STUPID Server question...

OnlyCurious · 12-22-2007, 08:07 PM

I know nothing about servers and how they work. But I've been researching servers and know a little bit about it now.

But can you make your PC into a server?? And if you can, how do you do it?

Ethereal_Dragon · 12-22-2007, 08:15 PM

A server is a PC.... The server is just software running on the host. As far as the 'how to', that would depend on specifically what you are wanting to accomplish with the server I suppose....

OnlyCurious · 12-22-2007, 08:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ethereal_Dragon

A server is a PC.... The server is just software running on the host. As far as the 'how to', that would depend on specifically what you are wanting to accomplish with the server I suppose....

Well, I know a server is a PC, but I wasn't sure if a server required more powerful components (or if it could be even a budget PC with a Celeron).

What if I am running Windows XP Professional SP2 and wanted to make it into a server... what do I do? What kind of software do I need?

I want to have a server to learn SQL server and web development purposes... I need to strengthen my computer networking background.

Ethereal_Dragon · 12-22-2007, 08:35 PM

Yes, essentially any hardware can be made into a server. Within the budget realm, the issue you run into is what will it be used for, and what kind of load it will handle.

If you are looking for a webserver, the only one that comes to mind at the moment (sorry, REALLY busy at work, lol), is Apache. I personally am not at ALL familiar with anything pertaining to SQL though.

OnlyCurious · 12-22-2007, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ethereal_Dragon

Yes, essentially any hardware can be made into a server. Within the budget realm, the issue you run into is what will it be used for, and what kind of load it will handle.

If you are looking for a webserver, the only one that comes to mind at the moment (sorry, REALLY busy at work, lol), is Apache. I personally am not at ALL familiar with anything pertaining to SQL though.

I've been researching the Apache but I can't tell whether it's free or not... is it free?

Thanks for the help, what do you do at work?

Ethereal_Dragon · 12-22-2007, 09:33 PM

I cannot be 100%, but it is my impression that Apache is free, but they accept donations.... I am not sure though.....

Welcome! - The Apache Software Foundation

I work in a call center, and we are understaffed right now, lol.

OnlyCurious · 12-22-2007, 09:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ethereal_Dragon

I cannot be 100%, but it is my impression that Apache is free, but they accept donations.... I am not sure though.....

Welcome! - The Apache Software Foundation

I work in a call center, and we are understaffed right now, lol.

Oh, I see. I'm gonna have to try it on my old PC. Thx.

Mak213 · 12-24-2007, 10:42 AM

You also have to remember that running anything from a home based PC will eat up your bandwidth if you run it as a server. Which means that you will have less bandwidth to use for your PC. So turning your PC into a server which will make that PC useless to you since it will be under constant load (Server purposes) you will need a 2nd PC. Which wil be rendered useless to the internet since your internet will be eaten all up by the server you created.

Plus you also haev to realize that if you host a site or something from your home based PC and someone wants a file or something from it then you are also limited to home many people can connect to the Server at that time. Cause you are limited by your upload speed. So if you upload speed is being taken up by someone downloading a file then that means someone else cant load up your stuff cause you can physically upload any more.

That is why servers are done on bandwidth lines that can handle more of a load than regular ISP's will provide. While any PC can be turned into a Server. It is you ISP and your bandwidth that limit many people from running servers from their home.

ctm2k · 12-25-2007, 03:15 PM

If your hosting a web server of course its going to eat up your bandwidth. If your just setting up an internal server for file sharing or other services that are LAN specific than you wont have a problem

mBernhardt · 12-26-2007, 09:11 AM

If you are looking to run a test web server then you can most certainly install Apache/MySQL/PHP on a windows box. They are all "free" software. You can run them legally without paying the orginal developers.

If all you are doing is running test apps for your own education, then running these on your "primary" computer won't cause a problem. I have Apache/MySQL/PHP running on my laptop for testing purposes and there is no problem or performance issues at all.

If you are looking for more of a production environment I would recommend moving the web services to their own hardware. It doesn't have to be too powerful, but I would recommend as much RAM as you can reasonably afford.

As far as bandwidth consumption, that all depends on the scope of what you are doing. I ran a personal web server for about 2 years using my personal bandwidth and never saw an impact on throughput. Unless you are serving large files or hosting an ftp mirror most traffic is in small bursts.

Ultimately, it all comes down to what you are looking to do. But, to answer your orignal question (again) yes, you can turn your personal computer into a "server" to test web/sql practices.

Member Login