setting up www address on my computer

HI, im fairly new to webhosting and everything. i have successfully set up apache2 on my computer. i am running windows 2000 professional. Is there a way to host a www.myname.com on my computer with out having to register a domain from a company? i want everything on my computer. Is that possible or do i need certain things?

You must register a domain and provide internet-recognized nameservers for the domain to make your site visible to the Internet.

You don't have to register it if it's going to just be internal to your company. I wouldn't use any address that is a qualified domain name though, like .com, .net, etc. Maybe try yourcompany-lan or something. You just need to change your internal DNS server to point to resolve for that domain. That's how I setup my former employer's internal website. If it needs to be accessible to people on the Internet then you'll have to register it.

hmm ok, but is there a way for it to recognized throughout the internet? cant i have my own nameservers on my computer? there must be a way if those internet companys can do it.

If you want it to be resolvable throughout the Internet then you need to register a domain name. You can then setup a DNS server of your own that is the master for your domain and notify the 'Root DNS' servers that that certain machine is the master for your domain. When they get any requests for your domain the requests will be passed down to your DNS server to resolve them. So, this can't be done without registering a domain name.

i understand that. but how do the internet companys set up the domains on their computer. is it possible to set up a dns and a domain name on my computer? if they can do it, then everyone else must be able to set that up as well.

You setup DNS on a computer and have it setup to resolve hostnames for the domain that you registered with one of the domain name registrars. Then let them know the IP address and hostname of the PC that will be your DNS server so that their servers know where to pass down DNS requests for your domain.

If you're trying to not register your domain then it's NOT going to work unless you just want domain resolution in an internal LAN or something similar.

this works for me. I have installed Apache 2, PHP, Perl and I have a regular connection to the internet. I just give people my IP address to connect to my computer; therefore, they are connecting to your website. if this doesn't work for you, you might need to go to "network connections" and click the properties of the connection and verify that the firewall isn't set up.

If you want a domain name, then you will need to cough up some dough and register it.

in my case, all people need is my ip address to connect to my server.

>> is it possible to set up a dns and a domain name on my computer?
If you're going to set up DNS server(s), the first requirement is for you to have static IP address(es). If you don't have this, you can pretty much forget about setting up your own DNS servers. However, you can still run a webserver on a dynamic IP and use a dynamic DNS service for your DNS requirements. It's not as reliable as having your own static IP though.

Where do I change my Apache configuration to allow me to set a subdomain for my localhost address. Ex: sub.localhost or something like this

...Easiest way to do what you're asking with a dynamic IP_ADDRESS is get a domain name from somewhere like DYNDNS.ORG.

It worked fine for me and you don't have to keep updating numerical address links. Best part is it's free.

FOR EXAMPLE here is my vanilla box.

redstar, i dont think it is possible to have a subdomain for localhost per se; however, it might be done through your ISP. it worked with the earlier apache 2 version, set servername to xxx.xxx.com e.g., servername redstar.aol.com. i'm not sure if this works anymore.

it is possiable to have subdomains on apache web serv i run subdomains on apache my self

it's generally frowned upon to resurrect half year old topics.

yea i know sorry im just bored i noticed the date after i dont posted sorry