I am considering hosting my own website at home using a regular PC, and software like Appserv. However, many people say that such solutions are only good for testing and are not secure enough for internet hosting. I want to know how to either make my website hosting more secure, or how to implement other professional solutions like installing and setting up windows server.
Search/download XAMPP, it has Apache, MySQL, FileZilla, and few other services.
Get a PC in your home that mainly no one works on
Install it over there
Go to your Router/Modem, and insert the local IP of the PC you chose in the DMZ box
Go to DynDNS, or buy only a domain, and redirect the domain to your router’s IP.
*Risks*
There’s dDos, be ready to shut off your internet once that happens, a dDos will burn the least MB bandwidth you still have, so you better keep your website on low-profile.
If anyone had access to your FTP, he/she can upload a malicious upload, run it through HTML and gain control over your PC… so better watch out on FTP.
If you have a slow internet (512KB or 1mbpits), I don’t encourage you to host one since if many people are going to view your website daily or keeps refreshing, you’ll run out your bandwidth in less a month and will leave you with like a 12 KB/s download speed till the end of the month.