windows server at home...

[playinpearls]

So i've got a nice copy of server 2008 among every other MS program they have (msn academy) and since i'm moving into my new house soon, i was thinking of setting up a home server as a little side project, or something to give me what little experience i can get from it...

has anyone done this? what are some benefits, ideas, or suggestions of how to do it?

i know it may be over kill, but i'm trained for networking, and i love it, so its something to keep me busy until i can finally get a job in the industry...

all i have right now is a laptop and desktop. i was gonna build a server, then connect to it via a router wireless...

i want to store all my music on there so i can access from any computer, create accounts for my kids, and limit internet and such...of course, he's is only 1 so it will be a while...

[DanRJBrasil]

for practical apllycations is overkill for sure but for training is a good resource, you can doa dual bot on the machine so u do'nt have to use it all the time

[crispygoat]

I've done it once. It was fun and I learned a lot from it but needless to say, it wasn't too practical. However, since you also plan on doing it for fun and learning, you should go a step further and create an Apache HTTP Server!

I'm having a hard time making up that last sentence, hopefully you get what I mean!

[Steve]

Is that software time bombed?

It's fun to play with but it's a drag to have it all go south in 120 days.

[TrooperFarva]

I've had a server at home for about the last 6-8 years. I don't do any web hosting, but I do have access to it from the outside. I keep a lot of my mp3s, and software .isos on there, to save space on the machines that I actually use.

My router is on the second floor, in the middle of the house, so I wired in the server there, without a monitor/keyboard, and use wireless for most of my other machines. I use RealVNC to control it. I run an FTP server on it, so I can store/retrieve files when I'm at work or on site. I run a Dynamic DNS identifier, because I don't have a static IP address externally. This allows me to get to my server, regardless of the address changing.

I also have VNC on a few other machines. I run all static IPs behind the router, so with port forwarding, I can access any of my important machines from anywhere with internet access.

[playinpearls]

no its a full version...


trooper, thats exactly what i was thinking about, some ftp, but mainly as a data server so i dont have to worry about PC's crashing and my wife losing all her baby pictures....Lord knows she takes a bunch!