How to Host A Web Server on Your Home PC or Windows 10 Computer

Nice summary. You should fix the mistyped URL to portfo(i)rword.com, though.

@Tim: Thanks a lot for passing by and the comment.I have fixed the link.

Very nice guide, I’m puzzled though. Apache is by far the most widely used industrial standard free open-source server. I never heard of HFS and from the description its more of a file server rather than a web server. To add more expand the article maybe also go into bandwidth/ISP requirements etc.

@Blogcrowds: Hi thanks a lot for this comment.I will be updating my article today evening and will email you on that.

Keep coming

If you are looking to run a local Web-Server, under Windows, use the WAMP Stack…
Web-Developer Server Suite.

@Everybody: Great Response people.Thanks a lot.

However I would update on this, that this might not be suitable for very high traffic.You can use it for light purpose.

Nice article A.M
But I wouldn’t personally recommend such implementation though, especially on a laptop; neither a PC. Putting all security, high traffic thingie aside, I too wouldn’t want my PC to get on fire 🙂

@hongkiat: I agree with you on this,It can be sued for personal use with friends.It might not handle the traffic and security issue.Thanks a lot for the comment.Keep visit

Hi ashish

Gr8 article…really informative for as i have tried like this before but didnt knw abt the hfs thing only tried to do no-ip dynamic tool.
nyways thanks

@Abhishek: Thanks Abhshek.This one can be good for people who want to host site to be sued just between friends.It can give them a chance to create too

hi

I did exactly how it is mentioned…..But still its no working..When I type my ip address with the port number it times out…May be i am doing something wrong. Can anybody help me troubleshooting..Thanks…

@Masoom: If you don’t have static IP you need to use the second link I have given in the post. That might solve your problem

@Rony: With dew respect I dont think I need to give any justification but Well I got this from one of my friend who made a family hosting site on his computer. And he helped me out to make this article too. Hope that helps.

great article very nice and cool
i will use it with my friend but is it anything more secure ?

please help me
thanks

@Ali: I would not recommend it for proffesional web hosting. If You do it for fun and family its good. Else you PC might be hacked.

hi
i did exatly as u hav mentioned in d steps .
nw how can i make a database for this home based server.
i am working on a project in my collage . its internet based home automation . i wanna know wil my website be browseable from mobile through gprs.
waiting for your reply….

Hi Tejas,

1. Since you are hosting it on home computer, you can connect this to any local database which is running in the local machine. The above steps just redirects your created domain ot your computer ip.

2. Search in google for “make mobile web page”. There are lot of links availble. You can use and see. If that doesnt work, I would suggest you to look around some books or online contents to look and search for

Hope this helps

I am try to have my own website . Its online streaming one. Lot of videos sharing. As having a dedicated server costs more. I am thinking of making my dell pc to web server. Can you guys suggest me . I live in Tokyo.

Hi Suresh,

You have a good idea and I accept that histing is costly too. But are you making a website for commercial purpose or Freinds and family. This article is best if you want to do some online projects or make a family site. However for commercial purpose its not as your computer will not be secured. Do tell us your need

Regards
Ashish

Hi, as Suresh, I step in to this article looking for an option for a streaming video section for my site. What do you recomend for a connection DSL / Cable 256 or 512. How many user can be log at the same time, just an estimate. To have an idea. Don’t worry about security issues since the PC will be only for this purpose. No personal info inside.

Please let me know your recomendations

@Orlando: If we can really keep the security aside I would really like to hear number of users. We did small project and were around 30 users it handled easily but it was a light weight application.

There is one more person who is doing a project using this concept. I am waiting for his experience too.

Lets see what Suresh comes up with ?

Thanks Orlando

This is a really awesome (looking) program!

But, out of curiosity, would the Ubuntu Server work just as well? I am horrid with computer terms, so sorry if the answer blatantly obvious.

@Tat: It should work. Just get to know about security settings required by a server .

One last question, does this mean I can have my own free .com? Or is it just so I don’t have to pay others for hosting memory?

You cant, You will have to pay for domain name pricing and yearly charges

i havent try it yet, but what would you recomend for community base website hosting for about 50,000 people

@abdulmajeed: It will depend all on your daily traffic ….How mich daily traffic you get for the community?

Thansk, very useful information..I have already registered my domain and I have One websited hosted and now it is in use.but my hosting company doesnot give me more space so I want to make my laptop as a webser verver. I want to just redirect my web site to my laptop. lets say somebody is liking my website then he/she clicks on myphoto links I wil redirect my page to my laptop with php(redirect) if i give me ip address of my laptop can my friend see my photos from my laptop..if no is there any way to do that…

@Rabin: By just IP address it wont work. You need to host it. So if you are using the tutorial above the site you crated on no IP will point to the site on your computer. Thus if you host your pics on the site in your laptop your friend will see it automatically, no need to give IP.

