I'll get straight to the point.
I have bought a domain. I want to host it on my computer, maybe on a raspberry pi since only 50 persons/month will visit it.
Anywhere I've looked I see two hosting methods, using IIS/WAMP/XAMPP to only create a localhost website or adding the domain to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.txt that is also... localhost.
What is the magic answer here? How can I host LIVE a website with the domain that I have bought? Am I stuck to using a hosting service? Am I missing something really important?
using IIS/WAMP/XAMPP to only create a localhost website
You need an HTTP server if you want to host a website. It needs to run on the computer you want to host the website from.
adding the domain to C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.txt
That's what you do as a poor man's solution instead of buying a domain name.
The Domain Name needs to be associated with a DNS server (and secondary DNS server) by your registrar.
Usually, a registrar will provide DNS hosting services as part of the deal.
The DNS server needs an A record pointing at the IP address of the computer running the web server. This IP address needs to be available to whomever is going to visit it (which almost certainly needs to be public facing) and should be static (unless you want to play games with very short TTL values and frequent reconfiguration of the DNS servers).
If you plan to host multiple different websites on the same server, you'll probably want to configure the HTTP server software to handle Virtual Name Hosting (whereby it pays attention to the Host header in the request and dynamically serves different content based on it)
Related
I've bought a .com domain from a provider on the internet. But, I want to host it locally.
I know that I can host a local web by using XAMPP or WAMP, but I want to make it accessible on the internet.
I also know that we could host a web to be accessible on the internet like ngrok, serveo, etc.
But, I want it with my .com domain that I bought. Could this possible? How to? Is there any references?
Thanks in advance ^_^
It seems to me you are asking 1. if it is possible to map a DNS entry such that traffic to the URL would be directed to a server in your personal network, and 2. if it is possible, how to do it.
The answer to the first question is yes, it is possible. The second question is difficult to answer because it depends on many factors such as your ISP, country, your web host provider's rules and services, etc.
First, you must determine two IP addresses:
The public IP address for your network (whatismyip.com)
The private IP address of the local machine which will host your website (typically (192.168.0.x)
Then, you must enable port forwarding in your router configuration, such that any requests to port 80 and/or port 443 on the external interface (public) will be forwarded to the internal port on which your website is hosted. If done properly, putting the public IP in your browser will take you to the website you are hosting locally.
Once you verify access via public IP, then you must go into your DNS entries on your domain host and create a CNAME record which points your root domain (www.yourwebsite.com) to your public IP address. That will route all traffic to your .com to your local server.
I do NOT recommend doing this however, and would caution against it, because it leaves your local server/network open to the public, and makes your domain vulnerable to things such as spoofing etc. To do it properly, you should obtain a security certificate for your domain through a Certificate Authority (CA) - generally, you can request a certificate via your domain hosting service. Once you have a certificate, you must upload the key to your server and configure your web application/hosting service to use the certificate, and then change your port forwarding to use 443 instead.
This is a very complex topic that takes time to learn, and your question is extremely non-specific. There is no good place to start really, and no shortage of information/resources available online. To start, you need to understand how your DNS works. For any local webhosting, port forwarding is important to learn. You should also determine if your ISP blocks the forwarding of certain external ports, which effectively disables any private webhosting.
I am a bit new to the deployment of a website. I have a server which is written in Node.js. Previously I had been using Heroku for deploying my apps without knowing much about deployment. I would like to know how do I deploy my server to create a website which has .com at the end of it like www.example.com and not www.example.herokuapp.com. I think it has something to do with domains (correct me if I am wrong). I would like to know what exactly is a domain and a DNS provider and how to deploy a website in such a way. Thank you.
You should ask one question to yourself when you hit www.example.com in browser how does it load a page?. When you run a website on your laptop it basically runs locally, if you want to access your website over the internet you would require public IP(host or server) accessible over the internet so you can access a webpage using public IP:port. But this is not the best option because IP may change in the future and also remembering IP for each application will be difficult. Imagine if you access Facebook, Instagram or any other websites by its IP addresses how difficult and inconvenient would it be? There are a couple of things you should know.
DNS-> Domain Name system
Every host is identified by the IP address but remembering numbers is
very difficult for the people and also the IP addresses are not static
therefore, a mapping is required to change the domain name to IP
address. So DNS is used to convert the domain name of the websites to
their numerical IP address.
DNS is a hostname to IP address translation service. DNS is a distributed database implemented in a hierarchy of name servers. It is an application layer protocol for message exchange between clients and servers.
