Personal vs. Work/Free Server?

akutz asks: "I am sure many of you have asked yourselves this question before: do I run my own server, or take advantage of my employer's hardware and/or free online hosts? I recently brought my own personal server online that provides web, e-mail, source control, and directory services for myself. I like the warm snuggly feeling that all my data is on my box and it is mine, mine, mine. However, I have also just burdened myself with maintaining a server when my employer, The University of Texas at Austin, has plenty of servers that I could use for this very purpose. There are also plenty of free services online that do this, such as Gmail and Sourceforge. So the question is, which is better, running your own server or letting someone else do it for you?"

Depends on who it's for

[andy753421]

If it's just my stuff I prefer to run my own, mostly for the learning experience. However if I'm hosting things that a lot of other people use I think it's better to have a company host it. They generally have better uptime, and if they do go down, the blame isn't on me :)

ISP port blocking

[Mr_Tulip]

If you host it yourself, make sure taht your ISP has no plans to block the port(s) you plan to use for the servers.
There seem to be a lot ISP now, at least here in Australia, who routinely block port 80, 25 and a host of others.

My Advice

[AKAImBatman]

1) Don't run your own Email Server. It's a pain in the rear, and it'll get blacklisted for being on a consumer subnet anyway.

2) If you have a website that you need to guarantee availability for, get a cheap webhost like LunarPages [lunarpages.com] or IPowerWeb [ipowerweb.com]. (Note that blogs fall under this category. Don't run your own blog unless the Blogger.com service doesn't meet your needs.)

3) If you have something personal (such as vacation pictures, web scripts for testing, an experimental web app, etc.) run your own server. It's a rewarding experience and can teach you a lot.

4) DO NOT run ANYTHING on your employer's servers, unless you have explicit permission. It was one thing to make quick use of them back when bandwidth was hard to come by. But now that everyone and their dog has server-grade bandwidth, there's no reason to be making illicit use of your employer's server.

it depends

[amazon10x]

I pretty much host everything on my own servers now for a couple of reasons.

1) Most importantly, I learn all kinds of nifty things doing this that I can apply in a workplace environment

2) I don't have to pay anything. My cable connection + comp is expensive enough; I don't need to pay for that all again.

Obviously, if you have no need to learn about hosting servers and also have some extra money to spend, paying for a server is better. This way you have a better guarentee of uptime (assuming you pick a good host) and you usually will get better speeds this way (I only have 384k upload on my connection so downloading from somewhere else is very slow).

Requirements?

[Morty]

So, what are your requirements?

• Do you need the server to be up 24x7, or is some amount of downtime acceptable?
  
  
• Do you mind rebuilding your server when you change jobs?
  
  
• Do you mind rebuilding your server when you change hosting providers?
  
  
• What budget do you need to stay under?
  
  
• Do you have time to perform backups, routine software upgrades, and other maintenance?
  
  
• If your backups are in someone else's hands, will you want to perform periodic secondary backups in case their backups become inaccessible to you?
  
  
• How much do you want to learn, vs. having it Just Work?
  
  
• Will your employer get pissed off at you if you use your company's resources?
  
  
• How much bandwidth, CPU, and other resources do you need?
  
  
• Do you want physical access to the server, or is some virtual setup good enough?
  

This is a multivariable optimization problem. There is no right answer for all circumstances. Which is why some people host their own sites, some host at their employers' sites, some use colocated servers, some use virtual servers, etc.

Unless you plan on getting /.ed...

[martinultima]

Here's what I say: If you don't mind a slightly slower Internet connections and have no intentions of being /.ed, a home server is perfectly acceptable. I myself used to use GeoCities, Tripod, etc. a lot, but after a while kept having to move over because so-and-so had X feature that I wanted... drove me nuts, trying to find a free host that suited my needs.

Eventually I figured that since we have broadband I may as well set up my own machine as a server. Used to run off my desktop – not a good idea – but now I've got a dedicated machine that's been re-purposed as a server. Everything I need (PHP/Python, MySQL, as much space as I need, NO ADS...) and then some.

And this machine hasn't been too much of a problem even though (1) we've got about six or seven machines online ALL AT ONCE at any given time, including the server, and (2) since it's hosting what's now a fairly well-known Linux distro [distrowatch.com] – my own of course, link to DistroWatch to save me bandwidth – and haven't had a problem.

I think the trick is really to just know what you're doing. Don't over-burden your connection, optimize your site for efficient bandwidth usage, use technologies like BitTorrent if you plan on distributing lots of large files, and things should be just fine.