I mean I downloaded the HFS and I can host my photos on that. I have domain and it I have already host my page on hosting company so i want to use this host server but I want to just link my computer from that webserver. I dont know more about no ip so if i registered to no ip then can i redirect to my laptop..i dont want to redirect all my webpage to my laptop I just want to redirect some link to my laptop (like photos)…so I want to do new things..thank you very much..for your help..

I went through all the information and finally I did it. when we bind the root.it do nothing. I have to add all the files and folder one by one. Is this the way program runs or it is different. I thought when we add root folder then it should show all the files and folder under that root but it does not. Thank you for your help!

i want to try this for my project..but is this also applicable even if your just using dial-up for internet connection?

@rommel: Yes it does. Even in dial up you get an IP but that can change as well. So dont forget to use IP tracker

Would like to say that Abyss Web Server X1 is the best free web server made. Can be down loaded here:

I use 2.5 it is awesome. Most steps above work the same with abyss. Thanks

Thanks Dan. I will take a look at it. If I like it proably make a post on it.

Great Information about the technical Know how about how to convert a home PC in to a web host computer. Thanks.

@cyberknowhow: Great !. How you are planning to use this ? Please share with us

Thanks for the amazing info, I can’t port forward thu on my linksys right now, I tried, i still fail the self test, but hsf is cool, it just like my FTP one, its a single .exe and you just click on it and thats it, you just type the ip on anything that has web acces in the world adn you have my whole hard drive. I love it, Hopefully i get this to work, but if its not a heavy duty one, then i have to host on a real server for all the trafiic, money money money!

how can i make it so other ppl can view it?

hi thanks for this article…….

i want to know that how much minimum RAM required for this i have 256mb and pentium 4 cpu is it sufficient for making server????

and bytheway r u hosting this web “www.technospot.net” from your home server?and how can i got this domain “.net” ….???

@Manit: That should be sufficient enough. However I am not hosting my site on personal server but on a pro hosting service. If you want to get a domain name. I can suggest you some ways. Shoot me an email to me via contact form

i don’t have static IP and i m using router at “portforward.com” they only ask for static ip check this link. and i dont want to buy static ip.my isp is bsnl data one.so any other method to do this????? plz help…….

__LongTerm__

I have told about a software in this software which you can use in case you dont have static ip.

ya i know that but plz see that link they must want static ip for port forwarding

@Manit: If you are using BSNL iy wont require port forwarding. I also use bsnl data one and never used port forwarding ever 🙂 Skip that step

my net connection requires proxy authentication and thus hfs is not able to pass the self test…. wat do i do

Hey Thanks. After port forwarding my server works successfully and self test completed and server is started and running.

greeting to everyone ,

I tried the program and it works fine , but when i enter my site , it doesnt enter the index.html page , it shows all the files in that folder.Now visitors will have to search the index.html to see the site i designed.

Is there a way to tell hfs to open the “main page” = index.html automatically

thanks .

Hi Max, I would suggest you to post a topic in our forum. We can further analyse there

Nice article. I just want to know is there a way in Linux to implement the same.
basically, I want to control my home appliances with Linux.

Which technologies i need to use to make two way communication between server and clinet, inmycase
my embedded device need to take in put data from web browser( client).

Thanks
Naveen

This was interesting.

I’ve saved your page to my favorites and would like to find out more about how I can build my own website.

Thank you for sharing.

Ramesh.

Very usefull info. Appreciated your efforts and time.
I am planing to host a small website for commercial purpose, but not online payments by credit cards etc., It is just hosting for information sharing. I have Airtel DSL broadband connection. I am also planing to have my own domain like xyz.com. I am planing to register my domain using dotdnr.com, but I would like to use my own PC for hosting. Please suggest/assist me to host my website on my PC. Also let me know how to get static IP for my PC?

Thanks in advance

Thanks for these useful info
But I cant come out from 2nd steep i e port test help me what to do i am using MTNL D LINK 502 T
—MTNL Mumbai
—Window Vista

Waiting for your reply else give me your contact no if posible so that i contact u to help me out from these steep

Once again Thanks

Ashish:

Thanks for an easy to understand article .

I’ve a doubt and I’m seeking your opinion .

Its related to a personal blog based on WordPress.

