I've been thinking of setting up a machine at home for hosting pages for users at perlmonks.org, and I'd like some feedback.
Here's the plan. I have an IDSL line (144kbps) that I plan on keeping for at least another few months, that has static IP addresses. I also have ADSL, but it's got a dynamic IP address. At some point, I plan on shifting everything to the ADSL line. A friend and I have a scheme for keeping the DNSs updated reliably, so DNS outages should be brief (<5 minutes, perhaps once a week). Basically, I believe this means that you should get pretty reliable service. Except...
... I live on a houseboat, and once in a blue moon, we go out. Or, as happened back in February, the dock got ripped loose from the shore, and I was ISP-less for 5 days (heroin withdrawal is easier to get over than losing your net connection).
Plan: K6-III/450, 256MB memory, 13GB drive running FreeBSD, Apache, mod_perl, mySQL, and PHP4. Shell and FTP access. No charges or ads (by me. You can do your own ads if you want). Caveat: Reasonably low bandwidth/low CPU requirements. No festival servers, no MP3 streaming, no large file downloads. No real limit on disk space, but if I see you sucking up a couple of gigs, you'll get a /msg from me about it. No porn (I'm not opposed to pr0n in any way shape or form, but as a host, I don't want the overhead. Same rules we use here would apply). Reasonable connection reliability, but not like you're going to get at pair.com, or other webhosting services. Best effort on my part to keep the box secure, but I've never played "ISP guy", so I'll take suggestions, helpful hints (as long as they apply to a FreeBSD installation), etc. Crack the box, I'll kick your butt off it, and tell everyone here.
You'll get to be user.domain.com, whatever domain we pick. I'm currently leaning towards perlskunks.com, although I'll take suggestions. Possibly mail service, depending on what kind of bandwidth demand that will impose on me. I know people would *rather* have a perlmonks.org e-mail address.
Feedback?
--Chris