Oh, and one more suggestion: Go with Linux... yes, I'm saying that partially because I'm a Linux developer and therefore would be somewhat biased, partially because it's better optimized for that type of thing, and partially because spending $1000+ on Windows Server for a tiny personal site [or even a large one like mine [dyndns.org]...] is just overkill. :-)

thanks for the responses!

[akutz]

I appreciate all your comments, truly. For the curious, here is my setup at home. I have a 10mbps Fiber connection to my home courtesy of Grande Communications. I happen to rent a duplex in a well-to-do neighborhood of Austin where my wife and I could never afford to actually buy, but the nice side-effect of renting here is that the Austin president of Grande lives in the same neighborhood making this area the first one with fiber to the doorstep :) Oh, and I pay for 3mbps! double-:)

My server is a P4-2.8ghz 83G5 Shuttle with 2GB of RAM. It runs Ubuntu Linux 5.10 Breezy Badger. All this setup does is run SSH (pubkey auth only ) and Apache2 with WebDav enabled so I can access my home directory from afar with ease. Oh, and I require client certificates to talk to my WebDav share for security.

On top of this though I run VMware GSX server. I run a virtual instance of Breezy that is my web/e-mail/ldap/svn server. The beauty of it being virtual is that if I ever need to move it I just move the directory to another machine! Since the VM was created under VMware GSX 3.2.1 I can easily move it into ESX 2.5 or VMware Workstation 5.5.1 (legacy mode). I went this route specifically in case of the need to migrate the server. I also run a virtual instance of Windows 2003 Server Enterprise and Exchange 2003 for testing code and projects on Windows.

I like running my own server, it teaches me a lot, and I feel that I have the minimum amount of competence to pull it off. That said, there are times when I would love to just give it to somebody to run for me!

P.S. I was using Lunarpages, but I got to the point when I decided that I needed shell access to much. However, Lunarpages is a spectacular hosting company and their support turnaround is second to none. Withing 2 hours on the weekends! Those guys rock!

You Are Responsible for Security

[yancey]

I'm guessing you have already considered the relevant University of Texas System polices [utsystem.edu], the Office of General Council Ethics Standards [utsystem.edu], and the ITS Policies [utexas.edu]. Sorry, I work for another Texas university. :-) Universities tend to be generous and tolerant of a personal computer on their network so long as it does not interfere with your work, does not violate any laws or policies, and does not interfere in any way with the network or other computing systems.

With that in mind, know that you and only you are responsible for the security of your computer and that you will be held responsible for any undesireable activity coming from your computer. If someone were to manage to compromise your computer and then attempt to compromise other university systems, you will at least be held responsible for not securing your own system, if not held responsible for anything coming from your computer -- or through it. If you are quite certain that you can keep your computer secure, then by all means run your own server and learn as much as possible. It's best not to experiment with production university systems. Besides, one could argue that using university-owned systems for your own purposes is a violation of the ethics policy. However, using your personal computer on the university network is no different than any student using a laptop.

Re:Employment goes away - have a backup plan

[munpfazy]

Doh! That should have said,

"Professor John Smith <[e-mail]>"

Didn't realize the tags would get eaten even when posting in plain text. (Clearly this is some new definition of "plain old text" of which I was not previously aware...)

Running Servers on University Boxes in Ohio (FYI)

[Ohio Calvinist]

Just as an FYI, here in Ohio (as it was explained to me by my HR contact), it is illegal to profit from State owned (e.g. public university) resources such as IT equipment, vehicle, telephone, e-mail box, etc. (ORC 102.04) For example, forwaring "[e-mail]" to the University Central Mail system and making personal business transactions, is (at the opinion of the University) a violation of (ORC 102.02) If what you are doing is of "academic or not-for-profit" interest, it's up to the IT folks/university lawyers what they construe as "within the academic mission of the university." The problem comes when your friend of a friend's boss asks if you'll host his stuff for $juicy_sum_of_money, and you risk it or need to get a 3rd party host if you want to get his business anyway,. You also have to worry about hosting content for a social/political group whom the university (or mid-tier sysadmin) doesn't want on the subnet, you're in a real pickle.

List of personal colocation providers

[ziegast]

I don't host anything of my own at work. Take a look at the Personal Co-location Registry [vix.com]. You'll find a bunch of inexpensive providers for your servers or apps.

Ask Yourself the Same Question I Did

[nuintari]

Ask Yourself the Same Question I Did.

How badly do you want to do things, "Your Way?"

