[How To] Host Website on Your Own Windows PC | Access Via Internet
Convert Your Computer into Server
Here I will explain how to host a website on your own PC and access through the internet. Actually we don't need to buy any server to host website, we could use our computer for that. Which means we could convert our computer into a server by using simple techniques. That i will explain below
First of all we need following things to be set up
First of all we need following things to be set up
Setup's needed
Internet Connection
We need an internet connection first of all. In this demo I m using an internet connection with dynamic IP address. Because static IP needs more money. Availability of your website on internet depends upon your internet connection.
Windows PC With IIS
Check your windows PC does have IIS (Internet Information Services) enabled, by default it is not enabled in your Windows PC. For windows XP users, you guys need CD of windows XP to enable the IIS or if you are a Windows 7+ user, then just do following steps
1. Go to control panel and click on "Programs and Features
2. You will see "Turn windows features on or off" in the left pane like below
3. A new window will open and with lots off features, just enable "Internet Information Services" like below and click on "OK" button and please wait for some moment
4. Your PC needs to be restarted, once the update is completed.
1. Go to control panel and click on "Programs and Features
Programs and Features |
Turn windows feature on |
IIS Enable |
Now you have enabled IIS in your Windows PC, and if you want to host a asp.net web application you must have .NetFramework installed on your system. For more information about this just comment here
Any Dynamic DNS Update Service
This is used for updating dynamically generated internet IP address in the DNS record of the domain. Some of the dynamic DNS services are listed below
In my case I m using NO-IP service , first we need to sign up for a free a account in No-IP services (also they will provide a free domain name, sub domain name for our purposes). In the sign up form you have to fill following things
- Email address
- User name
- Password
- HostName (for example test.ddns.net) (only available sub domain will be provided)
No-IP Sign Up Form |
After you got signed up in No-IP services, then you will get a email verification link, you just need to verify you email by simply click on that link provided. After all these steps are completed you need to download the DNS updater client from No-IP website
No-IP DUC For Windows |
After downloading and installing it in your PC, open it and configure it with your No-IP username and password. Now automatically your computer is pointed to the provided URL (test.ddns.net). You could access your computer by simply using this URL. We could say like that, your computer is now working as a server connected to internet.
DUC Client |
This DUC client will be refreshed every one minute, so that, if you have assigned new dynamic IP, it will be updated automatically in there server. So that your computer will be connected to No-IP automatically.
Alternate way to configure No-IP
There is another alternate way to configure No-IP without using the DUC client. It is our modem configuration. Some modem interfaces do provided facility to add Dynamic DNS services. In my case it is available. First you need to take the modem configuration from any browser, and go to the admin panel. In my modem management interface, it will appear in "Access Management" section as "DynDNS" service.
We need to fill the host name, user name and password, then modem will do the No-IP DUC client functionality automatically. We don't need to install any extra client for that. Check is this option available for your modem.
Configure Ports & DHCP Static IP
We configured all things except port opening and DHCP static IP management. These all are done from the modem configuration administration panel.
DHCP Static IP Configure
When all the time we get restarting our PC, our local IP is changed from a range of IP's (like 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.106). If this happens, then it is little difficult to configure the port opening mechanism in modem configuration. Otherwise we need to add 192.168.1.100 to 192.168.1.106 (all ports in the virtual mapping section).
IP DHCP Static Configuration |
I have given 192.168.1.106 as static IP for my PC, now all the time it will be 192.168.1.106.
Port Opening in Modem
For this, we need to configure the virtual server. Virtual server allows users to access the server through the Gateway. We need to configure which ports should be open to the public users from our computer in this section.
Virtual Server Configuration Modem |
From the above image, you can see how the ports are configured. I had opened website default port (80) and MySql database port (3306) here. So the internet users can access MySql Database installed in my computer and website hosted on the 80 port of IIS (it is the default website). You can configure many ports here for many purposes.
Now you just need to host a website on default website (80 port) on IIS and you could access it by simply writing URL (http://test.ddns.net) from internet.
IIS |
That's all. Now your PC is acting like a server. Enjoy. If you have any doubts, just comment here.
[How To] Host Website on Your Own Windows PC | Access Via Internet
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