Setting up a server (hopefully not)

amandstu

What I mean is that I own a domain name but the hosting account has expired.

I would like to continue receiving emails from the domain but I don't want to renew hosting.

I understand it is possible to act as your own host by installing and configuring server software on your own internet connected computer but I don't want to do that as it is only the emails from the site that I want to keep.

Is this at all possible or are the emails and the site itself like conjoined twins?
So that you can't get the emails without setting up the site in its entirety....

I can't see myself setting up a server on this computer as it is the only one I have and I understand it would become a greater target for hacking if it was operating as a server.

gctest50

Be cheaper to get a cheap email-only hosting plan instead of having a computer running 24/7/365

eg

http://www.irishwebservers.ie/ <<<< 11e per year for email-only


.

amandstu

Thanks
that looks interesting.I misunderstood your reply at first.That may be what I was looking for.

Awkward Customer

Another option, while more expensive than an email only hosting account is to sign up for Google Apps for Business which costs €40 per year.

Irish Steve

It's going to cost you a lot more than you think to do this at home, if you work on the basis of a PC taking about 100 Watts, so 24/7 will use 2.4 units per day, which with unit price of about 0.17 is just over 40 cents a day in power, multiply that by 365, and you have around €150 per annum just to run the PC, which has to either be on 24/7, or connecting to a hosting service that is on 24/7 in order for the mail to be correctly captured, there's no such thing as a "temporary storage" for E-mail, when a server somewhere on the web has a mail to send, it sends it, and it's either delivered, or it fails, and if it fails, it may not be retried, depending on the service that's sending it.

There are companies out there that offer a mail redirection service, which will capture the mail to me@mydomain.ie and forward it to you@gmail.com or whatever, but that's still going to cost pretty much the same as a hosted
domain with a local provider. A search online for email redirect service will give you some clues.

That said your €80 per annum hosting price is way over the cost from some of the hosting companies, the one I use offers a plan that would cover what you want for €3.95 per month, and that's Irish based, I suspect there are cheaper out there in other places.

The domain name and hosting are separate things, the domain registration gives you access to the name, and is managed by a domain registration organisation, depending on the suffix you are using, .ie is managed by the Irish Domain registry. IEDR.ie

The price for that can vary depending on who you use as the agent, but the domain can be moved between agents, and some of the agents also offer, separately, hosting for the domain name, which can be as complex or as simple as you want it to be, there is no requirement to have any web presence in order to use me@mydomain.ie as a mail address, the 2 things are different, as long as your choice of service provider offers a mail server, everything will work fine.

As long as you are the named owner of the domain, you can move it to any provider, within Ireland or anywhere else worldwide, and you can move it within 12 hours if there is a problem with a provider, simply by logging on to the domain registrar web site and making the necessary change to the DNS record, and as long as you own the domain name, that is your right to do.

If you had a combined hosting and registration deal with a service provider, they may try to persuade you that you have to stay with them, and if the provider registered the domain name in their name rather than in yours, then getting control of it from them may be more complicated, but as such, the domain should be yours, and can be moved at your instructions.

Hope that makes sense, and helps

amandstu

thanks for the explanation. I should be able to get something -I might even resurrect the site itself if it is cheap enough.

Mr. G

Have a look at Office 365 also. Costs roughly the same as Google Apps.

AnCatDubh

amandstu wrote: »

I would like to continue receiving emails from the domain but I don't want to renew hosting.

To do it really cheap, eh... no cost actually and assuming you are going to continue to own your domain(pay each year your domain renewal), you could use zoho mail. webmail, imap, pop all supported.

Limitations (on the free plan) are basically 1 domain, and 5 users. Thereafter you start to get into their paid plans. I haven't used their email in this configuration but have used some of their other products and they're not bad at all - free versions too. I'd expect the same for their email. It might be worth trying it anyhow.

Oh, also i'm assuming you already have your email off your old hosting provider and that isn't the nature of your question?