Hosting Multiple Websites/email servers

im fairly new to networking/DNS stuff. Im looking at starting up a small company helping other people start up there "company", and im doing there I.T. needs. im running LAMP (linux,Apache,MySQL,PHP) running on Ubuntu servers. i would like to offer "my cleints" the server of a website and poss email servers.

I have been able to set up the websites and servers all lovely. now the problem is i now need a system to "host" the websites/servers i have to the world. i know that "my clients" will need a hostname (from Dyndns) and you guys will be able to have requests sent to my server, same with the email servers.

I have been looking around the forums and i think i have found what i need. i will need to update/upgrade my server from dyndns to "pro" then i will be able to have multiple domain/hostnames forwarded to my IP address striate to my server. My router will need the ports opening, and any firewalls (iptables) needs to be opened for the HTTP/S and 25/110 ports to pass email and WWW services.

I have got my "virtual" Apache websites on my server will http://DYNDNS.com be able to send the requests to each "site" on my server. Im sorry if this is just babbling on but if anyone could just put my mind at rest.

will http://dyndns.com pro send to multiple virtual websites on 1 IP address. www.website-1 to /etc/www/website-1
can http://dyndns.com forward emails to other servers
off site backup to and from FTP

asked Apr 27 at 12:36 PM

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keiffee
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1 Answer:

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DynDNS Dynamic DNS Pro and free are just DNS resolution services, they don't send anything to your server. All they do is provide a name that resolves to an IP address of your choice. They also only use the DynDNS provided domains, not any of your own choice, for that you'd need Custom DNS.

That is up to how you configure Apache, but yes - if all the hostnames resolve to the same WAN IP address that will work
EMails will, with Dynamic DNS, be sent to the IP address the hostname resolves to. If you need it to go elsewhere you'll need to set an MX record with the hostname of the mail server. With Custom DNS you have more control - you can set multiple MX records.
No, DynDNS don't offer any facilities like that. You'll need to provide your own backup facilities, using services such as CrashPlan

Whatever you do, ensure that you plan appropriately - a home computer (and Internet connection) is not suitable for hosting with any guarantee of uptime. Check that you have disaster recovery and contingency plans in place - ensure that you have at least mirrored disks in your server and that you've proven your backup and recovery processes work. Remember too that your upload bandwidth is the effective bandwidth of any server you host.

It would be sensible to use the likes of Google Apps for handling all the email (are you prepared for an 80%+ spam rate?). I would also suggest that you spend some time researching on the Web Hosting Talk forums, since it is easy to do this badly and hard to do it well.

answered Apr 27 at 01:19 PM