Self Hosting WP Site with External Hard Drive on Mac

  • Resolved Christopher Nawoichik

    (@chrisnawoichik)


    5 years, 1 month ago

    Hello,

    I am wondering about the possibilities of launching my sites on my own machine (iMac) using a large external hard drive. This would be for general hosting purposes and not just development. I read an article in codex.www.remarpro.com about this, but it mainly emphasized doing it for testing and development.

    I would actually like to host my own content and be my own web host——because I value having full control over my data and cutting costs in the long term.

    First, is this possible? Second, what is the process?

    Thanks.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    This is really a bad idea. If you site gets hacked, then the attackers will have access to your Mac, which puts them inside your home network with trusted access to all connected devices. Host “in the cloud” someplace. It’s not very expensive and its isolated from your home network and home computer.

    There are numerous types of hosting, from shared, to virtual servers, to dedicated hardware. If you want to learn abut hosting, a virtual server on a site like Digital Ocean or Linode is a good place to start.

    I strongly recommend localhosting only for development.

    Thread Starter Christopher Nawoichik

    (@chrisnawoichik)

    I disagree. I think it’s a very good idea for one who values self-reliance and the ability to control one’s content with freedom. I do not like the present-day infrastructure of tech corporations censoring content they do not like (i.e. Google) and having power over an individual’s content.

    I am an advocate of free software and the ideals of personal sovereignty. Obviously, being competent in the security for one’s machine is essential.

    Thus I know my idea is possible; I was just looking for guidance on how to do it.

    Thread Starter Christopher Nawoichik

    (@chrisnawoichik)

    I shall figure it out.

    Moderator Steven Stern (sterndata)

    (@sterndata)

    Volunteer Forum Moderator

    Of course your idea is possible; it has nothing to do with Big Corporations or Our Evil Overlords at Alphabet. ?? MacOS includes everything you need to host a website. There are a number of tutorials:

    https://www.google.com/search?q=hosting+wordpress+on+macos&oq=hosting+wordpress+on+macos

    Something to check… Does your ISP allow incoming connections on ports 80 and 443 for web hosting? Some do, some don’t.

    Well, @sterndata gave you some good advice… I think you might be right happy on your own VPS server myself.

    But I also like the idea of a server sitting under my desk for certain tasks. I’m not real crazy about that much traffic running through my ISP and the security concerns though.

    Instead of using your mac for this then consider building a local box from some used hardware…

    Punch a hole to it through your firewall/router and go for it.

    For an added layer of safety, you might even host your site(s) statically somewhere else or block the server from public view using Cloudflare.

    There are excellent prebuilt server systems you can usually fit on an older PC and you’ll learn things.

    Take a look at Turnkey Linux and the Bitnami offerings.

    Thread Starter Christopher Nawoichik

    (@chrisnawoichik)

    @sterndata, I believe my ISP does. Nevertheless I am willing to switch ISPs in the future if necessary.

    Thank you for understanding my sentiment. I think the Internet will be a much better place the more people take their power back on their own platforms. That is one of the reasons I like WordPress and open source software.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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