Your Server

Is it possible to turn a PC into a dedicated server?

And if it is possible, how do you turn a PC into a dedicated server? Like a gaming server, where other people have to create accounts and log in to access it? I hope this helps =D Here, this is what I mean, for a gaming server, for example the ones on runescape, club penguin, etc?

Public Comments

1. Yes it is very easy. It depends on what kind of server though.
2. You can use windows if you're just interested in sharing files across a home network. You would need to enable file sharing on the folders, and make sure the computers have the same workgroup name. Or you could use something like the ubuntu server edition if you want a serious server. What do you want a server for?
3. For a very small office or home, yes. Just load the software and setup as necessary.
4. Yes you can it depends of you operative system If you use win xp the connection is limited to 10, probably you would like to use Linux, if you expand the question to what kind of server maybe can help you a little bit more Reagards
5. "Server" means different things to different people. For some, it's simply a centralized file sharing computer - for others it's an enterprise domain, email and internet firewall. The configurations are virtually endless. For most small business applications, you'd be fairly safe using a modern desktop PC for server use - there are several flavors of Linux available for free or near free (if bundled with certain apps). There's always the Windows Server family - which for small businesses I sometimes recommend something like Windows Server Small Business Edition, which is fairly easy to administer for an average user. Contrary to what Linux advocates may say, the average desktop user isn't a very good candidate for managing a Linux server.
6. I'll assume you mean webserver. You can install apache's http server for free: http://httpd.apache.org/ This will allow you to serve up web pages from your machine. You could then access your machine with http://ipaddress:port The next step would be to register your ip address with a domain name. The issue is that most (if not all) ISP's use dynamic (as opposed to static) ip addresses...so you would continually have to update the domain name/ip address mapping. I would start by installing the apache web server and go from there. It really depends what you want to host and where you want to be able to reach it from. If you are behind a router, you will have to configure the router to allow traffic through to access the machine from external sites.