server question

[benastan]

hi, im a pretty beginning server side programmer and i have some questions about setting up servers. I have installed apache 2.0 on my Pentium 4, 2.0ghz laptop running on Windows XP. I have also installed php 4 on it, and php files work when i run them from the "htdocs" folder. My question, however, is, if i were to get a domain, how would i serve information out using the domain. I have a book which tells me about "Virtual Hosting" and "Name-based Hosting," but i dont really understand it. My computer has 256mb of ram and i am using verizon dsl for internet, can anyone help me?

Thanks.

PS. if this question should go in the server side programming category, im sorry :(

[Jason]

basically if you were to get a domain name they would link the name say www.myDomainName.com to your IP. So if someone types in www.myDomainName.com it would then look up your computers IP and direct them there. Thats how it works. A bit more complicated but that is the rundown. You shouldn't have to do much, just register your IP with the domain name you get from the provider. FYI windows XP base requirements to run is 128MB and you are going to host a server....you might want to up the amount to 512MB at least. And another thing...DSL, it can be done but I am going to assume you have the minimum package for DSL which is about 128kb upload speed, so people that come can down load information like pictures at a speed of about 128kb. Thats not to bad but when there are more then 1 person, it can get rather slow. Hope that all helps and makes sense...


Jason

[benastan]

well, thats exactly what i thought. im not gonna be expecting much more than 6 people on my site at a time for quite a bit, its more of a site that i practice php and javascript and stuff like that on, then show off to people i know. just one more question though. On the topic of subdomains, would i just go into my server conf file and add name based hosts, or how would that work?

thanks for the help!