If You are to see how is a webserver run, and sort of things, but You just can't afford it to have fixed IP addres, I have a solution.

Its the poor mans fixed ip..

Register a free site anywhere.
Just make sure You pick a good domain name for Your self.

If you use windows, and want to run apache server, mysql, and PHP,
download the bizzar server , and install it.

If You are useing linux, be sure to set up apache php mysql.


now comes the trick.
whit a cron job, or windows scheulded task scheulde a task as often as possible (1 minute) to get Your home servers ip addres, and send it to the free site.

On the free site, index.php should look like this:



xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the ip addres Your scheulded task/cron job gets from Your home server, and posts. Have a script to manipulate this addres as often as possible.

so instead of haveing a static IP addres, You can have a dynamic ip, and allways update the free hosts index.php with the value that currently represents Your home server.

Thatway anyone visiting the index.php will be redirected to the addres of Your home server.

Thats a badass thing to do, I know..
But can be usefull.


It can be usefull, say.. a host does not allows to have enough mysql databases, or some other limitation, like number of connections than You can set up the mysql server at home, and use it instead of the hosts mysql server.

in this case You do not do any redirects, only manipulate the code that You made to connect mysql database to have proper ip addres in it.

Thisway a low price 2$ webhost can be turned to a realy nice host, I bet anyone can grab a shitty old computer for the task. And I allso bet low price hosts do not offer the power of even an old pIII with 256 Mb ram..

So this is my dirty workaround for cheap host enhancment, or to experiment with apache server. Good for students for example.

I'm not user if it works if You are behind a router, I think a different solution is have to be found for this case, but it would not be impossible to do a thing like that.

The idea is correct but that's more work than is needed.
This is exactly what No-IP and DynDNS are for and they give you a free subdomain to play with.

http://www.no-ip.com/
http://www.dyndns.com/

Per

For the amount of power that machine would consume, you would be better off just using a free forwarding service, such as has.it or everydns.net.

it depends.
I would never swich off my main computer.
Only when upgradeing, or when replaceing parts.

And no, power faliures do not affect me.
185 Ah truck battery works quite nice.

Anyway, if someone want's to start a simular thing to
http://www.no-ip.com/
or
http://www.dyndns.com/

the basic concept is there.