Hosting My Own Site

I don't know if this is even the right place to post this or not. A couple of years ago, I tried, in my worst way to configure my G4 to be a server, because I wanted to host my own site, but never got it to work. First, I found out that the cable/DSL has to have a static address and would have to be reconfigured and if I remember correctly, that would require changing the port number on it, in order to get traffic coming through. Well, not everyone in my household, who is on the network, was crazy about that idea, plus the fact that I'm not the administrator. So, now I'm wanting to try it with AOL dialup. I even talked with a guy who has his own radio program, who answers questions and helps callers out with computer problems. I was told by him, right there on the air, that setting up a server from your computer wasn't a very smart thing to do, because just about anyone could go in and hack your computer. I was able to set up the server locally and for others to see, only if they had macintosh computers, but this is not enough for me, as I want the whole world to see my site. Now I'm ready to give it another try. Does anyone know of a site or of a manual that tells how to setup a Macintosh computer as a server, that is easily understood? All the instructions that I've found, seem to be geared at PCs only. Any insight or info, will be very much appreciated! TIA

<< Hi Kathryne,
By "PC", I simply meant your personal computer, (not necessarily a windows machine), which would contain sensitive data.
I meant to imply that a webserver should be a dedicated machine for that purpose, and that purpose only. Myriad of reasons why. >>
Hi Mark,
...Sorry, my bad on misunderstanding what you meant. As explained before, I never really got the server off the ground and there were a lot of things I didn't quite get about it. It seems you're very knowledgeable in the area and because I'm always asking why, would you please tell me the "myriads of reasons" as to why? "
-Kathryne

Similar Messages

Hosting my own site locally?

Hi everyone,
I have a website created on my mac in the 'Sites' folder of my personal (non admin) client.
If I connect to my cable (virginmedia) modem directly to my Mini with ethernet, my site is broadcast to the w.w.w. perfectly using the address found in in 'Sharing Preferences'.
When I connect the modem to my wireless (dynamode) router, then wirelessly to my Mac I cannot connect to the same web address like I can without the router in place.
I don't really know much about t'internet and routers, so an idiots guide would be great.
PS I do not have a static IP nor does my service provide for port 80 forwarding if this makes any difference?

<< Hi Kathryne,
By "PC", I simply meant your personal computer, (not necessarily a windows machine), which would contain sensitive data.
I meant to imply that a webserver should be a dedicated machine for that purpose, and that purpose only. Myriad of reasons why. >>
Hi Mark,
...Sorry, my bad on misunderstanding what you meant. As explained before, I never really got the server off the ground and there were a lot of things I didn't quite get about it. It seems you're very knowledgeable in the area and because I'm always asking why, would you please tell me the "myriads of reasons" as to why? "
-Kathryne

I am trying to host my own website/mail server

I am pretty new with osx server and from all the info i found was to create a "intranet" per say.. I have AT&T uverse and I am hosting my own site..that part was pretty easy even tho i am not sure if i did set up the DNS server right... i set up the DNS server as the same as my website... I.E. mywebsite.com i am able to visit the site as long as i am not in my internal network.. and i also was able to set up the mail server but I can only send emails and not recieve from my iPhone.. and via web i can not even access the email... can someone help me? I also can not see my calender listed on workgroup under my account.. so i can not access over iphone either...
Can anyone help me?

What do the zone files show in the DNS settings in Server Admin? There should be a primary and reverse zone for the machine name and its network address.
I also recommend using a static network address rather than DHCP for servers. Assign a static network address in your router for the server's MAC address. In the network settings in System Preferences on the server, select DHCP with manual address and enter the same IP address you assigned it in the router. Make sure the router IP address is entered correctly in the server's network settings.
As for accessing it from the Internet, you need either a dedicated IP address or a dynamic IP forwarding service. The IP address in the A record in the name servers for the domain should be fixed. You will have problems if you're using a dynamic IP address and constantly updating your name servers because of the propagation lag.

