Artemis

This is my first time doing anything server related, and I want to use a old family computer to host a server. Im going to use it for hosting my dad's restaurant website and maybe a game server for L4D/TF2. Only problem is I have no idea where to start.

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fireware

Hosting a professional website at home is a bad idea, even if you have a fast connection.
I'd recommend a company that does good web hosting deals, but I run the company, so I'm a bit biased. PM for details if interested.

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Artemis

It doesn't get a lot of traffic its just a family owned neighborhood restaurant.

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kz26

Hosting a pro site at home is not going to work since the vast majority of home connections have nowhere the amount of bandwidth required. Also, there are many other issues such as static IPs, DNS management, etc. etc. Your best bet is to shell out some $$$ and go to a real webhosting provider.

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Artemis

What if I just use it for game hosting?

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graphicsman

you wont have the bandwith to host a site, if you did host a site with a simple broadband you will drive the person crazy with how slow it will be, by the time you bought a bandwith for being able to host, you have defeated the purpose in the high costs, its cheaper to pay a 4 dollar hosting fee from some site like godaddy. You will never get ahead in doing this yourself!! Good Luck

EDIT:
this is why the sell server hosting accounts, i think i even saw one you can buy an amount with some people and go in it with some friends

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Manyak

Since this is a small neighborhood restaurant you won't get much traffic, at least to start out with, so don't worry about hosting it at home. The only thing you'll have to watch out for is how much traffic you do end up getting eventually (there are programs on the server that let you know). If you find that it's increasing a lot, you'll be best off transferring it to a hosting company. But I don't think it'll be a problem for at least several months, if not a year or two.

There's only one thing you have to worry about with a project like this: Reliability. For a business website you want to aim for >99% uptime. This means making sure you have a UPS that can run the server for at least 30-60 mins, using redundant PSU's, using redundant NICs in a team using LACP and therefore also using a managed/smart switch that supports it, and using some sort of RAID with protection (not RAID 0). You also have to worry about keeping it cool (don't shove it in a closet without ventilation), and making sure the HDD and fan vibrations are kept to a minimum with rubber grommets (to reduce the chance of HDD death). You will also need to call up your ISP and ask them for a static IP, which usually means switching to a "business" account (even though it doesn't usually cost more).

In other words - hosting it from home is fine, but you shouldn't do it on 'an old family computer'.

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