Name servers
Domain Name Servers (DNS) are the Internet's equivalent of a phone book. They maintain a directory of domain names and translate them to Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. This is necessary because, although domain names are easy for people to remember, computers or machines, access websites based on IP addresses.
DNS record
A domain name, IP address what is the validity?? what is the time to live ?? and all the information related to that domain name.
Once you understand the DNS
Host(Deploy) your website to Amazon EC2 or Heroku and obtain Public IP.
Buy a domain from domain provider like Godaddy
Map domain(ie www.example.com to IP)-> DNS record
Mapping domain to IP may vary platform to platform but the Core principle remains the same. I would suggest you these below link. Try to find differences in both, doing so you will learn along the way
http://www.littlebigextra.com/map-domain-name-amazon-aws-ec2-instance/
https://medium.com/progress-on-ios-development/connecting-an-ec2-instance-with-a-godaddy-domain-e74ff190c233
I have been at this since last couple of weeks. After tiring efforts leading to nowhere, I am posting here.
I have a Website built and hosted in IIS locally. I just bought domain name from GoDaddy. I have my computer's public IP where the website in IIS is present. What are my next steps so that I can keep my computer as server and link with domain name? So that website is accessible publicly through domain name.
I saw a lot of posts with Web Hosting in Azure or other places, do I HAVE TO buy and host to make my site public?
I am a novice website builder and have very limited knowledge about this.
first you need make sure your sever is secured, only open necessary ports
go to another computer, in browser input public ip to see if you can open your webpage
then in Godaddy you can add A record for your domain, to point your domain to your public IP, refer to this GoDaddy document: https://ca.godaddy.com/help/add-an-a-record-19238
If you are not comfortable or don't resource to do these, I suggest you host on Azure or other cloud providers
You could host your application in either Azure VM or your local machine. After all, Could VM should be more convenient because you don't need spend a lot of time to handle network issue and you don't need physical space.
When you decide to host your application locally, you have to ensure your are using windows server OS, otherwise, you have 10 concurrent request limit.
Access the application via domain is quite simple.
You need to enable port like 80 in windows firewall.Promise your server are in DMZ and can be accessed externally
Create IIS binding header with null domain and your public address
Try to access your website via your public IP address
Point godday domain to your public IP address
Add your domain to your Site's binding host header->host name field
If you decide to host your application in IAAS like Azure VM, then you have to create inbound rule for your port number and allow port in windows firewall. You also have to point your godday domain to your cloud VM's public IP address and create IIS binding with your domain. Finally, you should be able to access your website.
I have just taken over as a developer for a company. They host their development site on Rackspace. When I arrived, this server was spun down. Upon bringing it back up, I discovered that the IP address of that server points to the live website. There must be some kind of forwarding in place (I assume that it is through Rackspace) that does this. How can I fix this? I searched for settings on Rackspace to no avail. I would like to be able to access this dev site at least through the direct IP address until the network admin reappoints the develoment domain name to proper IP.
I'm guessing that you mean the live website domain routes traffic through to this server? Off the top of my head, you either have DNS load balancing in place - so an A record on your domain matching the IP address of the powered down machine OR you have a load balancer within rackspace that is routing traffic to it.
Okay, can't seem to find a great article or info on this. My client purchased a domain for his company (domain.com) through Network Solutions. He has a local server running Windows 2008 R2 that he wants to host his company's website on. I've created the website and have it running with Apache on localhost. The server does have a static IP, but when I visit it, I'm prompted for credentials (user, password) which is expected as it's meant to be protected.
My question:
How would I point the domain to the website on his server?
From what I've researched, I have options that include:
Pointing the domain to the static IP (what about the credentials?)
Creating A and CNAME records for the DNS server on Network Solutions
Setting up a local DNS server w/ Active Directory on the Windows machine
Creating a couple name servers that would tell Network Solutions
where to send the domain
It's safe to say I'm effectively confused, so any help would be very much appreciated.
So basically you have to associate the domain name to the IP address, and that is done using DNS.
I'd suggest option 2 where you let Network Solutions manage the DNS, and you create an A record for www.domainname.com that points to the IP address on your server. Keep in mind it might take 24-48 hours for this new record to propagate across the internet. Take a look at http://www.networksolutions.com/support/dns-manager-advanced-tools/ and http://www.networksolutions.com/support/a-records-ip-addresses/
Regarding the credentials prompt, I assume you are using IIS and so you'd want to check the Authentication settings for the site. If you want anonymous access to the site, you would enable it there.