Web hosting from mac mini server?

Hello community,

I've recently been given the task by my boss to find a solution for creating a file sharing source, available to customers as well as internally. I've never dabbled with this at all, so am a little consumed by figuring out the best possibility.

Essentially we have a Mac Mini Server that we currently really aren't using. But I thought we could host a site from the server and enable WebDAV (did some searches and this seem right) for the files we wanted to share out on a site.

I'm a little overwhelmed about where to begin. Can I host directly from the server? Does a domain need to be purchased for this, or can I just use something like DynDNS for an option since I am hosting locally?

Any information or pointing to a location would be much appreciated. Thanks!

If your data is at all important you should use a co-location facility. There are companies which provide special pricing just for the Mac Mini.

Check out www.macminiworld.net as an example.

Are you looking at just doing basic FTP access?
If so, that's pretty much a simple task to setup.

I use a company called clarity web hosting. they're in Toronto. I pay $50 per month...

Right from their site

"includes APC remote power control, 1000 gigs of transfer, 2 IP addresses"

been there close to 6 months now and I havent had any issues.

Mac Mini - Colocation or Dedicated Mac Mini | Clarity Web Hosting

It may be cheaper to simply get a quality VPS for sharing, instead of colocating a Mac box. I'd run that route first, knowing little else about the project. The person still hasn't replied to my last post.