Home servers and the internet

For most people, it is not possible to effectively connect a Moodle site installed on a home machine with the internet. IT professionals will say that a home computer can not support many people trying to use a Moodle site. Secondly, most home machines do not have IPs that other computers on the internet can find.

Capacity of a home server or small office intranet

Capacity includes bandwidth and memory.

MACs, IPs, routers, DHCP, and the internet

A webserver basically listens for a computer saying "I am looking for MoodleServer.org" or "I am looking for 192.168.0.42". When the web server hears that and knows it is MoodleServer.org or is 192.168.0.42, then the web server answers and the webserver shows a page or whatever to the seeker.

One basic problem is that many home computer's have their IP address assigned by their network provider and these will be intentionally changed/reassigned every few days. Further, the IP address you see on your computer is not what other computers see when they communicate.

To be continued

There are exceptions

There are places where you basically can rent a public ip for you computer. When your local friendly internet provider changes your IP, you log into one of these places, identify your self and the service will now recognize that your IP is not 192.168.0.42 but has changed to 192.168.40.14. However, more importantly all the computers in the world that know your computer as 127.127.127.127, will be able to find you.

There is an international body that essentially registers IP addresses. It might be possible to get them to issue you an IP address.

To be continued