Domain hosting off of cablemodem.

I host my own domain here at home. What does that mean? It means that I can run my own mail server, my own web server, etc...

I'm running with RCN as my cablemodem provider. Their service really has been close to flawless.

The web server allows me to write my own web page, such as it is. But beyond that, it allows me full control over the web server.

Running my own SMTP server is a very worthwhile endeavor. I get all my mail in realtime, instead of having to pop it from a server, or read it remotely via IMAP. If someone asks me for my email address, I just give them Then if I ever start getting any spam at that address, I just shut the address off. Also, I have lots of things I can do to almost completely eliminate spam. In addition, I run the majordomo mailinglist manager so I can run a few personal *email lists*. And when I send mail out I know it was delivered.

When I'm working on a customer's remote site, sometimes I want to be able to get access to my computer. I'm running an openssh server. The problem is securely solved.

And in this game, you can never be too paranoid. So I run a firewall to prevent unauthorized access.

The rest of this page will explain all the components you need to set up to get everything working. The only real committment you have to make is to have your machine running 24/7.

• First of all you need to buy a computer. Mine is a bit on the heavy side, but you can go much lighter if you want. Here's a description.

• The next problem is to decide what distribution of linux you want to run. I run Red Hat. Currently, I'm good with that but that may change in the future. Other candidates that I would consider include Mandrake Linux. The important thing to keep in mind is that there are rpm based distributions and non-rpm based distributions. I have a strong preference for rpm based.

  The advantage of rpm is that it's a simple way of finding out what's going on on your system. It allows you to very simply ask questions, like:

  • What version of a package is installed?
  • What package does this file belong to?
  • What files are in this package?
  • What files in this package are modified?
  • What does this package do?

• Next you need to buy yourself a domain. You could go to Network Solutions but they charge a lot. You can get a much better deal at godaddy.com.
• Now that you have a domain, the big questions becomes: How are people going to know that the domain is on your computer? For that you need name service.
• You have a live IP address from the DHCP server of your ISP. Great. Now everyone in the whole entire world can see your computer. You need to set up a firewall to control exactly who can see what. Here are instructions for setting up your excellent firewall.
• One of the most important functions of my server is that of mail server. I happen to use sendmail. You can read about how I have my server configured.
• One of the cool things about linux is that you can run Apache. Apache is the premier web server. Someday I'll write something up about how I configured mine with multiple virtual domains.
• I enabled my finger daemon. Nothing really to configure. Just enable it via setting disable = no in /etc/xinetd.d/finger. Then just edit your .plan file.
• Short notes on a few miscellaneous daemons

• apcupsd

  I have an APC model 1400. There is software from APC to run it but you'll do a lot better to run apcupsd. It's far more spohisticated and flexible. It figures out how much time you have left in your battery by checking drainage rate. And it can be used to drive multiple machines where one machine is designated as the server and the rest are slaves.

  webmin and usermin

  webmin and usermin are a very nice way to get a gui to perform lots of functions very easily. It's very much worth exploring.

  ntpd

  NTP is the Network Time Protocol. Very easy to hook up and it keeps your system clock accurate to a couple of nanoseconds.

  privoxy

  Privoxy is what you use to prevent those annoying popups. And you can configure it so that all the nodes in your LAN can slave through it, thus solving the problem for your entire network.

• Misc config

  rc.local

  Here's my rc.local:

  #!/bin/sh
  #
  # This script will be executed *after* all the other init scripts.
  # You can put your own initialization stuff in here if you don't
  # want to do the full Sys V style init stuff.
  
  touch /var/lock/subsys/local
  
  /bin/loadkeys /etc/localkeymap.map
  f=/usr/local/lib/sounds/english.au
  [ -f $f ] && /usr/bin/play $f
  unset f
                          

  sysctl

  The file /etc/sysctl.conf is used to set kernel parameters at startup. Here's mine:

  # Kernel sysctl configuration file for Red Hat Linux
  #
  # For binary values, 0 is disabled, 1 is enabled.  See sysctl(8) and
  # sysctl.conf(5) for more details.
  
  # Controls IP packet forwarding
  net.ipv4.ip_forward = 1
  
  # Controls source route verification
  net.ipv4.conf.all.rp_filter = 1
  #net.ipv4.conf.default.rp_filter = 1
  
  # Controls the System Request debugging functionality of the kernel
  kernel.sysrq = 0
  
  # Controls whether core dumps will append the PID to the core filename.
  # Useful for debugging multi-threaded applications.
  kernel.core_uses_pid = 1
  
  net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_broadcasts = 1
  net.ipv4.tcp_syncookies = 1
  net.ipv4.conf.eth0.log_martians = 1
  
  # Controls whether core dumps will append the PID to the core filename.
  # Useful for debugging multi-threaded applications.
  kernel.core_uses_pid = 1