The internet is a giant network of interconnected machines. For these machines to communicate with one another, each machine must have a unique identifier. The internet uses the TCP/IP protocol for its communication, which in turn uses the IP address as its unique identifier. So, the first requirement for exposing our API to the internet is to have an IP address.
If you are paying for internet at home, you too will have an IP address provided to you by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). You can check your IP address by using an external service such as ipinfo.io:
$ curl ipinfo.io/ip 146.179.207.221
This means it's theoretically possible to host your API using your home PC, or even your laptop. However, doing so is problematic because of the following reasons:
- Most consumer-grade internet plans provide dynamic IP addresses, rather than static ones, which means your IP can change every few days
- Many ISPs block incoming traffic to port
80, which is the default HTTP port...
