can i host a website from my laptop ? like i have developed a lot of web sites and few are online on servers via free hosting sevice but if i want to serve it from a laptop, so it possible ? i mean making my laptop a live server for only my website, for a time being even but is it practical to do ?
making my own system a live web server for my website.

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Yes, I know you are into asp.net so for example, you can install IIS on your laptop. You can access your site from your browser via http://localhost or whatever you configure your host headers to be on your site as well as having name resolution map properly to your IP if you decide to us something else other than localhost.

Others on your local subnet can access your site easily as well.

From outside your network, say the Internet.. You'd have to configure your router to do port fowarding on port 80 and 443 if you are doing https.

As pritaeas indicated, not practical to allow anonymous Internet users because they won't know when your laptop is online. Fine for testing for you and friends.

As the other two said... don't do it, not when there are really cheap packages out there (and some free ones!). If you do this a lot and know a lot of people in a similar situation perhaps you can split the hosting host and setup come security. You should of course only do this if the other people you're sharing with are family or best friends. Even then it's VERY risky and just not ideal.

I have an old PC setup on my second line that has 1GB RAM and an 80GB HDD - it's got Ubuntu 10.04 installed (Well.. the complete LAMP stack), and I use it for when any friends, clients or family want to test/review an unfinished project. It also acts as a lovely server for all of my families photos and such :3 It's always nice to login and find that your mum has uploaded baby photos for the whole clan to see -.- using a laptop/desktop to host something isn't difficult, not at all, securing it without knowledge and keeping it up 24/7 is of course another kettle of fish.

Then you have to open that system for 24X7

thanks guys ! wondering that how configure it for port forwarding, would my DSL modem be enough ? but i'm gonna start new thread for that in NW section for better understanding !

would my DSL modem be enough

AGain, for a test site for yourself...yes. Port foward on 80. So it will be something like this..

public IP:80 --> private IP of laptop:80

The laptop's private IP would need to remain static, not DHCP.

If you are looking for free asp.net hosting, i've used somee.com in the past. its limited but more than enough for testing.

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