# At home Ruby on Rails server? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [February 14, 2007, 7:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/at-home-ruby-on-rails-server/85585 "2007-02-14T19:36:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/slindsey3000)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 7:36pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/at-home-ruby-on-rails-server/85585/1 "2007-02-14T19:36:16Z")
I am new to Ruby on Rails development and also fairly new to web development in general, though I do have some experience and a CS degree. Will it be possible to link my personal hosted website into Rails running on my home computer running XP and Instant Rails? I’m not expecting lightning fast speed in any sense, but will I be able to dish out some pages from home to the world? In my very limited experience I don’t see why it won’t be possible. I do have dynamic IP so I will have to send some sort of update to my hosted account so it knows where I am. Any thoughts on accomplishing that as well? Any problems I need to know about? Thanks so much! Shawn ---
**Author:** ![slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/slindsey3000)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 7:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/at-home-ruby-on-rails-server/85585/2 "2007-02-14T19:40:12Z")
why not get a free hosting account at [hostingrails.com](http://hostingrails.com). if not, id setup a linux server. some distrubutions like ubuntu already have most of what you need on the installation. slindsey3000 wrote: > I am new to Ruby on Rails development and also fairly new to web > development in general, though I do have some experience and a CS > degree. > > Will it be possible to link my personal hosted website into Rails > running on my home computer running XP and Instant Rails? I’m not > expecting lightning fast speed in any sense, but will I be able to > dish out some pages from home to the world? > > In my very limited experience I don’t see why it won’t be possible. > > I do have dynamic IP so I will have to send some sort of update to my > hosted account so it knows where I am. Any thoughts on accomplishing > that as well? > > Any problems I need to know about? > > Thanks so much! > > Shawn ---
**Author:** ![slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/slindsey3000)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 8:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/at-home-ruby-on-rails-server/85585/3 "2007-02-14T20:19:24Z")
Most ISPs won’t let you host a site using port 80. You have to configure your server using a different port. That’s what I did. As for the server, use linux or freebsd, it’s just too painful using Windows. On Feb 14, 1:45 pm, Alex W. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) ---
**Author:** ![slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/slindsey3000)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 7:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/at-home-ruby-on-rails-server/85585/4 "2007-02-14T19:45:39Z")
slindsey3000 wrote: > I am new to Ruby on Rails development and also fairly new to web > development in general, though I do have some experience and a CS > degree. > > Will it be possible to link my personal hosted website into Rails > running on my home computer running XP and Instant Rails? I’m not > expecting lightning fast speed in any sense, but will I be able to > dish out some pages from home to the world? > > In my very limited experience I don’t see why it won’t be possible. > > I do have dynamic IP so I will have to send some sort of update to my > hosted account so it knows where I am. Any thoughts on accomplishing > that as well? > > Any problems I need to know about? > > Thanks so much! > > Shawn I have done this before. You need some type of updateable DNS service. I used [http://freedns.afraid.org/](http://freedns.afraid.org/) with some success. Just use their DNS servers for your domain. They also have programs you can download that automatically sync your current IP with your DNS IP so it stays in sync automatically every time there is a change. Then just make sure you forward port 80 to a specific computer on your network and you should be good to go. It’s pretty simple. ---
**Author:** ![slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/slindsey3000)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 11:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/at-home-ruby-on-rails-server/85585/5 "2007-02-14T23:25:51Z")
On 2/14/07, Curt H. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I do exactly what you had planned using Instant Rails on my server for > light-duty serving of Rails apps to the world at large. I also have an > dynamic IP, so I subscribe to a dynamic IP service to keep the DNS world > pointed to my server. There are many to choose from… I use " > [changeip.com](http://changeip.com)", which costs about $15 a year. Or try the original – [dyndns.org](http://dyndns.org) – which is still free, and very well supported by any dynamic DNS client software out there. J. ---
**Author:** ![slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/slindsey3000)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 11:53pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/at-home-ruby-on-rails-server/85585/6 "2007-02-14T23:53:53Z")
> Will it be possible to link my personal hosted website into Rails > running on my home computer running XP and Instant Rails? I’m not > expecting lightning fast speed in any sense, but will I be able to > dish out some pages from home to the world? Yep, no problem. Any files in your rails/public directory will get served. Drop your website in there. Beware that if you have a page named the same as something that should route to the rails app you will be served the static page not the rails page. i.e. in config/ routes.rb you route the root ‘welcome’ to the some rails controller and you also have public/welcome.html. You will not see your rails page, only welcome.html will be served. That said, I assume you are adding dynamic pages (i.e. a rails application) in addition to your static pages… If you are just looking to serve your pages you should just use Apache/IIS etc… another thing… your other site should conisit of static pages – I don’t believe theres any way to have (for example) PHP pages served from your public folder. > I do have dynamic IP so I will have to send some sort of update to my > hosted account so it knows where I am. Any thoughts on accomplishing > that as well? I use [http://www.no-ip.com](http://www.no-ip.com) and have had zero problems. They have a free plan you can try out, and the next step up is really cheap. Generally these services provide some sort of client that updates them on any changes to your dynamic IP. I’m using this with OS X and Ubuntu linux (also have a win machine, but havnen’t installed the client on it) Other options to consider – check out VMware Server (http:// [vmware.com](http://vmware.com) - free) It’s great for setting up low hassle experimental machines (for example linux) that run within your XP box. ---
**Author:** ![slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/slindsey3000)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2007, 9:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/at-home-ruby-on-rails-server/85585/7 "2007-02-14T21:50:39Z")
I do exactly what you had planned using Instant Rails on my server for light-duty serving of Rails apps to the world at large. I also have an dynamic IP, so I subscribe to a dynamic IP service to keep the DNS world pointed to my server. There are many to choose from… I use “[changeip.com](http://changeip.com)”, which costs about $15 a year. Curt ---
**Author:** ![slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/slindsey3000)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2007, 12:22am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/at-home-ruby-on-rails-server/85585/8 "2007-02-15T00:22:56Z")
Note that some ISP’s will harass you for having a server running on : 80. Others will just block the port altogether. Still, I was using verizon dsl in Southern California and had about 15 users transfer and recieve a few gigs of storage to/from Australia with no problems a couple years ago. Eventually I just paid the 15.00/month for textdrive. That said, running your own server will be a good learning experience. Check out the logs every once in a while, they can get interesting with all the dirty botnets hitting your server. ---
**Author:** ![slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/aca169/32.png) [@slindsey3000](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/slindsey3000)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2007, 6:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/at-home-ruby-on-rails-server/85585/9 "2007-02-15T06:50:25Z")
On Feb 14, 1:35 pm, “slindsey3000” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > I do have dynamic IP so I will have to send some sort of update to my > hosted account so it knows where I am. Any thoughts on accomplishing > that as well? > > Any problems I need to know about? I’m on hostingrails which I’m very happy with, 5 gig free space. I did some research on having my own webserver and posted some questions about it on newsgroups some time ago. Many people told me there are alot of security issues with having a webserver running all the time on your machine. There are port scans out there that look on every IP/ every port trying to find web servers running to bring down. I was told you need to know alot of security stuff, need to upgrade latest patches and so on all the time. It all sounded like a pain to me, to what extent it was true I couldn’t tell you, but maybe that all could be interesting to someone else. If you end up doing it, I’d like to know how it works out for you.