Want to set up my server at home for simple purposes.

Question

Hi,
I am an IT student and recently took a course in Windows Servers in which we were to over the duration of the course setup and configure a server using Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise.
I was so excited to get to work with this kind of stuff that I went straight to ebay and bought a used Dell 1U CS24-SC JSD2  with two Quad core Xeon L5420 2.5GHz 12MB L2 Cache 1333Mhz processors, Dell S45 Mother board on intel 5100/ICH9R chipset with
ASPEED AST2000 onboard graphics and 8GB PC2-5300P Ram and two 250GB 7.2K SATA drives with an additinal two blank caddies to fill.
I have run the gauntlet setting it up as a double for the machine I am supposed to be configuring in the lab at school, just to make sure I could do the classroom exercises efficiently. Now that I am done with the course, I would like to put this beast to
work as place to experiment with building web sites, as a source for media and data from remote access. I will soon be taking courses some 40 plus miles from the house which is a bugger of a turn around time of I forget a flash drive. So remote access would
be nice, and to be able to host media throughout my home network consisting of two IMac's, two IPad Air's an MSI netbook running linux Ubuntu and a Dell notebook pc running Windows7  as well as two Apple Tv's.
One of my biggest things is this: I know when setting up the class machine I was required to setup Active Directory Domain Services. Since essentially the Server and the Dell notebook are the only Windows devices on the network, is it necessary to run Active
Directory Domain services to be able to use web server and provide a remote connection? It would be nice to either run a protected site that I can access my data files for school that I built myself, or be able to remote connect to the server and access from
the web at school.
If I am not mistaken, because of the proprietary nature of both the Windows Software and the Mac OS's, those devices will not communicate properly, also because of the same thing, the linux netbook is probably out of the question because neither Windows
or Mac play well with Linux and the Apple Tv's are just dumb terminals.
I admit I am extremely new and dying to learn more. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Answer 1

From what I understand you want to build websites and connect to your server remotely... totally possible.  Active directory isn't a requirement for any of that (but you can do it anyways).
Since essentially the Server and the Dell notebook are the only Windows devices on the network, is it necessary to run Active Directory Domain services to be able to use web server and provide a remote connection?
No.  As Rhys mentioned you dont need Active Directory to connect to your home server (or home computer).  To do this you can open and forward ports from the router connected to your modem to your home computer.  The port depends on the software
that you use, like you found 3389 is for Windows Remote Desktop.  There are other tools to do a similar task and may support multiple operating systems, such as VNC.
It would be nice to either run a protected site that I can access my data files for school that I built myself
You can do this.  Again, active directory isn't needed.  On your server install the IIS role.  Then allow port 80 on your router to your server.  Make sure your server is kept up to date with patches, antivirus wouldnt help (MS has a
free one i think for 2008), etc etc.  Then you start building your own sites.
Well.. openning port 80 on your router if you want people (including yourself) outside your home to access the site.  I'd get it working internally first, then subject yourself to the attacks of the world :)
Happy coding