Hosting my own website on a GoFlex Home

[jfharper]

I'd like move my only website to my own home web server that gets traffic once or twice a day and serves up a few images and maybe a video or two of the 3D animation stuff I do.

I have a GoFlex Home base that has archlinux and apache installed. I'm getting confused by the writeups on the web about setting this up. They tend to go into a number of directions that I'm not sure I need.

I have a domain currently registered. I know I need apache to serve up the web pages. I setup the GoFlex to have a static IP. I know the external IP of my single home router. Do I go to some free DNS server site and setup my domain with my external IP of my single home router and that's it?

I tested apache internally by putting the GoFlex's static IP in a browser on another computer on my network and I got the placeholder page. Now to figure out how to setup the external stuff to work with the internal stuff.

Can someone give me some simply guidance? I think a little will help me just focus on what I need...thanks.

[grayman4hire]

If you have your own domain, you wouldn't use a "free dns site". You'll need to setup a DNS A record (I believe) that points to your static ip address (is that a publically accessible static IP or a internal IP). If you don't have a statically accessible public IP Address, then yes, you'll need to use a free dynamic dns site and setup port forwarding.

If you're looking for something really simple, consider using Mongoose versus apache. I have a pre-compiled package in the tutorial linked in my signature below.

[jfharper]

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure if I have a statically public accessible IP address...is there a way I can determine that? Are you talking about the external router address? Not sure if it is static. The GoFlex is setup with a static ip address, but that is internal.

I'm guessing I do have a public static ip...because when I visit here http://www.ipaddresslocation.org/ it gives me and IP under My IP Address (Public, External or WAN IP Address). But I'm guessing.

[grayman4hire]

Most likely you don't have a public static IP address. Most ISP don't offer it unless you pay extra for it.

You can use http://freedns.afraid.org/ for DDNS.

[jfharper]

My router has a ddns setting...could I do it from my router?

[pepedog]

The domain has to have DNS delegated to a ddns provider, like http://dyn.com
The router detects when IP address has changed, so that is where it is configured, don't set it to static

Even without ddns a dynamic IP address won't change often, it could last for years

[jfharper]

Sorry, I'm getting lost. Can we go back to the public IP thing...is there a way I can find out for sure if I do or do not have a public ip? I'd rather not assume, but find out definitively.

[pepedog]

Test it
This would give your public address http://www.ipaddresslocation.org/
Router, forward port 80 to static internal address
On maybe a smart phone connected to say 3G, try http://thatipaddress

[jfharper]

Tried it, got Safari cannot open the page because the server cannot be found.

[Geoff]

http://checkip.dyndns.org will show your IP address. If you power-cycle your modem, you can see whether your get a different IP address after that, in which case it's not a static address.