Hosting your iWeb site with a third party

Where is the best place to host my iWeb site so that I can get it indexed by the various search engines? Apparently, .Mac blocks spiders and therefore I cannot get my site to come in search results. Obviously, my primary goal is to have my site prominent on google. I would like to find a host that would submit my sites for me if possible. Thanks.

.Mac doesn't block spiders. You have to get rid of the iWeb standard navigation and build your own.
Create a sitemap and upload it to Finder/Go/iDisk/My iDisk/Web/Sites.
The URL for your sitemap is ...
http://web.mac.com/username/sitemap.xml
... and the URL you submit to Google is ...
http://web.mac.com/username/
Rage Sitemap Automator will create the map, upload it and enter it into the four major search engines..
http://www.ragesw.com/products/googlesitemap.html
A more basic, and cheaper, version is iMap...
http://guimkie.com/projects/imap/
Or you can use the freeware Carto and do all the hard work yourself....
http://www.freemacware.com/carto/
Lots of information here...
http://alyeska.altervista.org/en/iWebiWebGoogle.html

Host my own DNS

Please help me!!!
I have a G5 XServe, running OS X Server 10.4.8. I am trying to host my own DNS on my XServe, meaning I logged into my account at GoDaddy.com and changed my DNS servers to ns1.mydomain.com and ns2.mydomain.com.
I used to have the server behind a router, and just had ports and traffic forwarded to it. Now, I have put it in front of the router and assigned it one of the static IPs (as per my ISP), and can connect to the internet. I didn't have any problems resolving addresses before I moved the DNS at GoDaddy. I can ping the server via ns1.mydomain.com, but that's it. I can't ping mydomain.com or mail.mydomain.com, both of which have been set up in Server Admin.
Here is the weird thing: I wiped out all of my DNS Zone entries in Server Admin, but I can still view a different site I host. When I ping it, it resolves to the local IP I have specified, ie 192.168.1.10.
I've been using Server Admin to set up the DNS service. I've read contrasting opinions on this. Some stating that DNS should be administered through the command line, some that Server Admin is fine. Thoughts? I prefer to use the Server Admin, as I'm not terribly comfortable using the command line (ex-Windows guy. Sorry).
Any insight, help, voodoo hexes are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Ok , first welcome to mac os x server ,
About DNS setup.
Since you want to setup your own service you have to keep a few things in mind.
a) your server machine HAS to have a Fixed IP address : for that you have to configure one of you WAN addresses to that machine : for example if you are provided an adress like 80.200.110.16 with a subnet of 255.255.255.248 your network will start at 80.200.110.16 to 80.200.110.23 since you have 5 ips i would say one address is reserved to your router and shall be kept that way one is your broadcast (probably the end address) the other adresses in between are all yours.
b) if you can turn off the router's DCHP server do so , your DNS machine is supposed to be your 24/7 at some point and since you might want to run everything at gigabit speed it does not make sense to have your traffic routed to your router at all times.
2) DNS registration and domain registration; pick your domain from a nice registrar : i would suggest network solutions and declare the following.If you are changing ISP and already have a domain name make SURE you have control of your domain name and/or ask the transfer operated your favorite registrar. If you have full control of your domain's registration your domain change is down to a change of IP adresses in the registrars records.
a) If you want a new domain name attributed to your machine 80.200.110.17 (your server) during the whole article ill suppose your 80.200.110.16 is your router. Setup your records ,hostnames etc.
b) Keep in mind any new registration for a domain to get validated takes TIME (about 72 hours) for it to reach root servers , the system just updates itself on a regular basis.
b1) after you have registred and or upated your Domain with your registrar you have to setup your DNS records here follows a quick example of a forward DNS (home server)
