Keith Graham

I wanted to produce a guide to creating a home server, but it could fill a book and probably would be obsolete within a month of me writing it. I decided to just list the steps and anyone interested in this could google for the details.

If you have a website already, like I did, these are the steps that I took to get it on my home server.

1) Get a CloudFlare account and set your DNS to point to the CloudFlare DNS. CloudFlare has lots of information on how to do this. CloudFlare helps you set up SSL which is “Secure Socket Layer”. SSL is an absolute requirement for a website. CloudFlare does all the work for you once you use their DNS.
2) Transfer your Domain registration to CloudFlare. You should do this immediately. CloudFlare is far cheaper that most other registrars. I saved $4 a year on a dozen domains. I save about $36 a year by using CloudFlare as a registrar. Since I am retired, I like saving cash.
3) Get yourself a cheap desktop computer running Windows. You need this to stay up all the time. My computer is 12 years old. I put an SSD drive in it and changed the power supply. It runs cool and quiet. I expect it to last another 10 years. I’ll have to vacuum it out every year because the fans build up cat hair.
4) Install WAMP on your server and set it so it starts up automatically whenever the server starts up.
5) Set your Server to use a static IP address. This means it will always use the same ip number whenever it starts up so that the router doesn’t give a new address every time you reboot.
6) Configure your router to let web ports 80 and 443 through your the router directly to your server’s IP address. This step is a little obscure when you google it and is different for every router. You may have to call your router company’s help line to get a clue how to do this.
7) Open the Window’s firewall on your server to let 80 and 443 into your server so that WAMP can see it. This is a little complicated and different for every version of Windows and your anti-virus software may have to be configured, too.
8) Go to your Internet company (the one you pay the bill to every month. Around here it is Optimum or AT&T). You have to get the internet company to let ports 80 and 443 into your machine. Some companies block this to keep out pirates. They may want to charge you for this, but for me it was as simple as checking a box on my account setup page.
9) Get a free account at NOIP.COM. This is a service that will keep track of your server’s external IP address, the one that world uses to find you. You will wind up with a NOIP subdomain like myserver,dnsns.net. If you go to a browser and type this in you should be able to see your Wamp welcome screen. I am not sure about this, you may have to add the NOIP subdomain to WAMP in order to see it.
10) Download and install the NOIP automatic update software so that it will check you every 5 minutes in case your internet company randomly changes it.
11) Configure your Windows Hosts file to see your NOIP subdmain.
12) Add your NOIP subdomain to WAMP and restart WAMP.
13) Check with a browser that you your NOIP subdomain will show your server welcome page. If you don’t, start googling to see what you did wrong.
14) Copy your domain files into a sub-directory on your server. Make sure you get all of it. Test it under WAMP. You may need to add a dummy name to the Hosts file and add a new url to your WAMP configuration.
15) Now it’s time flip your domain to your home server. Go to CloudFlare and delete all of the dns records. There is no going back, now. Add the two CNAME records. One pointing to your NOIP subdomain for your main domain and another for the WWW subdomain. NOIP has lots of information how to do this with CloudFlare.
16) Update your WAMP VHOSTS file so that it shows your domain and restart WAMP. There is lots of information on Google on how to do this.
Bob’s your Uncle.
I am an experienced computer guy. I’ve been doing this kind of thing for 50 years. It took me two weeks to get all this working. I made lots of mistakes. IF YOU CAN READ THIS, then it works. This is running on my home computer.