Will having a web server at home slow down my internet and/or compromise security?

Question

I want to have a web server and I was wondering if it would be easier to have one at home in which I can control all the of the root access etc. I will be using a computer especially for it. Will this compromise security in anyway?

Also, how much will it slow down my internet connection.

,Bill

P.S. It's an apache server.

Answer 1

Without more information it's hard to provide concrete answers, but:

• Any outward-facing service (e.g. an HTTP server open to the internet) is a potential entry point for malicious (or curious) people. Securing any server can be a full time job, depending on how much you want it to do. A simple static-page server is far less prone to security issues than one hosting HTTP+MySQL+PHP+Ruby+JavaEE+Drupal+ThatNiceForum+YourOwnCode.

• Segregating that server to a different LAN segment or VLAN and having your other systems treat it as any other web server would provide a degree of security for them.

• A compromised server can do a lot of damage, nevertheless, by e.g. being used to spam people, causing your IP address to be black-listed for a long time. It can also be a source of a lot of frustration and anger if you have to deal with a compromise e.g. at Christmas Eve.

• As far as your Internet connection goes, the problem with servers is that you don't fully control what comes down the pipe. You can throttle it, of course, but if you upload a fascinating piece of code and 100,000 people try to download it at the same time, those requests will still come down your connection, even if your server does not serve them all.

Answer 2

Also I'd suggest nginx over apache as a webserver. Take a look at http://wiki.nginx.org/Main

In my opinion it's easier to setup and uses less memory.

Answer 3

There are significant security implications when hosting a web server. You should make sure you know what you're doing: read up on things like running the server process in a chroot jail, firewall rules etc.

If it's a dedicated machine (i.e. not your personal desktop machine) then you can mitigate damage potential by not allowing that machine to talk to the rest of your home network. Look up Demilitarised zones (DMZs).

Your internet connection will have a fixed maximum bandwidth. The amount available will be reduced by whatever the web server is using, e.g. if you have a 10 megabit connection and the server has a sustained throughput of 2 megabit then you effectively have reduced your available bandwidth to 8 megabit.

Long story short, read as much as you can about how to secure a web server before you make it available. And be paranoid: an attacker can do a lot of damage in a short time.