Laptop as webserver - XP or Linux?

[NiceCupOfTea]

Hi all,

I have a spare laptop sitting around doing nothing and fancy using it to host the odd file as I only have 20MB webspace. It's a P2 233 or something but it should be OK I should think.

I have a decent router (Draytek Vigor 2600).

I have XP installed on it currently - can I set something up easily using this? If it's all service packed / updated OK it should be reasonably secure if I set up the router firewall properly I think.

Or do I have to use linux? I know this would be tidier / more secure / faster, but I haven't played with linux for over 10 years and didn't get much out of it then because I didn't have a net connection!

Open to the floor

[_dobbo_]

Windows comes with "personal web server" so you should be able to activate that and use it. Of course if you don't have a fixed IP address it raises the issue of how you will connect to the laptop other than locally. Lots of clever ways around that as well though.

[NiceCupOfTea]

One of the benefits of Demon - fixed IP address!

[tuffer]

No fixed IP use Dynamic DNS, www.amset.info/broadband/dynamicdns.asp or others.

[tuffer]

Oh yeah, Linux.

[ATG]

I've got no great experience, but I found Apache pretty easy to download and set up. (Used a thing called The Saint WAMP which includes some scripting languages and databases plus a basic config which gets them all running together.) Linux would be the ideal O/S but that would represent a bit of a learing curve for me. I added a wireless router to my home network about a year after getting an ADSL router, so I've ended up with two routers and can therefore run boxes on two subnets and create a DMZ. I'd be happy enough running a windows web server isolated in the DMZ if I don't get round to learning how to build and config a Linux box.

[mattley]

NiceCupOfTea said:

I have XP installed on it currently - can I set something up easily using this?

Yeah, just add IIS from the add remove windows components control panel, and don't publish anything from the inetpub directory, easy as.

[Pigeon]

If all you're doing is "hosting the odd file" - ie. nothing requiring any HTTP requests other than GET or HEAD to be supported - Debian and the dhttpd web server is ideal and will require practically no configuration.