If you're considering something like this then the planning & the thoughts about what you want to do, & how you are going to
do it are worth their weight in gold. For example, how does your provider maintain your connection to the net? Do they terminate
your connection at a certain time of the day, do they terminate when there is no activity, do they terminate when a ping
isn't answered, do you have a static IP or a dynamic one, do you have direct access to a pair of DNS servers, ....... ?
All of these questions, & questions like these, have to be answered in order to construct the server to carry out it's tasks
with 2 aspects in mind, availability & security! There is no point in having a web server that can't be found in the internet, &
no-one wants to jeopardise their computers security if they can help it.
In my case my provider terminates my line once a day, terminates with inactivity after 20 minutes, terminates after 10 minutes of
unanswered pings, I have a dynamic IP (like almost all home users) i.e. it changes every time I log on to my provider, & I
have no direct access to a DNS server. The question about the DNS (Domain Name System) server is one of the most critical, if you
understand how DNS works then you know what I mean, if not then I'll explain. In the world of the internet & computers one of the most
important functions is the DNS, without it there would be no internet! Computers don't like names, they like numbers, IP addresses, the "telephone number"
of any given computer if you like.
A DNS server maps a name to a number, when you are surfing this is always the first thing that happens in the background after typing
the URL of where you want to go. Your browser asks a DNS server where www.highasakite.net is to be found, i.e. at which IP
address. We humans find it easier to remember names instead of numbers. Www.highasakite.net is easier to remember than 62.226.81.157
for example. How many of you know the IP numbers/addresses of your favourite web sites, & service servers? We can remember telephone numbers
because they are static, i.e. the never change (hopefully), but what would happen if every time you picked up the phone & your
number changed, no-one would be able to find you! That is exactly the scenario that we face when we have a web server on a
telephone line with a dynamically changing IP address. Once a day the server becomes a new IP address (maybe more often) & the search
starts again. You see the problem?! :o)
Another point is that the majority of DNS servers in the internet have a relatively long update time for all the domain names that
they are responsible for, & the IP addresses/numbers where the web server for www.highasakite.net is to be found. That's obviously not a
problem when you have a static IP address, i.e. it never changes, but they are very expensive & difficult to get hold of.
But when you have a constantly changing IP like I have we need 2 things, first of all access to a DNS server (so that I can update the
IP address to my current IP) so that I can be found, & secondly it must be a server with a fast update time!
Like many of you I took the opportunity of registering a domain name for free from a "domain name provider" & had the URL redirected to a
free web space host where the website was to be found. What I needed was a way to get all the traffic to the website redirected to my
current IP address where the server sits. I could login to my "domain name provider" & update the redirection URL to my current IP address,
i.e. http://62.226.81.157 (trust me it works (with my current IP)), but depending on the update time for this new redirection it may not
work fast enough. The other thing that must be a top priority is that we have to make all these processes automatic, I won't be around
to keep the server online all the time. I found the perfect answer to this difficult question with the guys at www.hammernode.org .
Hammernode have a free dynamic DNS service that I have to whole heartily endorse, which consists of a second level (sub-domain) domain which is naturally
attached to their DNS servers. This domain name (highasakite.hn.org) is then used as the redirection URL at www.namezero.com where
my domain is parked. Hammernode provide a very small perl script (programme written in perl) where you add your sub-domain name
& a password, & when executed it logs into Hammernode & updates the current IP. The beauty of Hammernode is that 2 minutes after the
update my server is, as far as the internet is concerned, back online. Their availability is second to none, which means that
my availability is second to none. Top marks guys!!! :o) lol lol lol !! Like I said no DNS... no internet!
At the end of the day the internet is a HUGE network, & a standard network at home, or work, is the same, just smaller.
All the things that we will be dealing with here in these pages, are all basic principles & processes that happen in a network.
