How many OCUK'ers run a web/mail server from home?

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As the title.

Just wondering how many people have their own servers running. I'm nearly ready to release my server into the wild and take care of all my familys email and host a website or two. I'm on blueyonder 10meg so transfer speeds *should* be ok. Its not like that many people are going to be viewing the site.

If other people could post their experiences I'd be grateful.

Cheers.
 
i hopefully will be when i get my own flat.
Doubt the uni would be too happy if i set up a server on their network from the halls :p
 
touch said:
i hopefully will be when i get my own flat.
Doubt the uni would be too happy if i set up a server on their network from the halls :p

Most unis will have some form of hosting available for students for free/free-ish.
 
I am in the process of setting one up just for the learning process so I would be interested in what distros people are using.
 
I used to run a mail server but it became far too much hassle (Spam, Virus, ADSL uptime, etc) so I now get my mail through a dedicated provider and am much happier!

It's good as a learning process IMO but after that the novelty wares off.
 
Does Windows ME count as a distro? :p

I tried to get Ubuntu working but it just wasnt happening. So I just used the Windows ME licence to throw something together with Apache, MySQL, PHP, Ability FTP and Ability Mail servers.

Although Blueyonder's performance last night is putting me off using it as a full-time mail server!
 
Ok, new question :p

How well do you trust your mail servers? :p

I only ask because I found the details of an old website that I used to have (www.lets-mosh.com) which has IMAP support :D I'm thinking of ressurrecting it as it will obviously be on a 'proper' server and thusly more reliable. That said, it will still mean that my emails are stored on a server that I don't control. Call me paranoid but I'm trying to avoid that :cool:

The reason that I ask is that Telewest (usually very good for uptime) played funny-buggers with my internet connection last night and overall downtime (including time to repair my damaged network :() could have been up to 12 hours
 
Last edited:
Don't host a mail server on a home connection, it's a good way to get a lot of your email blocked when servers see it originated from a residential IP.
 
Caged said:
Don't host a mail server on a home connection, it's a good way to get a lot of your email blocked when servers see it originated from a residential IP.
Ah Pants! I didn't think it mattered where the e-mail came from :confused: Oh well, I'll resurrect my old site instead.
 
Caged said:
Don't host a mail server on a home connection, it's a good way to get a lot of your email blocked when servers see it originated from a residential IP.

No problem with hosting an inbound server at home. Outbound, yes, you're probably wise to forward that onto your ISP's smtp servers.
 
Caged said:
Don't host a mail server on a home connection, it's a good way to get a lot of your email blocked when servers see it originated from a residential IP.

You can just send all outgoing through your ISPs smarthost. I've never had any problems.
 
I run a web and ftp server on my normal PC* temping until I can get my hands on a spare PC.

I trust it as it is password protected. ;)
 
I ran a home server for a couple of years to host a few sites and it was good. I would reccomend CentOS 4x if you are going with linux. You can install a nice APache, Php, MySQL and Dovecot setup through Yum.
 
Caged said:
Don't host a mail server on a home connection, it's a good way to get a lot of your email blocked when servers see it originated from a residential IP.

What's a residential IP? ;)

Only problem comes when you send mail on a dynamic IP address. Some mailservers see dynamic IP addresses as spammers.

There's no problem if you're on a home ADSL connection with a static IP if your ISP let you change the PTR record to your own domain.
 
host 3 websites off my home connection with only 30kb/s up! lol but not many people view them. Ive accessed it from outside before and it seems quick enough so I dont bother getting proper hosting as I see no need.

I use IBServer which includes apache, mysql and php.
 
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