What does "host a server" mean and how to

I'm asking for my son. He plays a game online called "Blockland" and they have the option to "host a server."

What exactly does that kind of thing mean? Is it bad to do?

He can't seem to do it anyway cause of firewalls. We turned the XP firewall off on his computer, but we are all networked through phonelines and have DSL which I guess has a firewall in the router also.

Sorry for being so vague, I'm not sure on this terminology.

Any quick ideas on how he can host a server (or a game?)

It isn't bad to do as you setup and configure the type of game and map etc there should be lots of options specifically for the "Host" and then you can watch the people who want to join your game, obviously you only want friends(or people you know) accessing your game and you should be able to allow/deny people access, and then when you are all ready to start the game you have the option to start it when you wish, there will be a countdown, then the game will start, basically it runs mostly from your connection/system, and if you were to close the game then the other players'(friends') game would also end, think of it like you have a top of the range projector and a few new films and your friends are coming round to watch the films, you are the host, and you are in control, you can allow/disallow them to do various things, and also turn off the film (game) whenever you wish.

It should be safe, as long as you are playing with people you know, and also do you have a 3rd party firewall installed? that may need configuring, or you may need to play with ports on your router.

Any problems/questions post back.


Liam

Basically it means setting your computer up as a node to allow others to access your hard drive, in this case to access files in order to play a video game. It can be a bandwidth hog so if you have a home network then you'll notice some very slow download times as you surf on other computers. You may also be expected to keep the computer on for extended periods to allow access to your drive for the benefit of those playing the game.

Your ISP may not be too happy about it either and they might have a stipulation in your users agreement that you arent' allowed to set up a home server because it can use a lot of expensive bandwidth that they ultimately have to pay for. That's quite common and they would very likely be monitoring your bandwidth and either warn you you're using too much, or just charge you extra for it on your next bill (in some cases they might just ban you outright).
Check with them first just to be safe.

If, after all that, you still want to do it then you'd probably need to get inside your modem/router to open up whatever ports are going to be used by the game. It's called "port forwarding" and would allow outside access to your computer through the hardware firewall in the router.