Website at your I.P.

I have come across a file sharing program that puts an easy to use website on your I.P. for friends to access, enter a user/pass then download files from a folder you chose to use. How do you put a website at your I.P. I can design websites, but don't know how to host it at my I.P., well not host it, but let friends access files and such there. Anyone have a suggestion or know how to do this?

can you tell more about that proggie? does he installs some kind of web server on your machine or must you install it yourself?

Do you really want to host a website on your home PC? or are you just wanting to allow friends to access files from certain folders on your PC?

If the latter then I suggest using FTP. I use Bulletproof FTP for just this very thing and it's great. Set up user accounts for your friends to log in and then they FTP up and down into those folders.

If you really want to host a web-site then I suggest something like Apache for a web server and get a virtual domain name from no-ip.com and then it doesn't matter if your IP address changes 'cos their s/w that you run on your PC will update the re-direct to your IP everytime your IP changes.

If you want to host your own website on your home computer, you will need to install a webserver. I recommend Apache. Free and the most widely used on the internet.

http://httpd.apache.org/

Once you have installed it you can put your html files in the htdocs directory under the apache directory and people will be able to access your website by typing in your ip like this. for example say your ip was 11.22.33.44. People could get to your pages by typing

http://11.22.33.44/yourpagename.html

If you want to have a domain name point to your website. Register your domain with a company such as GoDaddy.com DirectNic.com. They will give you the option of redirecting your site to another ip. You can enter your ip and when people type in http://yoursite.com it will redirect to your home ip address.

Don't forget that if your behind a firewall then you will need to open up the port the webserver runs on (usually 80) and if your behind a router then you will probably need to redirect traffic on that port to your machine.

And make sure you are not violating your ISP's TOS. MOST Internet providers explicitly say that you are not allowed to run a server of any kind on their network.

I'd hate to see someone get their ISP account booted because they wanted to run a server.

Also, make sure the files you are sharing are okay too. If you are using a lot of bandwidth transferring files, your ISP *WILL* start to look why. They may remove your account because of the server, but they may also pursue legal action if they are illegal files.

Just be careful whatever you do.

As well as your ISPs TOS.. you'll also find that if your on a broadband connection, you have a limited amount of upload bandwidth. So the more people viewing your site, the less bandwidth for the month you have.. eventually if you go over they may give you a warning by disconnecting you.. I should know.. lol.