Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 16:04:24 -0500 (EST) From: mgraffam@mhv.net To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Setting up a personal web server on the net Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980117154933.15698B-100000@ismene> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980117122054.11811A-100000@andrsn.stanford.edu>
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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Sat, 17 Jan 1998, Annelise Anderson wrote: > There are a number of reasons why one might want to do such a thing. I think I can add some insight into this discussion... I run a server off of my home machine, I do it for two reasons.. one is to simply play with the technology. If my region had cable modems, I'd be in my glory but till then, I run my machine off of a 33.6 modem with PPP. The other reason is to distribute sensitive files that I wouldnt want to put elsewhere. The prime example of this is my "high security" PGP public keys. These public keys are not sent to key servers or distributed from anywhere but on my hard drive; this is an academic point, really, but it minimizes the chance of a "man in the middle attack." Also, I put links to my personal source directory so that people who are interested in my code can get the latest version of stuff, even though I may not have packaged it up and sent it to my ISP for normal distribution. > Must it really be up 24 hours a day? :) In practice, I am on pretty much 24 hours a day. > On the question of the connection--I think the connection sought here is > ppp, and of course a fixed IP address would be preferrable to one > dynamically assigned. Yeah, I'd much rather have a static IP with good bandwidth, but that just wont happen in my area for awhile..but if you can such a connection, I recommend it. > When an IP address is dynamically assigned, > how do interested people find the server, assuming it's up and running? The way I handle this problem is like this.. I publish my IP with my ISP. When I connect my scripts extract the IP from ifconfig and create an HTML file with links using the IP. 3 links are created, one for ftp, http and telnet. This HTML file is then ftp'd to my ISP and overwrites the previous "access.html" file. When I go offline, I upload an HTML file that says "Sorry, but my machine isn't available right now." > I think it would be interesting to determine from the logs how heavy a > load a web server can accomodate over a single phone line and therefore > how it should be ideally set up. I've had 3 and 4 users grabbing pages from me while I was using bandwidth with no problems. Of course, I purposely keep my pages on the short side so I'm not transferring 40k at a time, and it works pretty well. I'm using Apache. My FreeBSD box has the modem in it and does firewalling for my Linux machine (which runs the services because my FreeBSD machine doesnt have much RAM and I use it for my personal work.. so no outside interference is allowed). Michael J. Graffam (mgraffam@mhv.net) http://www.mhv.net/~mgraffam -- Philosophy, Religion, Computers, Crypto, etc "Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within me. I do not seek or conjecture either of them as if they were veiled obscurities or extravagances beyond the horizon of my vision; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence." - Immanuel Kant "Critique of Practical Reason" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGPfreeware 5.0i for non-commercial use Charset: noconv iQCVAwUBNMEc3gKEiLNUxnAfAQEplAP9E3BEjmBS8Z/2BNVhhUPZvz1b4WnzniDC rltbIEthuEyfw2pigsEuoHl/JIa8ySOT4YhrdHOLlvyIM+DU6PzeKneqtaLSSJZF Mflu5Ene2jlpQYl8u8DvYDdbCdjzWbSKHTInGtMxL2YKcov/sBAvybdm0vCnWdXp K2lsNcUhbn8= =7Rad -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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