIS, but you'll have something in the config file that lists each domain name and specifies which directory contains that name's web pages.

is it easy to set that up under lets say, Suse Linux?

I still havent decided what exacly I am going to host yet (a friend asked me to host for him and I have no clue what I'd be hosting.) I have flirted with the idea of doing distribution of my work with DRM and WM9 (or Nero AVC if they ever get aroudn to implementing their DRM). So for Win Media authetication, w2k3 is needed. W2k3 is nice too that if I need to, I could use Vegas on it. Straight hosting could be done on Linux but then I lose the ability to use Vegas in a pinch.

I use RedHat instead of Suse, but chances are you'll still use Apache under Suse so it should be similar to what i've got. There's a file named /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf that contains the web server configuration. One of the lines is:
BindAddress 12.220.118.8
which tells the server which IP address to listen to. Then there are paragraphs further down which perform the mapping, for example:


You would repeat this for each domain name, replacing "yourdomain" with your domain name. the DocumentRoot line tells the server which directory to fetch. Generally i give the directory the same name as the domain, just to make it easier to keep track of. It's not necessary, but then again i can't think of any reason to be confusing.

Type in /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd restart or reboot to enable the changes after entering/editing them.

That is awesome. Cheno, much thanks. I totally could not get an easy answer like that on the IRC Linux channel.

Now Im excited to get started designing something.

I onder how easy it is to set the same kind of thing up under w2k3 so that I still have access to Vegas and Photoshop instead of losing my computer as a 24/7 host for my friend.

In the IIS console you can right-click "Default Web Site" (or whatever you may have renamed it) and click the Advanced button next to the IP Address field, then an Add button to type in a "Host Header Name" for each domain name you want to serve.

Oh, a caveat: I think it's only the Windows products with "Server" in the name that will let you setup multiple web sites answering different IPs, ports or names. With XP Pro and such you're limited to a single web site answering a single IP/port/name configuration.