Create your own file hosting site

Ever wanted to setup your own web server to host a website or share files with family? Creating a web server is really easy to do and we'll show you everything you need to get started. In this tutorial, we'll install all of the components required for setting up of a web server on a ServerMania server.

This will setup all of the basic components of a web server. If you will be hosting many sites, or want more robust site management, you should install a control panel like cPanel instead.

There are many reasons why you should use a ServerMania Hybrid or Dedicated Server to set up your web server instead of setting up a web server at home. Increase server uptime and security with our recommended monthly server management tasks calendar. It's a lightweight and secure OS, making it one of the most popular choices for the best web servers. Apache: This is the software used to power the HTTP protocol which delivers web content from the server to the web browser.

The system requirements for setting up a personal web server depend on the type of sites you intend to run. The minimum requirements are as follows:. Commands may vary on other distributions. Now that your LAMP stack is installed, you can use these commands to start, stop, and restart components of the web server:.

Follow the steps in the script, providing the domain name and database information if required. For those looking to setup a web server on Windows Server , Windows Server , or Windows Server , the following steps can be followed. You can now open the IIS Manager. If you click on the Sites link and click Explore, you can view the web root folder and move any site files to this location.

You can then visit your servers primary IP to access your site, or follow the instructions below to point a domain to the server. You will need to login to the admin interface at your domain registrar. Our tutorial did not setup any nameservers on the server, so you will need to use an external nameserver provider. Most domain registrars provide this for free. Once you point the A record of the domain to your servers public IP address, the data in this folder will be visible for users in their browser.

You can also use our Domain. Can I host my website on my local computer and later move it to a hosting provider? Yes, you can do that. However, if you are serious about publishing a website , then it is better to start with a hosting provider. Can I host a website with one provider and then change it to another provider?

Yes, you can move your website to any other hosting company at any time. See our article on how to move your website to a new host for detailed instructions. There are so many hosting companies out there, that it becomes difficult for beginners to make the right choice. Over the years, we have worked with all the best web hosting companies on the market.

This has given us insights into what makes a good hosting platform. For starter websites, we recommend Bluehost. They automatically install WordPress, and they offer a beginner friendly dashboard, built-in caching, security, and more. For more recommendations, see our complete list of the best hosting companies with their pros and cons.

There are few companies offering free web hosting , but we recommend that you be very careful about those. We hope this article helped you learn how to host your website. You may also want to see our guide on how to get a free business email address and free business phone number for your website. If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook. How to Start a Podcast and Make it Successful in Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported.

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Now all of this may sound like bunch of technical jargon, and it is. Web hosting service provider Domain name Web hosting service providers offer you ready-to-use web servers to host your website.

Now, how do users reach your self-hosted website? This is where domain names come in. Types of Website Hosting Services Not all websites are the same. Shared Hosting A shared hosting service is suitable for small websites, blogs, and small businesses who are just starting out. Pricing: Starting from 2. Dedicated Hosting A dedicated server hosting gives you the entire server dedicated to your own website. Choosing The Right Plan to Host a Website As you can see, all different hosting plans come with different server configuration and pricing.

Now if you are just starting out, then this is still a significant investment. Your goal would be to only buy what you actually need and use free tools whenever you can. How to Host a Website on Your Computer We are often asked by our users if they can host a website on their own computer. This will allow you to install a local server without making it publicly available.

After that, you need to find the line that begins with Listen 80 You need to replace it with your IP address and port number. ServerName Pointing Your Domain Name to a Locally Hosted Website Pointing your domain name to a website that you are hosting on your own computer will allow users to access it as they would do with any other site. After that, you need to apply the changes and restart your router. Disadvantages of Hosting a Website by Yourself Hosting your website on a local computer is a bad idea.

Following are just a few disadvantages of hosting a website on local computer. There are also a couple of customization features for those of you who are a little familiar with PHP. You can added the following variables to the top of your index.

This will hide the contents of a directory. You can reveal it by adding? This is, of course, not a very secure method of protecting your files but it will keep them out of search listings and away from the prying eyes of the average viewer—so long as you don't share the password. If you have a little PHP know-how, you can, of course, alter this script to add new features or change how it works. You have the source code, so have fun with it if you want to make it do more for you.

When you upload the PHP scripts to the directory where you want to share files, you'll have a nice, attractive listing so long as you don't create any new directories.

If you create a new directory, however, it won't have a copy of the index. This is why you need to set up a cron job to tell the other directories to use the file listing script dirlist. How you set up a cron job with your web host will vary, so check your host's knowledge base, wiki, or whatever to find out the exact process. We'll explain it generically so you can apply the following steps to any method of creating a cron job.

Connect to your FTP and upload the scandir. If it is not in the same directory, this will not work. Obviously you want to replace yourdomain.

Schedule this cron job to run every 5, 10, or 15 minutes depending on the frequency you need. Remember, you can always visit that URL manually if you need to run an update right away. That's all there is to it.