db.domain that is the forward zone , this is stored in /var/named
maxosx.net. IN SOA moxxy.domain.net. [email protected]. (
1 ; Serial
10800 ; Refresh after 3 hours
3600 ; Retry after 1 hour
604800 ; Expire after 1 week
86400 ) ; Minimum TTL of 1 day
; Name servers
maxosx.net. IN NS moxxy.maxosx.net.
; Addresses for the canonical names
localhost.domain.net. IN A 127.0.0.1
moxxy. domain.net. IN A 80.200.110.17
www. domain.net. IN A 80.200.110.17
ftp. domain.net. IN A 80.200.110.17
sftp. domain.net. IN A 80.200.110.17
domain.net. IN A 80.200.110.17
moxxy. domain.net. IN A 80.200.110.17
mail. domain.net. IN A 80.200.110.17
pop3. domain.net. IN A 80.200.110.17
smtp. domain.net. IN A 80.200.110.17
imap. domain.net. IN A 80.200.110.17
pop. domain.net. IN A 80.200.110.17
leopard.domain.net. IN A 80.200.110.17
gateway.domain.net. IN A 80.200.110.16
;DHCP Range
; MX Records
domain.net. IN MX 0 mx.domain.net.
Second file the reverse record:
; File created by DNS Helper vendredi 8 décembre 2006 11:30:53
142.80.81.in-addr.arpa. IN SOA moxxy.maxosx.net. [email protected]. (
1 ; Serial
10800 ; Refresh after 3 hours
3600 ; Retry after 1 hour
604800 ; Expire after 1 week
86400 ) ; Minimum TTL of 1 day
; Name Servers
110.200.80.in-addr.arpa. IN NS moxxy.domain.net.
; Addresses point to canonical name
17.110.200.80.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR moxxy.domain.net.
17.110.200.80.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR www.domain.net.
17.110.200.80.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR ftp.domain.net.
17.110.200.80.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR sftp.domain.net.
17.110.200.80.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR domain.net.
17.110.200.80.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR moxxy.domain.net.
17.110.200.80.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR mail.domain.net.
17.110.200.80.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR pop3.domain.net.
17.110.200.80.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR smtp.domain.net.
17.110.200.80.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR imap.domain.net.
17.110.200.80.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR pop.domain.net.
17.110.200.80.in-addr.arpa. IN PTR leopard.domain.net.
c) If you are unfamilliar with DNS Setup and pico editing a DNS record i cannot recommend apple's DNS GUI and would recommend menandmice DNS server over apple's not that Apple's DNS server is broken far from it , the GUI is not made to handle anything but a local DNS service.
c1) there is also a free tool named DNS Helper that works great with apple's DNS server , BUT it is at a loss to calculate serials for DNS records ,
http://mail.computertree.com/~josh/simple/dnshelper.html
c2) MenandMice DNS server.
http://www.menandmice.com/
d) Make sure your mac os X's firewall is properly setup your ipfw shall authorize traffic from port 53 on UPD and TCP both in inbound and outbound queries.
e) once you setup your DNS Make SURE your dns servers wan address figures in your TCP/IP DNS records setup on your main port , otherwise your server might not just operate
f) if you wish as well to edit your hostname in the hostconfig it will not hurt as well ... it is located in /etc/hostconfig and or you can choose changeip as noted abobe my post by Greg Pearman.
g) for DHCP purposes you can surely use the Apple's Gateway assistant which works 100 percent fine on mac os X server 10.4.8.
Hoping this helps you in your setup.
Ps: Thanks to david for posting the Dns Diagnostic tools link as well this is dead handy
http://www.dnsreport.com/tools/dnsreport.ch?domain=dysl.net
MacPro 2.66Ghz 8GB Ram 4*500GB waiting for X1900XT Mac OS X (10.4.8) Mac os X server 10.4.8 Universal Binary

Adding to own site

Hi - I love iWeb, and want to use it for a blog on my own site - www.nigelsecostore.com - rather than hosting at .mac. It seems easy enough to do, but the options that get lost ie adding comments and searching, seem pretty fundamental.
Anyone know if Apple are planning to update iWeb to allow these functions on non .mac servers?
you can view my blog here:
http://web.mac.com/nigel.berman/iWeb/NigelsEcoStore/Blog/Blog.html
Macbook pro Mac OS X (10.4.6)
Macbook pro Mac OS X (10.4.6)

