If you're going to host at home do the following :

1. Set up your Web server on a separate dmz and vlan
2. Buy a ups and use it
3. Buy a system with very low power requirements
4. Check your isp allows servers
5. Correctly configure your firewall
6. Keep your Web server updated
7. Only install what you need
8. Learn Linux and use it. You'll reboot less often and you'll have better uptime
9. Run a proper cloud based backup!
10. Run a proper cloud based backup!

The ninth is so important I mentioned it twice!

I do all the above at home and I host my version control and local mail server on it with an Internet connection of 150 mb down and 25 mb up (cable in the UK). I also pay for hosting though as this is the only way to get completely reliable service. Check out digital ocean and OVH.

Oh and if you do get hacked, pull the network cable and reinstall immediately. You DID read steps nine and ten above and action them, right) :lol: to know if you've been hacked don't wait for your isp to disconnect you and tell you - run an ids tool and run regular audits with the home version of nessus.

Have fun!

Honestly it's not worth it. You can get away with hosting private, low-availability or low-bandwidth services locally, but for anything more serious such as a public website or a game server you will never meet an acceptable uptime, someone might flood your residential line (super easy) or, worse, if you have a data cap and have a shitty ISP you may find overnight that you've gone 300% over, have been charged $600 over-cap and have had your subscription suspended.

You can get a shared VPS for as low as a couple dollars a month and a dedicated server for $30/mo or less, the difference is they will be sitting in a data center connected to a fat network pipe, will have better uptime, and you can actually use them for mostly anything you want (for many ISP's hosting commercial servers, torrenting hubs or even game servers is against their terms of service).

Also don't forget that if you host a server at home that is separate from your own desktop/laptop/whatever (which is probably a good idea) then you also need to pay for the electricity to run it; and you may find that comes out about as (or more) expensive than just renting hosting... having an appliance running 24/7 is actually pretty costly these days even if it doesn't draw much!

Resort to using DigitalOcean $5 a month. Downside you have to set up your server to hose websites (easy after your first time and tons of tutorials especially for ubuntu 14). Upside if you learn a little about being a system admin and if you break it destroy the droplet and create a new one, great for learning and you pay for time it is active not $5 per droplet unless it is up a month. I currently run 6 servers off DigitalOcean and I am very pleased with their services.

Honestly it's not worth it

Financially yes. It's so not worth it.

As a hobby same as gamedev, and as a learning experience it's so much more than worth it.

Don't ever expect to match paid for dedicated or virtual hosting with your home setup, but if you want to learn how Linux works, learn how to secure and Maintain a server without risk to a real service, and have something you can poke at when you're bored sometimes then there's nothing quite like it...

I started ten years ago when living with my parents after moving back from university.

Back then I home hosted 5 servers, proper 1U rack mount kit and good quality hardware.

These days after settling down and growing up a bit I run a Repurposed laptop with battery and Screen removed that runs 24/7 in the utility cupboard hosting all kinds of hobbyist stuff like a media server, git repository, Web server, ssh, and more.

It costs me less to run per day than the TV set top box.

If you want to do it to learn then DO IT, just don't do it expecting to best paid hosting in terms of uptime or bandwidth even if you have gigabit Internet, a generator and a ups...

Enjoy!

Also is it an American thing to be charged a lot for crappy Internet with data caps, low upstream, extra charges for going over, and contracts that say you can't even open a Listening port on your public ip?

Sounds backwards as hell to me, things like that are generally dead here in the UK except on mobile contracts which are and always will be living in the dark ages :lol:

Well, it's only fair...

Right?

Also is it an American thing to be charged a lot for crappy Internet with data caps, low upstream, extra charges for going over, and contracts that say you can't even open a Listening port on your public ip?

That's an Australian thing
The typical connection here is ADSL technology on old copper lines that are way past their usable lifetime and held together with electrical tape and plastic bags - a few Mbps down and a few hundred Kbps up, a few hundred GB per month data limit, with excess usage either capped to 1Mbps downspeed, or charged at ~$1/GB. And yes, a clause in the contract telling you that hosting services on a residential plan counts as "unreasonable usage" ("commercial" plans will cost 10x more just because).

From what I hear, the US is similar, except in areas where companies like Google have started laying fibre optic networks to disrupt the old copper business

Fwiw, data caps on non-mobile connections are far less common, though the ISPs have been trying to introduce it.

Where do you live? From my (BC, Canada) experience and the (California, USA) experience of a couple friends, combined up&downstream data caps in the 100-200 GB range are pretty typical of current services, and such caps of varying sizes have been standard operating practice for all "cable internet" ISPs (as in, through a Cable TV provider) ever since their general-populace introductions in the late 90s.

The actual enforcement of such caps tends to be arbitrary and hit-and-miss here in BC, but that doesn't mean the caps are not part of the written and actionable terms of service.