Is there a good alternative to github pages? I need just a static website up.
- I have a domain.
- I have my site (local machine)
- And that’s all I have.
- I have a machine that could be running 24/7 too.
If it’s purely static without the need to generate generate easily new page, simply use a web server.
Codeberg pages
I use nginx you can have configs for different sites and have the server_name have the domain for each server block (I use a file per site) and you can either do static via a root folder, or proxy_pass for active running servers, and nginx will map the domains to the server blocks you should also have a default, and you can then have multiple domains point to the same ip address, but keep in mind that home internet often has a dynamic ip, so you may need to update it every so often. There is a service to help with the dynamic ip I think noip.com has a solution available, but feel free to look around.
You need to qualify this statement, GotHib Pages can mean like two or maybe more things. Do you mean free static site hosting? Do you mean easy static site generation from Markdown files?
Edit: GotHib 😭 what a typo
Ok, so I must’ve misunderstood the question, because to me it seems OP already has all the necessary ingredients to bake this dish. And yet, the vast majority of comments recommend various 3rd party services which is the complete opposite of selhosting.
Fire up nginx/apache2, and all good, no? What am I missing?Hi, thanks for the comment. I have the page. But I don’t know how to make the page accessible from the web.
I have a router at home that my ISP provided (I cannot even login to it) which provides WiFi and have a couple of Ethernet ports.
I don’t know if it is possible to make my page available to the world from behind this soho
Are you able to ask your ISP customer service to set up port forwarding for you?
At minimal you want HTTP, but you probably want 443 as well. If you’re hosting DNS as well you will need port 53 too.
Have those ports routed to the “inside” IP of the machine you want to use, and the rest of it is basically just setting up the webserver (and possibly DNS) to serve your domain.
NB: While on the phone with your ISP, ask them what the DHCP lease time is. Ideally you want a static IP for your setup.
I was confused when I read it as well, at least I know now that I wasn’t alone. I think the next step is just opening a text editor and starting with <html></html> Forward a couple ports, maybe use caddy to route the port internally but it isn’t needed. Although if you use NOIP with Caddy getting the https cert setup seems to be pretty easy.
I think the missing piece is the website itself? The static HTML page generator?
Something like Hugo
I recently used Jekyll (https://jekyllrb.com/) as a static site generator. I found it easy to use. I personally used Gitlab pages, because I didn’t feel confident hosting on my home internet (didn’t want to inadvertently cause issues for my housemates when I’m still learning this stuff).
The nice thing about static sites is that it’s pretty easy to find free or extremely cheap hosting for them.
I’m guessing you want to selfhost, rather than use a hosting service?
When you say you have your site already, do you mean it’s hosted on a local webserver, or just that you have the files?
If it’s just the files, you’ll need to choose a webserver. I like NGINX myself, but lighttpd is another option (there’s quite a few options, really, but sticking to a well known option is generally more secure).
Configuration will depend on the server you choose, but then you’ll put the files into three “root folder” used by the webserver. This isn’t the system root ( ‘/’ ), but a different folder specified as the root of your web page, usually ‘/var/www/html or /srv/www/html’.
Once the files are in place, you can test the site by using the web browser on another PC and entering the local IP address of the server. If everything looks good, you can set up port forwarding on your router to forward public port 80 to port 80 on the local server.
Lastly, you will need a DNS provider which will point your domain to the IP address of your router. Assuming you have residential service, you will need to determine whether your IP address is static or dynamic, or if your ISP is utilizing CGNAT. Depending on those factors, you may need to do some additional setup.
Once it is working, your next step will likely be to set up SSL and port forwarding on 443. That will allow your website to be accessed over https, which is the standard for the modern Internet.
I have hosted my own website and a blog for a while, and there are definitely some additional steps I would recommend to take, but the above is your basic starting point.
This is what I was looking for! I have the files and currently I am serving it locally with
python -m http.server.The part that I don’t understand is how to make it available to the world.
How do I check the characteristics of my ISP? Do I just call them? I just use the internet in a shared setup, I am not the account owner.
To setup port forwarding, do I need access to my router, right? Coz these guys just “installed the box and left it there” I cannot login to it.
thanks!
Python’s webserver is meant to be a quick option for testing, and shouldn’t be used for a publicly accessible website. You’ll want a proper webserver for that.
You would need access to the router for the port forwarding, so if you can’t access it, you’ll need an alternative option. The next best option is a commercial reverse proxy, most commonly that’s Cloudflare’s “tunnel” product. Essentially, Cloudflare acts as a man-in-the-middle, forwarding from a public address directly to your local server. It’s pretty easy to set up and it takes advantage of common router settings to open ports from the inside, where the router’s firewall rules are typically quite lenient. This also works with CGNAT, so no need to figure that out. The downside is that Cloudflare gets access to all the data that passes through them, even passwords. So if your website happens to have a lot of sensitive data, you’ll need to decide whether you trust them with that data. They do not get access to your normal web browsing or anything, just the data passing between the public address and your local server. Another potential downside is that they prohibit media streaming, so if your website serves a lot of videos, you’ll want a different option.
Google
Cloudflare tunnels homelabandcloudflaredfor more info. There’s a bunch of YouTube videos and tutorials on setting it up. It’s not perfect, but it’s a free and easy way to selfhost from a limited network environment.
GitLab has their own version of Pages
There’s actually a surprising amount of free static website hosting out there. Besides GitHub, GitLab, Cloudflare, and Netlify come to mind offhand.
Codeberg does too
Codeberg is not just for static websites. It’s for FOSS projects. Their FAQ addresses this.
- Any of https://staticsitegenerators.bevry.me/
- Any webserver + virtualhost config that serves plain HTML pages
- a build/upload script
Your DNS provider may offer static hosting as a paid service. I’m using porkbun and their static hosting is pretty cheap, plus they handle SSL and whatnot for me.
if you’ve already got something at home to run it on and want it easy to set up/maintain. take a look at mkdocs.
You may look at SDF.org they provide shell accounts and hosting.
