please help me with some info on servering !

ruwach · 2004-08-09 02:08:46

ok, here is what i want to do. i desire to purchase a domain name and then use a place like zoneedit.com to provide the dns routing for me. i am on a cable modem connection and what i guess i need to know is ... what software do i need, what numbers do i need to know and from where to set this thing up as a simple web page server on my arch linux box. Should i use apache? it seems pretty popular and there seems to be a good wiki, or should i go with something simpler. is there a how-to somewhere to get me going?

thanks for any help at all.
i am not really newbie to linux ( two year vet ) but this web server stuff is brand new to me. i just need to have a few simple web pages on the net, and i want to host it myself.

thanks

Dusty · 2004-08-09 03:07:43

Basically, if you set up Apache properly and put httpd in your DAEMONS array, you have a web server. The web pages go in /home/httpd/html, or ~/public_html.

You can access them on your comp from http://localhost/. If you have a domain that properly points to your IP, then you can access it from http://yourdomain.com.

Apache does all the listening on ports and stuff when it's started. It listens on port 80 by default, and lo and behold, web browsers connect to port 80, so it all works out. The trick is to get it set up properly, but luckily, there's a wiki document that will describe that.

Have fun.

Dusty

ruwach · 2004-08-09 04:27:00

Sounds too easy to be true, do i still need to mess with a dns server like zoneedit.com or something to that effect? i have a cable modem and think that means i have a dynamic ip address. But if this is as easy as all of this, i can be hooked up in no time.
thanks for your quick response.
i am not sure i know the significance of port 80 yet. is this my dns thing? still some questions but this is starting to take some shape mentally.

famavolat · 2004-08-09 05:04:06

With a cable modem / dhcp you probably wanna go with some dynamic dns service like http://www.no-ip.com/. That way when your ip changes it will update where your domain points.

neocephas · 2004-08-09 08:16:02

I did pretty much the same thing u are planning to do. I bought a domain and then used http://www.everydns.net/ to make DNS entry and pointed my domain to their dns servers. Basically from whomever u buy the domain from, u will have to put that ur dns servers are the everydns.net ones (if u plan on using them). Then, using everydns, u make an entry for ur domain that points to ur IP address.

Since I am on a cable modem, I have this simple perl script called eDNS.pl (downloaded it from somewhere) that updates my ip address every 10 minutes. Everything works fine, and I am using arch + drscheme for the web server

Oh yeah, port 80 is the default http port... different protocols have different default ports... like ftp is 21 I think and ssh is 22. By default, http is 80, but really u can make it any number (but people trying to access ur web server will have to know ur port number).

wdemoss · 2004-08-09 12:18:51

famavolat wrote:

With a cable modem / dhcp you probably wanna go with some dynamic dns service like http://www.no-ip.com/. That way when your ip changes it will update where your domain points.

Another option is www.dyndns.org

Dusty · 2004-08-09 16:56:22

ruwach wrote:

i am not sure i know the significance of port 80 yet. is this my dns thing?

The quick tutorial:

Every computer on a network has an IP address (sometimes more than one, but that's not going to be an issue right now). This looks like ###.###.###.###, usually. If you type http://###.###.###.###/ in a browser, and the computer with that IP address has a web server running, it will display the page from that web server.

Now, each server also has an address. The web browser address is usually 80, so that all the web browsers know where to connect. This is like having an apartment. Your computer is the apartment building at they xyz block of nth avenue. Port 80 is like a single appartment number where if you knock on the door they will give you a web page.

There is nothing special about ports; you can use any number besides 80 (between 1 and 65535). But web browsers won't know how to connect to that port by default, you'd have to type http://###.###.###.###:portno/ in your web browser now, to indicate a nondefault port. As long as your ISP allows you to use port 80, you're better to stick with it. Especially since that's what apache uses by default, so there's less configuring.