I’ve my blog in a domain registered with 1and1.com. It costs me
$6.99 per year for the annual domain regitration fee.
If I use 1and1.com as my host it will cost an additional
$48.00 per year, which I’m trying to avoid!

I was wondering, ” if I go to the admin page of my domain
@ 1and1.com & edit the advanced DNS to redirect or point
it to my personal PC by using my IP’s static IP”, Will it work..?

thanks in advance.

That might work but I though have some doubts. Your IP should be globally acessble. You saying that its static so possibly yes. Go ahead and try it. I tried pinging the IP address which is noticed when you make comment here. It pings. Sp just give it a try and see if it works

hey ashish,
m using mtnl broadband service, and my self test is never successful, pls help

An other solt. is abbys web server with

Thanks Ajay. People can use this who are looking for dynamic Ip along with the one we did mentioned.

hi!

i wonder if i can use this hfs to get access to my files, stored on my home pc, from work for instance?
thx!

Yo! great!! but, could anyone tell me- is it possible to create a real server on home pc for big traffic and other stuff? I can’t find any good info about it… 😀 I wana make my home pc to real server pc to put there large amount of my own web pages.. 🙂 what special programs do i need and mabey i need any other special computer parts to make it… 🙂

Hi Amazing Angel, This is on behalf of Ajay I am putting his comment here. He mailed me on this

HI ashish;
IT NOT DIFFICULT MAKE UR OWN SERVER BUT U NEED FRIST ALL GOOD PC WITH LARGE AMOUNT OF RAM AND HDD,AND LEARN MORE ABOUT TCIP AND UDP ACTUALLY I HAME NOT LOT OF TIME MAKE MY OWN SERVER BUT I THINK I WILL DO NEXT YEAR , THIS ONE JUST BECOUSE I GIVEN EXAM.I CAN SEND U BOOKS THESE BOOK ONLY IN RUSSIAN LANGUAGE IF U CAN UNDERSTAND JUST

THANK AJAY

PS: Ajay you might get this as a new comment.

Hi i followed all the steps in this article but when i type ip address in the browser its asking for username and password,which username i should use for this authorization …….

Seems good! but is this the same way as web hosting providers do.

What they actually do?

This topic is really interesting…. i was searching 4 tis and… thankx a ton!

Your article is very excellent.
When i did Self Test it gave me message saying “Your Internet connection does not work!” error HFS 2.2d(152). May I Know what i should do to avoid it. I am able to browse other site i.e I do not have any problem with my internet connection
Thanks

Hay guys . .. this is wat exactly i was looking for ..
I am doing my final year project exactly something like this
‘Hosting websites from yur pc ‘
This idea actually struck me after seeing the software Purple Nova

But that is not open source (although its free) … so couldn’t get the actual help in terms of getting the exact working ….

I would be glad if some one would give me guidance abt how it exaclty works (concept wise) and would also appreciate any interesting and informative links on this … Thanxx

Ansar , We have written a very details desctiption on how you can host a website from your home pc. The only tricky part is Ip mapping which is taken care by the software. Its like dynamic mapping.

can any1 tell me how to host php files ??

You need a apache server to be running for that

Hello I Loved your guide but I want to have php file if not then ssi (Server Side Include) so I can load the menus for the site from a page if not im making it so it loads them in windows like here http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex8/dhtmlwindow/index.htm

but making my own!

but anyways is there a way to run like shtml and asp and php with that program like a adon? thanks a bunch!

I tried doing port forwarding but still giving me error that ” you are behind router. please ensure your port forwarded . smthing like that..

what should i do ?

This exactly wat i was looking for man… very nice article…

can this server host an website??

I have done all this. Thanks, it worked…mostly. when I enter my domain into the URL box, I still recieve the router welcome page.

my ip address starts with 10.13.1… given by the service provider and on web with whatismyipaddress.com i got it as 202.63.119.36 can i use my system to build a server as u mentioned above

This is a very handy tool when you don’t have the equipment to set up your own server!

My only question is what is the maximum traffic, it can afford – 1000 per day or more…….and Ashish, if I follow steps until static ip generation steps, and for rest of the work, would like to do with ISS, is that okie…..as per my understanding no matter what u use, u have to have a static ip…

thanks

@Holyflame009 :

On Maximum traffic : It depends on your home computers configuration. As the load will be directly on your computer, it should be powerful enough to handle it

On Static IP : You will have to use static IP if and only if you have static IP given by your ISP. In case You have dynamic IP you will have to use dynamic update Client as mentioned in Step 5.

HTH

good tutorial thx a lot ^^

Hi!,

I have a domain (mydomain.com), installed web developer server suite, have bsnl dataone connection, installed dyndns client…..now my question is how can I host my own website with my domain (mydomain.com)in my own computer?

