For the past 5 or so years, slickhouse.com has been hosted on a shared Linux server, provided by UKHost4U.

While the hosting has been good, I’ve grown out of using a shared web server and all of the limitations that go with it. So, over the past year I’ve developed my own dedicated web server, with a twist - a) it’s Windows and b) it’s hosted at slickhouse itself.

For those of you interested in running your own web server, it’s actually a fairly straightforward, albeit time-consuming thing to do. And it proved successful - as you are reading this served up by the new server!

The hardware:

• AMD Athlon 3000XP (Barton core)
• 2 x 1GB PC3200 DDR
• MSI K7N2 consumer motherboard
• 4 x 250GB data drives, 1 x 120GB O/S drive
• Yeong Yang cube case

The software:

• Microsoft Server 2003 R2 w/SP2 (both host and virtual O/S)
• Virtual Server 2005 (1GB allocated RAM, 100% allocated CPU)
• PHP
• MySQL
• MySQL Administrator for a GUI w/MySQL
• ASP (and .NET)
• Filezilla Server for FTP
• Merak Mail Server
• AWStats for statistics
• Active Perl for AWStats
• IIS 6.0 for web

Alongside the web server itself I used the following:

• GoDaddy for domain registration
• ZoneEdit.com for DNS (dynamic)
• DynDNS for DNS (dynamic)
• Google Mail to collate all of the email
• Smoothwall for router/firewall O/S

As slickhouse.com uses WordPress, I found Keyboard Face very useful to ensure the permalinks worked correctly within IIS. The script itself is very simple and works well with most of the posts/pages on the site. The only issue I’ve encountered so far is with inTouch, which I use for the AJAX contact form, hence it now being reference via its Page ID. The article Installation Issues on Microsoft IIS is also a good read for those wanting to get WordPress up and running on Windows. DSL/Cable Webserver is another good resource, which documents the whole process to run your own web server from home.

I chose to use Microsoft’s Virtual Server 2005, as it allows me to run several operating systems on the same machine. Currently the server only has the host and virtual operating systems, but I’ll be expanding it with a development server soon. Another advantage to going virtual, is that I can easily copy the whole server from one physical hardware platform to the next. So if a catastrophic failure occurs, I can quickly transfer the image of the server to another hard-drive, or Virtual Server.

This configuration has so far proved to be a lot more beneficial to my previous shared hosting solution with UKHost4U. For a start, I’m in complete control of the whole solution - from domain registration, to configuration of the server itself. Also, it means I’m not limited by the assigned disk space and bandwidth provided with my shared hosting package. My ISP at home is Virgin Media, who over the last week has upgraded me from 4MB/400KB Cable broadband, to 10MB/500KB - they still have an unlimited bandwidth policy too!

So what’s required then? I’ll start in order of what you see as a visitor:

1. Domain registration - to get yourself a name on the ‘net
2. DNS - to point your domain to an IP address
3. Dynamic DNS - to update your DNS with your dynamic IP address
4. Firewall/Router - to block and route traffic around your LAN
5. Web server (IIS 6.0) - to serve web pages
6. Mail server (POP3/SMTP) - to send and receive email
7. PHP/ASP - to server dynamic web pages
8. MySQL - to provide database(s)

The following domains are currently hosted on the web server:

• slickhouse.com
• lazlow.net
• babysfirstblog.com
• mrgradient.com
• slickhouse.homeip.net

With more to follow. Slickhouse.homeip.net is provided by DynDNS and the remaining domains have their DNS controlled by ZoneEdit.com

Let me know if you encounter any issues with the new hosting, as I’ve moved ~500MB from the Linux server across to the Windows server and have most likely missed something from my testing! If anyone is interested in having a site hosted on the new server, then get in touch - as a ZoneEdit account, along with a Domain of your choice is all you’ll need. Uptime is currently 39 days and counting…

Over the past few weeks I’ve started the switch-over to a self-hosted solution for slickhouse and the other sites I maintain.

The first hurdle was leapt over with few problems - as I’ve now got a decent web server up and running within slickhouse itself. A full article will appear within the near future, once the software configuration has been completely tweaked. In the meantime, I can confirm it’s running Windows Server 2003 R2 with IIS6; Pearl; PHP and MySQL - the latter two of which are required for WordPress.

The web server is running under within Microsoft Virtual Server 2005, with the host O/S being another 2003 install. The host machine is my upgraded Fileserver - consisting of an Athlon XP 3000 (Barton); 2GB PC3200 DDR; MSI K7N2; 120GB main drive and 4 x 250GB data drives. So far, benchmarks have proved that the setup is on par with the current machine that slickhouse is hosted (shared) on.

Although there’s currently only a holding page on the web server, for slickhouse.homeip.net, it’ll soon host slickhouse.com; lazlow.net and babysfirstblog.com, along with any future domains.

The server itself has been up and running for a few weeks and has already received a few hack attempts - mainly via ftp, but none have so far been successful.

Initially, I was going to be running 2 Virtual Servers in tandem - the first being Server 2003 for static sites and the second being either CentOs; Litespeed or Ubuntu Linux Server. However, as I work with Windows web servers on a day-to-day basis at work, I eventually opted for purely Server 2003. After many late nights of trying to get PHP and MySQL playing ball, I got WordPress working successfully too on IIS (more detail coming soon) - which you can see the test install of at wp.slickhouse.com

So, all that’s left now is to transfer several domains that are with my current host (UKHost4U) to GoDaddy, my new domain registrar. This is where the tricky part has taken place - it’s a lot of hassle to transfer a single domain from one registrar to the next; even more hassle when transferring several, with differing TLDs. I’m still awaiting slickhouse.com; slickhouse.net; lazlow.net and babysfirstblog.com to be transferred. Unfortunately, GoDaddy don’t currently support the transfer of .uk domains, so I need to find an alternative way to control slickhouse.co.uk.

Once the domains are all within my control, I can then start setting up DNS for them all - via DynDNS.com. Coupled with my recent router upgrade to Smoothwall, this will allow me to host the sites from a dynamic IP. Then it’s just a case of pointing the domains from their current IP to the new web server, in slickhouse.

I’ll keep you updated with how the Switch Over goes. Hopefully there will be minimal downtime to the sites during the coming months. If anyone’s looking to host their domain/site at slickhouse let me know, as there’s plenty of space!