[Cialug] question on "free" webhosting

[Matthew Nuzum]

On Sun, 2007-04-15 at 15:10 -0500, Josh More wrote:
> I've heard decent things about  http://www.siteground.com/ though I've
> not used them myself.
> 
> However, I have to ask...  why not just host it yourself?  If you
> currently have a DSL line (or maybe cable), just pay the extra to your
> ISP for a static IP, and do whatever you want.  Not only is it
> unlimited, but it gives you excellent way to learn about the basics of
> sysadmin and internet security.

Or, if you don't want to pay for a static IP, just use a cname and a
free dynamic dns domain name. For example, dyndns.org. If your IP
address changes, dyndns will update your dns record.

Warning though, especially if you use an asynchronous connection like
cable or adsl, make sure your robots.txt file is updated correctly. My
brother hosts his photo gallery on his site, and if google or msn
indexes his website, his link is unusable. You don't have to ban 'bots
from your site, just make sure they're not indexing your
photos/videos/files.

Also, what I've done is create a default website that is blank or
redirects somewhere, and then a name based vhost matching the cname.
That way, if someone probes the IP address, which seems to happen a lot,
they don't get your website. My website is just for
testing/experimentation and I don't want un-invited people seeing my
super-secret experiments.

-- 
Matthew Nuzum
newz2000 on freenode