Thanx in advance.

i want to make a my webpage publish on internet
is there any website which publish your web pages by taking your html code instead of giving there own templates to make the same
plzz respond soon

just try out domain.tk..to get your free web site

Hi
I read this article. It is really great. I tried to do the same thing on my laptop but using the apache server which comes with xampp for windows. I can see the website when i type localhost/drupal but others cannot see my website.
I made an account with no-ip.com. Downloaded and installed the dynamic ip client but still nothing is working.
I am using the Connect(HFCL) broadband. When i put my site name in the browser it says:
“A username and password are being requested by . The site says: “DSL Router””
and asks for a username and password.
i fill in the username and password given to me by the service provider but still it again asks for the same.
Can you help me on this????
I will be very thankful to you

Hi
i just figured it out what i wrote in the last comment.
Actually i had not done port forwarding.
But still the problem is same.
My website does not open anywhere neither in my pc nor anywhere else using the domain name given by no-ip.com
When i write that domain name in my browser it opens my router configurations. When it is entered in some other PC on WAN it says url not reachable or a similar error.
Can u help me please…

Hello

Nice one.
Will this harm my system anyhow.
Can I continue to work normally in my PC after making it a server?
Will i have to keep my PC running 24/7?

A Bow to Author for Content & patience in solving queries !!
Very Much Impressed Brother 🙂

@Blogcrowds : I never estimated it for such huge traffic. If you want a site which you can share it with friends this could be best solution. Yes Apache is but not sure if we can replace Apache with HFS here.

i tried this..and clear allmost all the stages successfully but when i open the website it always open the interface of my adsl modem instead of my website.which i ve configured also with the help of “root to real folder” button.
please help me

Could hosting be done on an older PC if the purpose is a simple resume site? I have an ancient P4 with 128MB of RAM sitting in my closet. I would wipe the hard drive and use it for that purpose only.

Hi Ashish,
We have a local community website that mostly has html pages. We want to enhance it to include some interactive matrimonial section. Somebody volunteered to provide us with web server to host our application but it didn’t work out. So now we are looking to use my home desktop (P4, 1.5 GB Ram) as a web server. Our application front end is developed in flex, database is my SQL and interface between front-end and DB uses Java/XML. We really want to use apache as we use the same for development.
Do you think your approach will work for us?

Thanks
Kailash

Hi i am facing same problem

My website does not open anywhere neither in my pc nor anywhere else using the
domain name given by no-ip.com
When i write that domain name in my browser it opens my router configurations.
When it is entered in some other PC on WAN it says url not reachable or a similar
error.
Can u help me please…

Nifty little program. Domain name is optional.

Thanks

Nice article. The software helped. I was just trying to learn ajax and I needed a web server to try out the samples. Apache was too much advanced. This software is pretty easy. thnx

Dear Ashish:

Thanks for the excellent steps outlined .
I followed all the steps to dot ,however I am faced with following problem :

1)I registered the domain with no-ip.com .The website opens perfectly well on my pc when I try to open through HFS. However when I try through web browser ,it can’t connect .

Can you please suggest what can be possibly wrong ?

Cheers,
Pradeep

I need some help, I did a self test and the test says I am behind the router what does that me. Please help me out. Thanks.

This is really good for windows: it works great with XP.
I wanted to do the same with a small family tree site using PHPgedview.
PHPgedview requirements:

Web server
PHP v5.2+
MySQL 3.23+,

all suggestions welcome!

Thanks Ashish

xampp & wamp are the best 2 they are both userfriendly and extremley easy to use and best of all FREE

Hey i signed up for like a free domain from the no ip place, and when i type it in, it doesnt go to my ip address. i dont have a static ip. the normal ip address works when i type it in, but when i type in the free domain i chose it doesnt load

hey,
I did al the above mentioned steps installed both HFS and No-IP DNS updater,tested HFS it says it is working perfectly and then i added a file to root folder. i can only open my site in localhost:8025 mode but my site doesnt open when i enter my address testserver1.no-ip.org
what do i do?

hey,
I did al the above mentioned steps installed both HFS and No-IP DNS updater,tested HFS it says it is working perfectly and then i added a file to root folder. i can only open my site in localhost:8025 mode but my site doesnt open when i enter my address testserver1.no-ip.org
what do i do?

plz mail me with a solution at [email protected]

hi all,
I tried the program and it works fine , but when i enter my site , it doesnt enter the index.html page , it shows all the files in that folder.Now visitors will have to search the index.html to see the site i designed.

