how to host our site on our computers?

[sparsely]

you mean Microsoft Server operating systems?

yea. I have been looking at motherboards for my servers, so I got stuck on server class this, server class that But yes, microsoft server os is great. i never played with apache, as microsoft doesnt need new things added and be compiled all the time, and i think that this person isnt running any linux os, so IIS would be the way to go.

well, I think a separation needs to be made here. Though it may be clear to us, it's probably not to a newcomer to teh concept...
A web server application or service is not the same as an Operating System.
You can, for instance, operate several different web server software packages even on the same machine (though configuration could get tricky).
Windows can handle Apache, IIS, and others. Apache is released in packages, and the Windows version has an .msi installer package available. Compiling is not necessary. Regardless of which you use, they are both (IIS/Apache) good software.

[4play]

I much prefer the lamp (linux, apache, mysql and php) approach for serving webpages.

I have a server at uni a p3 600mhz machine that runs slackware and a few other tools. Have not seen the machine for about 2 years now but it is still up and running and secure. Using linux allows me to run the box without a gui saving plenty of system resources. dont think windows 2003 can do that.

If you have another spare computer (think anything above 100mhz) i would highly recommend learning to install linux and play about with it.

[kazaa2002]

..........
To setup your web server to use PHP pages you will need to download PHP (http://php.com) and install it to your computer, then add this to httpd.conf right at the bottom:
######## PHP!
LoadModule php5_module C:/www/php/php5apache2.dll
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
...........

@ross, your link goes to some medical site-parents to parents
maybe this
PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor perhaps this site you were refering to?

[nabeelisnabeel]

Thanx for you all for such a nice replies.

[tesco]

..........
To setup your web server to use PHP pages you will need to download PHP (http://php.com) and install it to your computer, then add this to httpd.conf right at the bottom:
######## PHP!
LoadModule php5_module C:/www/php/php5apache2.dll
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
...........

@ross, your link goes to some medical site-parents to parents
maybe this
PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor perhaps this site you were refering to?

Yes that's the one. Thanks.

When i was posting i remember typing php.com then opening a new windopw to chekc if i had the right adress, i guess i forgot to change it after.

[Buffalo]

The most popular web server program to use (i use it, and this website uses it) is called apache. (http://www.apache.org/)
After installing this web server you will need to open port 80 if you have a router or firewall, then browse to the apache folder and find the configuariton file which is called 'httpd.conf' in the 'conf' folder. Edit the settings in this file to setup your server.

To test that the server works type localhost into your broswer and you will get a welcome to apache webpage.
To start hosting your pages first of all you should (it's optional, but I like to do this to keep everyhting organized) create a folder for all webpages (example c:\sites\) then set that as your webpage folder in the httpd.conf file.
You can then start putting files into the folder and they will be viewable from either 'localhost/file.extension' or 'youripadress/file.extension'.

To set the default index file (the file that would run if you don't specify a file [for example, if you type https://filesharingtalk.com it runs the file called 'index.php']) go into the httpd.conf file and edit the line that says 'DirectoryIndex index.html index.html.var index.php' (or something along those lines, it will always start with 'DirectoryIndex').

To setup your web server to use PHP pages you will need to download PHP (http://php.net) and install it to your computer, then add this to httpd.conf right at the bottom:
######## PHP!
LoadModule php5_module C:/www/php/php5apache2.dll
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

MySQL is another program you will need to install and configure to work with your web server.

It gets kind of difficult to get going at times to setup a web server but if you search google there are plenty of guides available for you, and once you get it working you can just save all of your configuration files for if you ever need to reinstall.

Some very good information rossco, nice one.
I had a dabble last year with this but had to give it up as had a lot on.
seeing this today has triggered it off again as got more time on my hands.
I already own two servers "inactive", one is to expire in october 06, but the other is a never renew account with adventure media.

The main reason last year to run a home server was for test purposes,
It was just a safe way for me to test scripts on a IPB forum, running the database as well, it gave me valuable info on the running of the board.
It did run very well offline, but never when live with it.

Will definitely have a go at this again, great stuff

[Mïcrösöül°V³]

resurrecting the dead altho we never did hear about how it went, or whether it worked for him or not. My setup still runs nice, except 2003 like to throw a bitch fit sometimes about the battery back-ups. It likes to think its running on batteries