Now, about domains. If you had a static IP, you could simply register mydomain.com with ###.###.###.### and it would pretty well magically allow http://mydomain.com to be the same as http://###.###.###.###/ However, since you probably have a dynamic IP (static IPs cost more, that's all), you can't just associate your domain with any single IP. This is where the dynamic IP services come in. Frankly, I don't know exactly how they work, but basically, your computer has to connect to the service to tell it what the new IP is every time it changes (They only change when you reconect or reboot, AFAIK). Further, you have to register mydomain.com to point to the dynamic service instead of the actual IP, since you don't have any 1 actual IP.

The dynamic service receives requests on your behalf, and since your computer has told it what your current IP is, it forwards the request to your computer.

Dusty

ruwach · 2004-08-10 00:53:12

ok then, how do i know if i have a static or dynamic ip? i do know that i use dchp to connect because i had to enable it in my Arch install.
Thanks for all of the education, i think that i am going to be able to give this thing a shot pretty soon.

thanks again

Dusty · 2004-08-10 00:56:10

ruwach wrote:

ok then, how do i know if i have a static or dynamic ip? i do know that i use dchp to connect because i had to enable it in my Arch install.

That's how you know. If you use dhcp, basically your server assigns you a new IP address every time you connect/boot (ie: dynamic). DHCP is the program/protocol that does all this type of thing. IF you had a static IP, you would set it up in /etc/hosts, I think.

Dusty

ruwach · 2004-08-10 01:26:43

ok then, so what do i need to know before using a dns server online. Dont they want to know my ip address? how do i get them to connect with my ever changing address? do i need a piece of software for that or is it covered in apache?

thanks

Dusty · 2004-08-10 16:06:32

That's what those links some people were providing will tell you. I've never done anything like this (run a server over dialup, no way!), so I have no first hand experience.

What I understand is you set up with a service such as dyndns. They'll probably even register a domain for you. They'll likely give you some sort of software to download that will do the IP updates for you. They'll tell you how to register DNS to look at their server instead of yours, then they'll tell you how to set up their server to forward to your IP even when the IP changes.

Dusty

ruwach · 2004-08-11 16:16:48

neocephas,

hey, i was wondering if you could post your script and let me know how to set it up. i dont know how to configure my software (apache, Arch) to talk to everydns to update my ip address.

thanks

neocephas · 2004-08-11 22:43:31

Well, if you want to use everydns.net, make sure you get an account. Add your dynamic domain (with the domain name you bought), and add two records. The first record is your domain name, record type A, record value your ip address. Your second record is www.yourdomain, and everything else the same. These records tell the dns server to redirect calls to yourdomain and www.yourdomain to the specified ip address.

The perl script I use (eDNS.pl) can be downloaded here http://www.everydns.net/eDNS.pl

You'll have to download it and place it somewhere in ur path. After I su into root, I just put mine in /usr/bin/. Make sure u make it executable by doing chmod 755 /usr/bin/eDNS.pl.

To have it run every hour, I have a cron job. To edit your crontab (a list of events to run every x amount of time) do crontab -e and enter in something like:

01 * * * * /usr/bin/eDNS.pl -u YOURUSERNAME -p YOURPASSWORD

Use the username and password you got from everydns.net. This script will update ur ip address with the DNS server. That's all you need to do to have your domain point to your computer.

If your ip address changes a lot (which mine doesn't) you can up the rate at which you update ur ip address, although anything faster than every 10 minutes is probably a waste.

As for apache, I don't personally use it, but you can follow the wiki on how to set it up or ask others to help you out. I just use the drscheme webserver and have been playing around the the chicken scheme one too.

good luck...

ruwach · 2004-08-11 23:23:44

man, thanks so much. I will let you know how it goes.
thanks for such a quick and helpfull reply

ruwach · 2004-08-12 00:49:57

hey there,

ok, i think i got almost everything ready. but i had trouble with this line.

