Asymptomatic

Someone on the PANMA list recently asked about running a web server on his FiOS line. I have some thoughts.

Verizon definitely blocks incoming port 80. The only way around that is to get a business account that allows servers (opens port 80) and provides a dedicated IP address.

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Man, this week has been difficult. We've had a few server issues with work clients, and I've been playing around with my own servers, and it's just been a mess that I'm hoping will be in the past come next week. But I've learned some lessons, and I figure I might as well pass them on because people are apparently still buying hosting from really bad places.

What do I need?

This is the most basic question you need to start asking yourself before you even hunt for hosts. Having some idea of your demands, both from a technical perspective and a logistical perspective can save you some pain in the future. Here are some really basic considerations:

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I'm taking on some more server-management related responsibilities for work, and I'm trying to be a little proactive with getting things under control so that I still have time to code. One thing that I would like to do is have a server configuration that we can standardize on so that when something goes wrong on a server we have many benefits.

The advantages of having a pre-configured system are that we'll have a way to set up a server again quickly that we know will work with the software we already have on the system. If something goes wrong with one of them that is related to the system settings, we'll know what we need to fix on all of the servers to make them right, not guess at whether the fix needs to be applied to each.

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I've been part of the top-secret beta program over the past month or so of Microsoft's new Home Server product, and since it's now been released CTP, I can finally talk about it.

The software is actually really cool in concept. You basically allocate a box as your "home server". Many of us are getting so many computers around the house that it's becoming impractical not to have a dedicated server machine for sharing files and running printers, so it's a good idea to offer software that helps automate some of those tasks.

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