WEEKLY WHINE

Machines, serving, and you

More and more, people seem to be taking matters into their own hands. What used to require plumbers or carpenters is now done personally, sometimes even successfully as well. The idea is that it doesn't require paying someone else lots of money, just investing lots of my time.

One area that hasn't yet seen this trend is the Internet. Many people have sites, but not many people have servers. And why bother with servers? It's far easier to construct sites on someone else's server; in many cases you can even do it for free. But there are some limitations.

Most, if not all, services that have free Internet hosting have a file quota, limiting the amount of data stored. Some also limit the rate of downloads from the site. In other words, if your site is too popular, it will be shut down or something of the sort. Organizations that charge for Internet hosting have higher quotas, but quotas are finite, and most people will run into them at some point.

The solution, of course, is to do it yourself. Running a standalone Internet server means that it's easy to configure the site just the way you want it. Want HTTP? Telnet? FTP? Rlogin? Gopher? Just set it up the way you want it.

It eliminates the quota restrictions, and it might be faster. The machine doesn't have to dish out everyone else's pages, just yours. If it breaks, you get to fix it yourself rather than waiting for the ISP to get around to it.

But it really isn't that hard. You can get support from users around the world via newsgroups, discussion groups, and the like. If you're having a problem with your software, chances are someone else has already had that problem before. The issue, then, comes down to finding who has had that problem before.

So maintaining a site becomes a learning experience. You'll find out all sorts of exciting things about the Internet, and you'll see the complexity that makes simple sites like this one possible. You'll come to appreciate the challenges that others have faced, regardless of whether they are into computing or some other field of knowledge.

For some, solving computer problems is intuitive, almost second nature. If it isn't, it's still possible to run a site; it just helps to have someone nearby who does find solving computer problems intuitive.

Building a site is a fun activity. Building a site and then serving it has the potential for even more fun.

Why am I suddenly so interested in this topic, you ask? Simple. Within the coming week or two, Caltech SEDS will implement its own server, not because of quota limitations or anything of the sort; just because we can. It has the domain name seds.caltech.edu. Its primary function will be as a Web server, which you can preview at http://seds.caltech.edu/. Please enjoy browsing and offer comments.