How do I set up my computer as a server?

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Very carefully.

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Steve Easton
Microsoft MVP FrontPage
95isalive
This site is best viewed............
........................with a computer
 
Hmm, let's see. You have been studying for (over) one hour and now you want
to run your own internet server. And your question is, can somebody help
you? Possibly. It all depends on how teachable you are. For example, your
question was "can somebody help me?" Asked all by itself, without context,
the answer is going to be yes or no. However, my suspicion is that the
question you asked is not the question you wanted to ask. In fact, my guess,
based on your experience so far (studying for an hour) is that you have a
whole spate of questions. And you haven't even guessed a fraction of the
questions you are going to have. Not in (over) one hour.

A web server is not Microsoft Word. Clippy isn't going to help you there.
You can't simply click a button that says "make your computer an internet
server, and become a server administrator" and have a wizard set it all up
and run it for you. A server administrator is made, not born. And it takes
more than an hour to make one. In fact, once you DO learn to be a server
administrator, you're going to have to keep learning, as long as you want to
be one. Why? Because a server administrator is a guardian. It's like
fighting terrorists, and in fact, it sometimes IS fighting terrorists. The
internet is like the wild west, full of lawlessness and evildoers. Your job
is to keep the gate to your network OPEN while keeping the riffraff OUT. And
like terrorists, the riffraff is an adaptable bunch of people, constantly
coming up with new ways around all the safeguards you diligently employ to
keep your network safe.

To run a web server successfully (you DO want to run it successfully,
right?), you must understand the terrain. Things lie TCP/IP, HTTP, SMTP,
NNTP, FTP and a host of other protocols and technologies that are employed
to transmit data across the internet. You have to know about firewalls,
ports, filters, and routers. You have to deploy anti-virus software, guard
your network against a variety of attacks, etc. And as smart as they are
these days, computers are still quite stupid. They need humans to tell them
what to do and how to do it. Smart, educated humans. Users are ignorant, and
they can be. Administrators, programmers, and other technical people can NOT
be.

I think Jack Nicholson said it best, in the movie "A Few Good Men:"

"Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded
by men with guns. Whose gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have more
responsibility here than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago,
and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not
knowing what I know. That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved
lives. And that my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you,
saves lives. I know deep down in places you dont talk about at parties, you
don't want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like
honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent
defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time
nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under
the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then question the manner in which
I provide it. I prefer you said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise,
I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand to post."

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HTH,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
..Net Developer
Sometimes you eat the elephant.
Sometimes the elephant eats you.
 
BTW, if you have any specific questions, I can certainly answer (most of)
them.

--
HTH,

Kevin Spencer
Microsoft MVP
..Net Developer
Sometimes you eat the elephant.
Sometimes the elephant eats you.
 
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