Accessing your home web server with your registered domain name is a cool idea. Isn’t it? To point your domain name to your home web server is really very easy. All you need is your registered domain name. If you are planning to setup web hosting business my suggestion is to ask your internet service provider for a  static ip address. Many ISP charges for that. But if you are not going to start hosting business then your non-static ip address connection will do the job well.

1- Know your ip address

If you don’t know your ip address then first thing you need to do is to know your ip address. You can Google for “know my ip” or “what is my ip”. Google will show you your public ip address. Note down that ip address. Don’t use ipconfig or ifconfig command, because they will show you your LAN ip like 198.168.1.11 etc.

2- Login to your domain name registrar and point your domain to your home web server

Now go to your domain name registrar’s website and login to your account. Mine is Godaddy.  Go to domain management section and look for the DNS settings area. There change or add a new A record for host name “@” and in the points to area, write your IP address you find in step one.

 

Write your IP addess in Points To field for Host "@"

Write your IP address in Points To field for Host “@”

3- Know your web server’s local ip address

Login to your home web server. Mine is Ubuntu 14.04. Write “ifconfig” without quotes in the terminal to know your system’s ip address. Write down this ip address. You will need this for configuring port forwarding for your router.

4- Forword your router’s port

Connect your router to your computer (other than your server if you have one) and go to your router’s settings. You can easily access your routers settings from your web browser. In your browser’s address bar write 192.168.1.1 and that will popup a dialog box for router’s username and password. By default it’s admin. So in username write admin and in password also write admin. Logging in will show you all your router’s setting. My router is TP-Link. Go to port forwarding section and add a rule for your home web server pc. Like this:

Add a port forword rule similar to this ( Replace IP address with your own)

Add a port forword rule similar to this ( Replace IP address with your own)

In the above setting make sure you write your own web server’s IP address you get in step 3.

Now if you will write your domain name in your browser address bar and hit enter,  it will show the default web page of your server.