Website hosting from home - IIS6

Question

I'm wanting to host a few websites from home, primarily because I'm using some BETA Microsoft software (.NET 4 and EF) and don't want to install it on my production server which is hosted at eukhost.com.

Basically, I'm completely new to this sort of thing. So far, here is what I've done:

1. Registered the domain name at namecheap.com (let's call it mydomain.com)
2. Gone to "Nameserver Registration" in the panel and entered my IP address for the NS1 and NS2 records (let's say the IP is 0.0.0.0).
3. Gone to "Domain Name Server Setup" and entered ns1.mydomain.com & ns2.mydomain.com
4. Forwarded requests from port 80 to my internal IP (let's say 192.168.1.254)
5. Created the website in IIS (I'm just testing with a single website so far, so have not created any host header values)

Now, if I type in the IP address (http://0.0.0.0) I get the site as expected. However, if I enter http://www.mydomain.com I get an error saying "DNS Error - Cannot find server".

I'm aware that there is a service from DynDNS that will automatically change the IP if I have a dynamic address, however my IP has remained static since I installed the ISP (since October) so I don't need this.

Is there any way that I can get the DNS to work just by configuring IIS or something in Windows? I don't really want to have to pay for any 3rd party service.

Thanks,

Answer 1

I think the mistake you've made is around the following steps:

• Gone to "Nameserver Registration" in the panel and entered my IP address for the NS1 and NS2 records (let's say the IP is 0.0.0.0).
• Gone to "Domain Name Server Setup" and entered ns1.mydomain.com & ns2.mydomain.com

What it looks like you've done is "told the internet" that the nameservers for your domain name are to be found at IP address "0.0.0.0", i.e. that you have a DNS server actively running at that IP address that is authoritative for the name "mydomain.com". What you should do is point the NS1 and NS2 records back to namecheap.com's name servers and use their control panel to point the "A" record to 0.0.0.0.

Also - you may get more luck with this question on serverfault.com as it's more of a server configuration thing than a coding thing :)

Answer 2

I'll make it an answer since I'd like to quote something.

A link directly from their main page: Dynamic DNS

• We provide Dynamic DNS option free with every domain. Dynamic DNS can be used to point your domain to a computer that changes IP address after sometime, like your computer connected to the internet.
• We also provide a windows client software to use this feature.
• We don't restrict you to our software. You are free to any client that supports our service or create your own.

Answer 3

and as a sidenote: pls check your isp's agrrements. A lot of them don't allow public accessable webservices, that are hosted at the user's home.

Andreas