Question : Buy a public IP ?

Hi Experts,

I wonder if an ordinary person can buy a public IP address for let's say a web server? is it simple ? and how much does it cost ?
thanks a lot !

Answer : Buy a public IP ?

Hi,

I'll try to be as complete as possible.

First off, like the other comments on this tread suggest, you have to get yourself a public IP. But that is not all. Here are questions that you need to ask to your ISP (Internet Service Provider) :

A: Is 80 port forwared for the type of account you wish to subscribe to ?
B : What is the upstream bandwidth ?
C : What is the limit of traffic, per month, you're allowed in upload ?

A: If they don't foward the port 80 to you, you cannot use that ISP. Why ? Well because 80 is the default port which web server listen on. If they don't foward this port, you'll have to ask your site visitor to viste www.yourdomain.com:xxxx where xxxx could be an other port than 80 that your ISP would forward, let's say, 2001

B : Upstream bandwitdh is the speed your user will have then browsing your site. If you're limited to 16k/s, it might get pretty slow for a multimedia oriented web page. Especially if it get popular.

C: See if the limit is not too low, and how much it cost if you get over it. Also see if you can check it daily from the ISP web site or thru a software they will provide you with.

If all of this is positive ... you need to register a domain name. In the US :

www.networksolutions.com is a good place to go. Also use them to host your DNS. This is where you will register your site name, ie : thebestsite.org

What are DNS ? DNS is a domain name server, it's used to convert www.thebestsite.com to your static IP address, ie : 11.11.111.1 so the users can access you web site. As said previously, when they'll type www.thebestsite.com, it'll try to login to 11.11.111.1:80 by default.

Hosting your DNS at networksolutions.com is the simpliest way, as setting up DNS server, per standard, requires 2 servers, in different CLASS C ip. Class C ip usualy means, 2 different ISP for an end user, and DNS servers are for experienced users only. Using their services is simple, and stable.

Once that will be set, you need to set up a web server. You need a good PC, easiest way is to run Windows 2000 server (goes for around 900USD). A good pc, is my opinion, is a PIII with 512RAM, at least 10 gigd in case you think of hosting some MP3s/Videos of your Karaoke partys ;) ....

Once Windows is installed on that PC, run IIS. It's not the most secure server application (go for FreeBSD & Apache when you'll be used to it) but it'll do the job and I don't think you're planning on hosting the next Ebay for now anyways.

Have fun, networking and the internet is meant to be fun, and challenging,

Laurence.