You need to invest in the best online security when using a development web server to test out your websites and code. This is because even though the server is hosted on a PC, there is incoming and outgoing data transmission that needs to be encrypted.
Development Web Server
A development server is a type of server that is designed to facilitate the development and testing of programs, websites, software or applications for software programmers. It provides a run-time environment, as well as all hardware and software utilities that are essential for debugging and development of the programs.
A web server uses HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and other protocols to respond to client requests made over the World Wide Web. The main job of a web server is to display website content through storing, processing and delivering webpages to users. Besides HTTP, web servers also support SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) and FTP (File Transfer Protocol), used for email, file transfer and storage.
Web servers are most commonly used for sending and receiving emails, downloading requests for File Transfer Protocol (FTP) files and building and publishing webpages.
Why should you host the Web Server on a VPN?
A web server is usually hosted on PC or Linux system and all the data is send and received through it. This raises a huge security concern as unencrypted data can be viewed by anyone who has network access and wants to see it. On a VPN connection, hackers and unauthorized personals can’t access your data. A VPN connection will transfer your data traffic through a secure and anonymous tunnel and protects it from external access.
Moreover, while operating the web server on a VPN connection, you will need to open some of the TCP ports such as 80 and 8080, usually these ports are blocked on a VPN network. Only a reliable VPN can help you in this case. PureVPN is the most reliable and trusted VPN service for hosting web servers as it covers all your security and privacy aspects with its AES-256 bits encryption standard, that is the same standard used by the US military. It supports all the major VPN protocols such as PPTP, L2TP over IPsec, OpenVPN and others. Zero logs policy ensures that no data or any other information is being recorded without your knowledge or consent. It also allows the users to open any port according to his needs and requirement on the VPN connection through its feature of Port Forwarding. In this way the user can access the web server remotely and securely from another location or network, completely safe from the prying eyes of the hackers and cyber criminals.
How to setup Port Forwarding on a PureVPN Connection?
- Go to your Member’s Area, select the Port Forwarding tab and then select the desired option (either open all ports or block all but enable following), enter your desired port numbers according to your requirement (enter port 80 or 8080 in case of Apache server).
- Open your PureVPN Application and connect to your desired VPN location. We would recommend to connect using the Dedicated IP as it would provide you a static IP which would work for remote access. Please check this link for more details regarding the Dedicated IP: https://support.purevpn.com/learn-about-purevpns-dedicated-ip-addon
- Now, go to your web browser, open the website www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/ to check your ports status.
4. Once your required port is opened, you can use any SSH client or any RDP client to access the web server from the remote machine.
Using a development web server with the best online encryption keeps hackers, cybercriminals and other unscrupulous elements at bay. Using a VPN with 256-bit encryption protocols is enough to ensure that your data is safe and secure online.
Sameed Ajax
June 20, 2023
10 months ago
