Most ISPs these days offer up a bit of space for a Personal web page. 95% of the technical stuff needed to 'host' a web site has already been taken care by that ISP. Instructions for that other 5% should be available from that ISP .....

However, if there isn't enough space provided, you want to provide some special content at "your" place, or you need to run (or allow to run) other tools that your ISP doesn't provide or won't allow, then one has to go 'out there' and find a home for that content. So here we go!

1. Obtain a Domain name
2. Find a Hosting Provider
3. Set up he Zone Record/File for the Domain and the locattion for the web-page
4. Create & upload the files to the web server
5. Get the word out to the world that you now exist!

Shouldn't take more than 10 or 15 minutes ut wiuld appear <g>

1. Obtain a Domain name
   • Needs to be unique, but easy to say/remember/identify
   • It can't run afoul of the lawyers looking for Copyright infringement, product name dilution, amd a zillion other things they get paid for to find and prosecute
   • Some word choices may run into issues with various filters floating around out there .. some words are obvious, some are surprising ... example; the word 'breast' made it's way into some educational web=browsing filters, intended to block pornographic sites. However, it also blocked places that dealt with certain cancer research, recipes that involved certain chicken parts .. definitly not intended, but ...
   • Steer clear of the various ads and tools found all over the place to 'see if your desired Domain name is available' ... worst case scenario ... it was available, but the 'tool' owner then registered it only to then turn around and offer to sell it back to you .. usually at a 'very special' price ....
2. Find a Hosting Provider
   • What do you need 'on' the Hosting server?
     • Operating system .. Windows, *NIX, Apple/Mac stuff?
     • Space to hold/provide content, Bandwidth to serve it to those that find it
     • Database, e-mail, scripting, secure connection
     • Availability / up-time
   • What is provided 'on' the Hosting server?
     • Access to what Configuration tools (DNS records, PHP configuration, Apache configuration, etc.)
     • Access to what Management/Admin controls (Database administration, 'user' administration, etc.)
     • Access to what 'user' tools (additional e-mail accounts, FTP accounts, etc.)
     • FrontPage extensions for those stuck in a Windows environment
3. Set up he Zone Record/File for the Domain and the location of the web-page
   • To be developed .. but for now, see below
4. Create & upload the files to the web server
   • To be developed
5. Get the word out to the world that you now exist!
   • Don't spam
   • Submit your web-page data to the Search Engines
   • Keep the content updated, fresh .. give folks a reason to come back a second (or third) time

What is a zone record?

Zone records contain DNS information about a domain or sub-domain and are contained within your zone file. The most common records contained in a zone file are start of authority (SOA), name server, mail exchanger, host (A Record) and CNAME. These are described below.

Start of Authority (SOA)
The SOA record is required for every zone file. This record contains caching information, the zone administrator’s email address and the master name server for the zone. The SOA also contains a number that is incremented every time the zone file is updated. When this number is changed, it triggers the DNS to reload the zone data.

Name Server
This record contains the name server information for the zone. A minimum of two name servers is required, generally suggested that they be geographicly separated, dating back to the origin of 'the net' .. in that if one name server was vaporized in a nuclear attack, the other one would still be around to continue to provide the routing data.

Mail Exchanger (MX)
The MX record provides the mail server information for that zone. This allows email to be delivered to the correct location. For a Domain to accept e-mail, there has to be at least on MX server, there may be multiple server assigned for reasons of backip, redundancy, load-sharing, etc. Multiple MX servers will have a 'priority' bit assigned ... incoming e-mail delivery attempts are first made to the highest priority (lowest numericly) server, moving to the next server if there's a connection 'problem'

Host (A Record)
An A record, also called a host record, is the record in your zone file that connects your domain name to your IP address. This allows a user to type in your domain name and access your Web files on the Internet. A records are the most common type of zone record.

Canonical Name (CNAME)
A CNAME is simply an alias for a host record. CNAMEs allow you to have more than one DNS name for a host record. CNAME records point back to the A record. So if you change your IP address in your A record, all your CNAME records will automatically follow the new IP address of the A record. The alternative solution is to have multiple A records, but then you would have multiple places to change the IP address which increases the chances of error. Using CNAMEs is just more efficient. The most common CNAMEs are www and ftp.

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