You could sign up for google adsense and get search for your site. It will then search everything, including blogs. I've got it for my site if you'd like to see how it integrates with the rest of the site.
http://www.rowan-cottage.co.uk/Site/Sitemap.html
Michael
iMac Intel Core Duo 2GHz www.rowan-cottage.co.uk
As there is advertising on my site, I am required under Apple Discussions Terms of Use to state that I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link

Publishing to your own site

Hi I work for a chariy that holds a lot of sensitive data therefore most sites that can upload or download files are blocked. I want to get a DPS online and distributed... is there anyway of getting this downloadable from our own site?

You can embedd Web Viewer in you website, however the content would be hosted on Adobe Servers. Currently is is not possible to export the Folio as HTML.

Masking and forwading to your own site...Rage..Toad..Roddy..Please read

Dear All,
Curious if you mask and forward to your own site...Can google still find your site and read it so that it can be listed and ranked...Not to a mobile me account a regular third party site.. If you mask and forward to your site do the web crawlers get confused or lost?
Meaning when you view the page source a person can only see the masking and fowarding code.
A reason why a person may want to mask their site is so that fellow competitors can not see their code or succesful techniques in getting a good rank?
Thanks
Todd

Todd:
If you mask your site totally like my tutorial site that will seriously limit the search engines ability to peruse the site and do it's thing because all pages will have the same masked URL.
What's in the URL shouldn't be a factor in setting up a site. Your domain name will get people to it and that's all that counts. It's the content that will keep them there. What's in the URL field just is not a factor. So use CNAME if your host supports it so the URL will be reasonably short but allow each page to be bookmarked and googled.
OT

Is there a way to "network" iPhoto library to keep all photos accessible on an external drive, but still have access to them online (i.e., somehow host my own cloud)?

My HD is full of photos and videos. I want to have all-the-time access to them, but they clearly can't fit onto my HD. So, what if I (1) connected an external hard drive to my wi-fi router so I could remote access pics w/a network connection-- this way even my wife's macbook could connect to it, creating our own cloud. Or (2) had a way to save the most recent 6mo on my locally and the rest on said external HD? Hardware issues aside, can iPhoto do #1 or #2? In short, is there a way to somehow host my own cloud?
Similarly, how do you keep photos accessible in iPhoto when your HD is full? Do you just switch to Aperture and have multiple libraries?
Thanks!!

So, what if I (1) connected an external hard drive to my wi-fi router so I could remote access pics w/a network connection-- this way even my wife's macbook could connect to it, creating our own cloud.
A strong warning: If you're trying to edit the Library (that is, make albums, move photos around, keyword, make books or slideshows etc.) or edit individual photos in it via Wireless be very careful. Dropouts are a common fact of wireless networking, and should one occur while the app is writing to the database then your Library will be damaged. Simply, I would not do this with my Libraries.
Or (2) had a way to save the most recent 6mo on my locally and the rest on said external HD?
Make sure the drive is formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
1. Quit iPhoto
2. Copy the iPhoto Library from your Pictures Folder to the External Disk.
Now you have two full versions of the Library.
3. On the Internal library, trash the Events you don't want there
Now you have a full copy of the Library on the External and a smaller subset on the Internal
Some Notes:
As a general rule: when deleting photos do them in batches of about 100 at a time. iPhoto can baulk at trashing large numbers at one go.
You can choose which Library to open: Hold down the option (or alt) key key and launch iPhoto. From the resulting menu select 'Choose Library'
You can keep the Library on the external updated with new imports using iPhoto Library Manager
how do you keep photos accessible in iPhoto when your HD is full?
Move the Library to an external disk - see above.
Do you just switch to Aperture and have multiple libraries?
Aperture uses as much space as iPhoto and both can do multiple libraries.
Regards
TD

Video and audio files hosted on your site

It would be great to be able to host your own video and audio files and not have to rely on YouTube or Vimeo. Design a widget to for ease of use.