01 * * * * /usr/bin/eDNS.pl -u YOURUSERNAME -p YOURPASSWORD

it replied user 01 unknown

any suggestions ?

thanks

neocephas · 2004-08-12 02:45:57

you do "crontrab -e" as a seperate command, not "crontab -e 01 * * * * /usr/bin/eDNS.pl -u YOURUSERNAME -p YOURPASSWORD ".

This will open your crontab file with your editor of choice (probably vi). Next you need to enter in

01 * * * * /usr/bin/eDNS.pl -u YOURUSERNAME -p YOURPASSWORD

Save the file and that's it.

ruwach · 2004-08-13 04:51:42

Thank you, thank you.

did it again, the right way.

its all working now.

all my gratitude

ruwach · 2004-08-13 15:11:40

ok, sorry, i have another question.

when i go into a browser and enter mydomain.org it cannot find my domain. It sends me to a default easydns page but if i enter www.mydomain.org it works just fine.

did i enter a record wrong there?

thanks

cactus · 2004-08-14 07:49:07

you need an A record pointing the yourdomain.com to the box.
then most people add www.yourdomian.com as a CNAME

ruwach · 2004-08-14 15:01:28

ok i entered mydomain.org as a CNAME and it when i clicked on "add record" it took me to a page that said that my record was for the wrong domain.

it seems that i can only enter www.mydomain.org and add it as an A record and it doesnt want a CNAME or another A record.

oh, well. If you have an idea about what i may be doing wrong, please let me know. At least i have gotten to a point that i can see the page on line by www.mydomain.org. and thats pretty cool.

ok, thanks

neocephas · 2004-08-14 21:44:26

I have both mydomain.org and www.mydomain.org as an A record and it works fine. I dunno if that helps.

cactus · 2004-08-14 22:27:07

ruwach wrote:

ok i entered mydomain.org as a CNAME and it when i clicked on "add record" it took me to a page that said that my record was for the wrong domain.
it seems that i can only enter www.mydomain.org and add it as an A record and it doesnt want a CNAME or another A record.
oh, well. If you have an idea about what i may be doing wrong, please let me know. At least i have gotten to a point that i can see the page on line by www.mydomain.org. and thats pretty cool.
ok, thanks

I would think it would have to be the opposite.
An A record for mydomain.com
and a CNAME for www.mydomain.com
or, like neocephas said, you could try just making them both an A record..

ruwach · 2004-08-14 23:33:50

ok, i deleted all my records and tried about every way possible. it will always allow me to enter www.mydomain.org but never just mydomain.org

perhaps it could be something wrong i did when i purchased the domain?
i got the domain from godaddy.com

ok , thanks for all the help so far.

cactus · 2004-08-16 00:12:21

this is how it should look..or something close to it..
http://rimuhosting.com/support/bindviawebmin.jsp

someone else told me that it should look like this...
@ IN A 111.111.111.111
www IN A 111.111.111.111

with the @ sign meaning the domain itself...
I am asking someone else, who is a dns guru, so hopefully something useful will flow my way soon enough..

ruwach · 2004-08-17 03:27:15

thanks, stilll working on it. i sent off an email to everydns tech support, and got an automated reply that they will get back in touch asap javascript:emoticon(':rolleyes:')

the link you posted is a little over my head, how do i see my zone info?

ok, thanks for all your help so far.

cheers

Arch Linux

#1 2004-08-09 02:08:46

please help me with some info on servering !

#2 2004-08-09 03:07:43

Re: please help me with some info on servering !

#3 2004-08-09 04:27:00

Re: please help me with some info on servering !

#4 2004-08-09 05:04:06

Re: please help me with some info on servering !

#5 2004-08-09 08:16:02

Re: please help me with some info on servering !

#6 2004-08-09 12:18:51

Re: please help me with some info on servering !

#7 2004-08-09 16:56:22

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#8 2004-08-10 00:53:12

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#9 2004-08-10 00:56:10

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#10 2004-08-10 01:26:43

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#11 2004-08-10 16:06:32

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#12 2004-08-11 16:16:48

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#13 2004-08-11 22:43:31

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