Where to start for a home web server

Hey, I'm new to serverfault.com (used StackOverflow) and I hope this is the correct place to ask this, I have been with a web hosting company for 2 years now and I have been struggling lately with them and basically cancelled my account and domain name.

I want to build my own web server at home (Apache) and my main concern is resolving my IP to a .com domain name. I really don't know where to go for this. I know how to do everything else (setup web server etc.). I used DynDNS' free host service for this which worked quite great but now I want to do this with a TLD. Is this possible?

Example: instead of http://my.ip.address.here/index.html would be http://example.com/index.html

Edit: It seems I already have a static IP from my ISP. It hasn't changed for months.

Thanks.

From serverfault Alex Demers

• You need two things in order to do this: a fixed, public IP address and a domain name.

  IP address: most "home" ISPs will give you a dynamic one, i.e. it will change each time you connect; or they can give you a private one, i.e. only reachable from inside your ISP's network but not from the whole Internet; or both at the same time. You need a fixed, public IP address in order for your web server to be accessed from the general public.

  Domain name: you can register one quite easily, and it usually doesn't cost much; it depends a lot on where do you live and which domain you want (.com, .net, .somecountrycode, etc.).

  You should ask your ISP about that, and/or do some little searching around.

  Alex Demers : Ya, the hosting company I was with offers domain purchasing but I think they are only doing domain forwarding which is not what I want. What is the term I can Google to browse the different service provider for that?

  Alex Demers : Whoa, nevermind. It seems that forwarding with "masking" is what I was looking for.
  From Massimo

• The best option is to get a broadband package with a static IP from your ISP. These are sometimes a little more but generally allow you to host servers as well (if you don't want to do this - check you're not breaking your contract by hosting servers).

  Then, get some DNS hosting (eg everydns.com) and setup an A record for example.com to your fixed IP address. Then, setup a CNAME for www.example.com pointing to example.com (or *.example.com if you wish to run other subdomains on your server as well).

  If you still want to stay dynamic, what I've done in the past is setup a DynDNS account which will have an address that will always resolve to your IP (eg example.dyndns.com). Then, you can setup a DNS account (see above) with a CNAME for example.com, pointing to example.dyndns.com.

  From George Hewitt

• Do you mean that you want to run your own nameservers, or that you just want a TLD? If the latter then DynDNS also sell those (as do a vast number of others)[1].

  If you mean that you want to run your own nameservers after registering a TLD with someone then you need to take a look at some DNS howtos and purchase a static IP from your ISP. It's a lot easier just to offload all that onto the registrar though.

  1. http://www.dyndns.com/services/dns/custom/

  (Also what OS are you doing this on?)

  Alex Demers : Thanks for the info. Probably Linux (Ubuntu Server).

  Alex Demers : Also, DynDNS doesn't support the TLD .me :(

  : Well, although the "proper" way to do it for a commercial website would be to purchase a static IP you can experiment on the cheap using one of the update clients which tells (e.g. DynDNS) that your IP address has changed. Propagating that information can take a little time but my experience is that it works well. "apt-get install ddclient" will probably pull down that client on Ubuntu. http://www.dyndns.com/support/clients/

  Alex Demers : Yes that's what I used in the past but it was on Windows and it was a free DynDNS host name. My issue really is using it for a TLD. The custom DynDNS package seems to be what I was looking for but it's not supported for .me . I'll either have to wait for it to support it or choose one that's supported. Thanks for the help.
  From