Yes, you can easily work with only audio or only video from a video clip in Premiere Elements.
How you do this depends on which version of the program you are using.

I need to clarify how I can use adobe as a host for my site for free. I see where business catalyst is supposed to be temporary as well as it is recommended to use as the better alternative to launch my muse site. But then I have to use the long

I need to clarify how I can use adobe as a host for my site for free. I see where business catalyst is supposed to be temporary as well as it is recommended to use as the better alternative to launch my muse site. But then I have to use the long extension of "businesscatalyst" in addition to the domain name I'd prefer. How exactly can I take it live? do I have to use a third party hosting?

Hi,
Once you are done with your sitet, Click on Publish in Muse, select New Site from the drop down, It will ask you a name for your site, which will be used for site url, you will get a url like mysite.businesscatalyst.com, then go to the browser and login to the admin panel, mysite.businesscatalyst.com/admin and on Dashboard, click Launch site. This will push your site live, and you can then add your custom domain.
Also make sure that you have completed all these actions mentioned here
User manual
Do let me know if you have any question.

Hosting Your iWeb Site From Your Mac

If you don't have a .Mac account or you don't want to pay a monthly fee to host your new website you created with iWeb, you can use OS X's built-in Apache Web server. To accomplish this, follow the steps in the link below.
Hosting Your iWeb Site From Your Mac >>
-Bmer
Mac Owners Support Group
Join Us @ MacOSG.com
 An Apple User Group 
MacOSG Podcast >>
Disclaimer required by Apple Discussions Terms of Use: MacOSG - a non-profit Apple User Group - may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

I was able to get this to work, using the same configuration you mention. The way I did it was to set up the IP address on my LAN using fixed static addresses, and to have the router "forward" the http packets to the Mac running Apache. In Network system preferences panel, you also need to set the DNS servers address to the address of the router on the LAN. In order to reduce hackers trying to break in, I don't use the standard port 80 for my address, but use some other 4-digit port (e.g., 8182), so my website address ends up looking like www.whatever:8182. Instead of "no-IP.com" I used the free dynamic name service from http://www.dyndns.com/. I also put the web content on a firewire disk, which requires a little editing of the httpd.conf file. This was another security precaution. Anyhow, its been working great -- not a single problem. Also, Weblock is great shareware that lets you assign login IDs on the web folders.

