Home "server" setup questions

[Macman1993]

I’m looking to set up a home server at subdomain.mydomain.com I want this home server to store php files and be able to execute them. The home server is planned to be a typical 2tb external hdd networked with an airport extreme. I’m decent with networking and can get the server itself set up fairly easily but the problem comes if I go to http://subdomain.mysite.com/file.php its important that the php is executed and the html it delivers is displayed.

I’ve never set up a server before so can someone list what I need to install for this to work? The php scripts of mine basically generate links to all the files on it in an orderly array, this will be used for me accessing all my videos (without me having to specify links for the 500+ files) remotely via a web browser specifically iPhones and an iPad will be accessing these videos. I know this isn’t ideal but putting all these files up on my main server would take a very long time as its about a 700gb supply. I need to be able to run php 5 scripts off this server but with my low server setup experience some input as to what I need to install to the hard drive and what versions to install. If I need to install an OS to the hard drive I would prefer linux as that is what runs on my main server.

The following languages are used in the pages I plan to add.
PHP 5
HTML
Javascript

And because I know someone is thinking this: No I am not trying to start a mobile porn site.

 

[angelwatt]

OSX has Apache and PHP already installed. You just need to turn the PHP part on.

 

[jtara]

Pick a Linux distribution and web server, read the documentation, set up the configuration files, install PHP.

Most Linux distributions include Apache and PHP as installable options, if not by default.

Performance will likely suck big time, because most home broadband connections have asymmetrical bandwidth, lots of bandwidth down and little up. Unfortunately, you need the opposite. Especially for video.

Is this just for your own use while on the road? MIGHT be adequate for that use, if you have sufficient bandwidth up. More than two users though, and it's likely to be useless.

Hate to say it, but your best bet is probably a dedicated server, for about $100/month, or a colo of your own server for somewhat less. I'd suggest the former, because you won't have to set it up and maintain it. Additional storage tends to be rather costly with most VPS setups, so I don't think that will be an option with this much storage.

In any case, you can probably arrange to ship a disk drive to the host for copying to your server's drive. A typical charge for this service might be $100. You could probably then do updates over the net.

The home server option almost never makes sense.

 

[Macman1993]

You raise a ton of good points and make it clear that its not feasible to do it that way, I guess I should just suck it up and do the massive uploads or see if I can ship a hard drive to my host. I've got decent upload speeds but it probably wouldn't be worth the strain on my home network. Thanks for the input.

 

[waloshin]

You raise a ton of good points and make it clear that its not feasible to do it that way, I guess I should just suck it up and do the massive uploads or see if I can ship a hard drive to my host. I've got decent upload speeds but it probably wouldn't be worth the strain on my home network. Thanks for the input.

Unless your host is dedicated there is no way they will hookup a usb harddrive to a server that is shared or even virtual.