I work for an ISP that gives me a lot of freedom to do things as I see fit, and I am very proud of the work I have done, and the machines I maintain. However, I am bound by compatability issues with previous design decisions I don't always agree with. That sort of entrenched policy is impossible to quickly erradicate. Hence, I opted to maintain my own trio of machines that do my bidding.

I do make extensive use of my work servers as well, but for my personal use, I wanted it to be 100% all mine. I have prior design decisions of my own that I regret that have become entrenched, but at least they are "My" mistakes, and mine alone to fix. But I am an insatiable individualist, to the point of obsessiveness.

Just how badly do you want to run a sys your own way? If the answer isn't, "I wanna run a server for myself and possibly a few friends as if I were a demon from hell, sent to restore order to the entire interweb, one puny server at a time." Its probably not worth the effort. If that _is_ your answer, medication?

Obvious Choice for Me

[vga_init]

You sum it all up quite elegantly when you say "Mine, mine, mine!"

If you're an sysadmin type of person (most people aren't, but I am), the convenience and security of running your own servers is very difficult to compromise on. When it's your box, you're in control--you can fine tune it to fit your needs exactly, and you can change anything instantly at your discretion.

Trusting your stuff to professionals is not too bad of an idea, but you have to realize that you're dealing with an organization of people that don't have any vested interest in you or your data. They'll do their best to serve you most of the time, but they'll never be able to do it as well as you could for yourself. Because of levels of authority and control, getting necessary things done for *you* on a machine owned by *someone else* requires you to go through them, and there will be bureaucracies, red tape, and layers upon layers of people who can't do anything to facilitate a solution. Eventually it might get to someone who can, but there is always the chance that they can't or won't.

What if your box needs something special? A custom kernel or special modules? Specific settings on a certain server? I don't know man...

portability

[Anonymous Coward]

I host on a debian 3.1 virtual server, but I manage my sites using webmin/virtualmin so I can up and run to another host if I need to and just restore my virtualmin backups.

I manage dns from my domain registrant, joker.

currently I host with www.tektonic.net for vservers, if you cohost a few friends with you then they effectively pay the bills, and you get root to do what you need.

go the personal route...

[solidtransient]

I ran my personal sites off of corporate servers for a few years. There were plenty of nice perks to being on their servers including the fact that it didn't cost me anything. After a while though, I was dying to get off of company ran servers and onto my own personal one... for a few reasons.

1. The company happened to change their settings a lot, causing downtime on the server and downtime on my sites.
2. The company continuously changed their mind on where they wanted their websites to be, forcing a move of all sites every few months. That was a lot of trouble and it never felt like my sites "settled" before they were yanked up and moved.
3. I didn't like the feeling that other sites on the box were being managed by somebody else. I always felt like my stuff wasn't private and that other employees had access to code I had written personally. I don't think anyone ever stole anything, but it wasn't a good feeling.
4. It was hard to switch jobs. Even though at the time I was being paid crap, I still justified some of my being there since I had "free hosting", which was a really pathetic thing now that I look back.

So overall, I'm much happier running my own server instead of riding on somebody elses. The costs are higher but its worth it.

Re:employee handbook

[Fishin76]

Since I work for a Global Company in a information Security postion, I may a few insights to add. Statemachine talked about your information on company assets and how that information is now theirs. The reverse can be true also. If you brought in your own machine and put company data on it, theoretically, that machine belongs to the company. As we all know, even deleted, overwitten, zero-ed out data can be recovered (with different levels of labor respectively) from hard drives and other mediums. Companies will not and should not let you take your personal machines out of the building. This represents a avoidable risk to that companies intellectual property and corperate information. Email, files, software, and any other electronic communications methods that you use and/or provided by your company are theirs. This includes Cell phone converasations on company cell phones.

              Most companies indemnify their employees. In other words, you, personally, would not get sued for an illegal act to commit fraud against customers using company assets. The company would. But, you would probably get fired in attemptng to settle the lawsuit.

A few things to remember:

      PC does not mean Personal computer. It means Property of your Company.

      Keeping Personal data on company assets is a big NO-NO.

      Keeping Company Data on personal assets is a big NO-NO.

      If you need something to do your job better, ask your company first.

      If you need to bring in an asset you own, get permission and know the rules.

And the number one thing you can do: USE COMMON SENSE.

I know not every company follows these rules, mine does. They make sense, allbeit, sometimes difficult to follow.

CYA is a very good thing. If your using the CYA methodology, your already following the rules.