Hosting Multiple SSL Sites on Separate IP Addresses

Hosting Multiple SSL Sites on Separate IP Addresses
I currently have a web server (XServe) hosting a number of different sites from its main IP address on port 80 using Apache 1.3. This has been working great, the ServerAdmin GUI has been pretty good about creating the appropriate Apache configs, and everybody is happy.
I have one particular site that I want to use SSL with so I decided to purchase a cert (from GoDaddy). Since I have one other cert on the server assigned to the main server IP, I understand that the appropriate way to setup additional SSL certificates is to bind another IP address to the XServe and use that IP. I was unable to use ServerAdmin to install my new certificate (not surprisingly) probably since it is a chain certificate, however I have been able to do it by hand and it seems to be working as intended…mostly.
This is where my problem begins. The site that I wanted to add SSL to is currently hosted on the main IP address (x.x.x.173:80) and the SSL certificate is working on the newly bound IP address (x.x.x.178:443). Fundamentally it would seem appropriate to change the IP address of the non-SSL site to match the new IP, except on port 80 – So I can achieve a seamless blend between standard and SSL (when necessary). The problem is that I can’t get Apache to work this way. Maybe I am missing a step, or overlooking something.
Excerpt from current, working (non-SSL) config: (Names have been changed to protect the innocent.)
<VirtualHost x.x.x.173:80>
ServerName www.site.com
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot "/Library/WebServer/Documents/www.site.com"
</VirtualHost>
Excerpt from current, working (SSL) config:
<VirtualHost x.x.x.178:443>
ServerName www.site.com
ServerAdmin [email protected]
DocumentRoot "/Library/WebServer/Documents/www.site.com"
</VirtualHost>
changing the first entry’s ip address to match the second one causes the site to be unresponsive (using the IP address to point the browser to the site) but the SSL version keeps working. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jake
PowerBook, XServe G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Thanks for your reply Roger, here are the results that you’ve requested:
I deleted a few lines that were redundant and unrelated (no errors)
Results of apachectl configtest:
Processing config directory: /etc/httpd/sites/*.conf
Processing config file: /etc/httpd/sites/0012x.x.x.173_80www.site.com.conf
Processing config file: /etc/httpd/sites/0016x.x.x.178_443www.site.com.conf
Processing config file: /etc/httpd/sites/virtualhostglobal.conf
[Thu Apr 6 09:06:27 2006] [warn] module mod_php4.c is already added, skipping
Syntax OK
Results from netstat -a -n | egrep 178:
tcp4 0 0 x.x.x.178.53 . LISTEN
udp4 0 0 x.x.x.178.123 .
udp4 0 0 x.x.x.178.53 .
Results from tail -f /var/log/httpd/error_log
/etc/httpd/sites/0012x.x.x.173_80www.site.com.conf
Processing gonfig file:
/etc/httpd/sites/0016x.x.x.178_443www.site.com.conf
Processing config file: /etc/httpd/sites/virtualhostglobal.conf
[Thu Apr 6 09:21:10 2006] [warn] module mod_php4.c is already added, skipping
[Thu Apr 6 09:21:10 2006] [notice] Apache/1.3.33 (Darwin) PHP/4.3.11 mod_ssl/2.8.24 OpenSSL/0.9.7i configured -- resuming normal operations
[Thu Apr 6 09:21:10 2006] [notice] Accept mutex: flock (Default: flock)
When I try to hit the site on port 80 http://x.x.x.178 there are no results, https://x.x.x.178 works great.
Thanks again for your help, hopefully this can shed some light on my problem,
Jake
PowerBook, XServe G5 Mac OS X (10.4.6)
PowerBook Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Hosting my own website/or a few on my Mac!

Is it possible to host my own website/or a few on my own Mac? My isp does allow it and my Mac is at present always connected 24/7

this really depends on dyndns - e.g. it is dependent on the number of machine names they will assign to your 'domain'. Assuming this is some number >1, then you can setup name based virtual hosting in your httpd.conf file for any number of virtual hosts. this number can be large - but i do not know the limit (this should be dictated by apache and the specs of your computer). for more apache doc on the subject, see (and quote below):
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/vhosts/name-based.html
With name-based virtual hosting, the server relies on the client to report the hostname as part of the HTTP headers. Using this technique, many different hosts can share the same IP address.
personally, i don't use dyndns (we have static ips and dns here @ work to allow the adjustments), so i can't provide too much additional information. however, a google search and/or experimentation should provide your answer.
good luck,
b
DP867 MDD and 12 1Ghz PB

Publish to my own site..?

Hey there..!
How do i publish to my own site (www.mysite.com)
I have bough a domain and some space. (1000 MB)
Thank You
PS: (I'm new haha)

Alfe,
Welcome to the forum.
Create a new folder and name it after your site. From the file menu in iWeb, choose File/Publish to a Folder.... Select the folder you have named for your site, and click choose. iWeb will publish two things to that folder: a Site Folder, which contains your site, and an index.html file which you will need for your Site direction on the web. You will upload both of these, as they are from iWeb, to your server using an ftp client. A lot of us here like Transmit. Do not take apart the Site folder; upload it whole--as it is from iWeb.
Additional tips can be found here. It's fairly easy to do; post back if you run into difficulties and everyone here will help out.
Mark

Hosting My Own Site

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