Is there a way to tell hfs to open the “main page” = index.html automatically

thanks .

Hi,
It is really nice article. I followed all the steps properly. It is working properly in local network. But when my friend is trying to connect from out side LAN with my public IP it shows unnable to connect. I tried everything. Could you suggest some possible errors or solution.
Thanks,
Krunal

Hi Ashish Mohta !

The tutorial is superb. I just followed it step by step. It worked for me. Thanks alot..

hi ashish
superb tutorial.
ashish i have some question regarding this.
1 as i am going to launch my site from home server only how to make it secure and easy as i am not a tech guy.

2 can i choose any domain name for free?
3 which software is best for creating a web page dreamweaver or something else.

pleae help

hi

thanks for the info first. i am looking for some fun as well as some sharing with friends.actually i wood like to share some files and content among my friends. i have a lenovo g430 series laptop with 3 gb ram and 160 hdd with dualcore intel processor. can i share around 100 gb data with hardly 10 users at a time? can i prevent my site to be listed in search engines? please help me with this. i have zonealarm suite installed at my laptop.

thanks a lot

Hi,

When I try this and put the name of my host in a web browser, it comes up with my router config page and not the Blind root folder I have selected.

Help please?

Problem solved – if you use a computer on the same LAN as your router, it shows your router config page. Try using a computer on another LAN for testing.

thank you for this cool article…

i have just one question…can my friends edit a file inside the
shared folder. i am planning to use this web server a repository
for the files me and my friends have been working on.is this possible
on this particular setup?

Please help me….

hi guys i m still confused . i hav download DUC and HFS .HFS open website in my computer but when i try it on other computer it not open and what is the purpose of DUC and i hav get my domain name but what is the link between DUC and HFS
as i understand little bit about them is that DUC provide website name and HFS file uploader

Good and thanx very much

hi can i use Internet Information Services instead of HFS

My mc afee detect HFS as a virus when I try do download it. It won’t even let me safe the file. Isn’t that weird? what should I do? Is not a virus isn’t it?
Thanks

@Liz the problem is with the McAfee anti virus. Read more here https://www.technospot.net/blogs/blogs/in-case-you-have-mcafee-and-windows-xp-shuts-down/

Sooooooooooooo Nice

the process to setup the hole thing doesn’t take 10 minutes

Thank you So much.

i tried but the thing is that I encountered problems in running my PHP.

anyway thanks.

nice work,good information

hai
thanks for ur tut
i’ve tried it and did all successfully
now want to know what web address shud i give to my friends?
i also have a wamp server installed in my pc so can i show my friends all the php sites hosted in my pc?
when i try to access with ip its opening my router page
but when i try to open localhost:port its getting opened

pls solve the above probs will be waiting

I realize this software is mostly for hosting a family site but I was wondering how can I host a site for a friend that will be used for commercial purposes? Is there a way to do this for free? Thanks in advance

congrats very nice information!!!!!!!!!!!

informative server article. thanks for posting.

thanks alot

Great website man. I’ve got one question.

My PC is constantly on and it is connected to a VPN (I live in an Arab country, so you can imagine that censorship runs amok), so I can visit any website I want.

Conversely, from work, I can’t open anything.

Now, I have a website (see link – it’s still empty), which is accessible from everywhere.

My question is: is there a way to set things up so that I can connect from work to home, and from home to the rest of the world? In other words, how do I make my home-hosted website a proxy server?

You can use software like Team Viewer which can be configured even with password. Keep it running at home and note the id / password which is givem from Team viewer. Install the same at office, connect. Only limitation is the bandwidth. If its great at both places you will enjoy it.

Thanks for spell checks, corrected it.

Ashish

Hi Dear kindly send me the detailed info about the hosting my own Server. I’m going to start a Web Development Company in Low scale I have already many projects so I want to host my own server also.

What the key requirements for hosting a server.
What should be the configuration of System.
What should the Speed my Internet Connection.
Static IP Configuration.
and list of all Softwares which I have to Install into my Server
How can I manage my Hosting
Control Panel.
ETC ETC.
Thanking You..!

Regards
Ashok

Actually I have the x64 version of Windows 7 installed… HFS does not work on that… can you help??

It works fine. Now iam too cool. Good job admin.

Excellent Information for New Learner in the field of IT to Learn Basics of Website Hosting

excellent its.. really…
its only pic,vidz,mp3s…
how i will browse my websites …??

Hallo, I think that the same job does the IIS-Express..Or not?

i cant publish php files

i want to create the http web server for hosting some hls content …so hfs can work for that purpose