[CoryG89]

OK, so I have begun doing some network programming recently mostly with the Winsock2 API, but also doing equivalent things using the original BSD implementation to learn that as well. I have created some basic clients and servers and have ran these fine on my PC. In the server code I bind on my local ip and that is just fine, but I have been trying to figure this out: If I have a web hosting account somewhere (but do not physically have the server), is it possible for me to upload my custom server code to one of these accounts and have it run on that server? Or do I need physical access to the machine that my game server will be running on. If so is it possible to get a hosting account with a dedicated server and do this?

If I understand right, most web hosting accounts that you can get online will set you up on a shared server with serveral hosted accounts on each one. These servers are going to be running its own server software (likely HTTP), probably apache2 or something. I guess it is not possible for me to upload say a multi-client chat server to a hosted account like this?