The one limitation I hate with XP Pro is that you can only have 1 web sites.
For DNN what this means is that all you DNN sites have to run under a Virtual Directory and there was no easy way to configure DNN to run as a Site instead of a virtual directory. In the early days this could be overcome by using some of the IIS Admin scripts to create additional web sites, but it was not for the faint-hearted. Another way to overcome this was just to update the default web site to the DNN site you wanted to work on. Then along came IIS Admin / IIS Admin.Net and overcoming this issue became a whole lot easier. Below is step-by-step instructions on how to user IIS Admin.Net
Scenerio: You have 2 web sites: mySite1Dev.com and mySite2Dev.com. You want to use the URL's above on your local machine, so you can mimic what they will be in production.
1) Download and install IIS Admin.Net. You can download it
here.
2) Install DNN for the first site you need to create.
DO NOT access the web site during this step, just install the files, update the web.config, etc. You will finish the install afer you have created the site using IIS Admin.Net.
3) Open IIS Admin.Net and click the [Create] button.
4) Enter the information for the new site. Do not put any spaces in the description. Although it allows it this can cause other problems. I also like to have my description be the same as the domain (mySite1.com, mySite2.com, etc)
- DNN3: Home directory should be the directory DNN was installed into, C:\IneptPub\wwwrroot\mySite1Dev.
- DNN4: The Home directory should be the website directory that is under the directory that DNN was installed into, C:\IneptPub\wwwrroot\mySite1Dev\WebSite.
5) Click the [Open IIS] button.
- Highlight the web site just created, right click and choose properties.
- On the web site tab, click the [Advanced] button.
- Highlightt the single entry (port 80) and click the [Edit] button.
- Enter myDNNSkins.com as the host header.
- Apply changes and exit IIS Manager.
- The first time settng up IIS Admin.Net follow the same instructions above for the default site and set the host header to localhost. This will stop the other domains you setup from accidently running under the default web site.
6) Edit the hosts file (C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) and add entries the new site you just created. Make sure you save the changes.
#DotNetNuke Local URL's
127.0.0.1 mySite1Dev.com
7) Verify host file changes have been saved by going to a command prompt and pinging the site domain (ping mySite1Dev.com) and it should response back on IP 127.0.0.1.
8) Double click on the site you just created to start that site (mySite1Dev.com).
9) Access the site now using the new domain (http://mySite1Dev.com)
10) If you are using the source code version of DNN you have one final
step, and that is to update the solution file so each DNN solution
points to the new URL (http://mySite1Dev.com, etc)
- DNN3: There are multiple solution files and they are all stored in the solution directory under the root.
- DNN4: The solution file is stored in the root installation directory.
11) Repeat steps 3-10 for each sites you want to setup.
You can now access each of your DNN installations using the new domains you have registed in your hosts file (http://mySite1.com, http://mySite2.com, etc). All you have to do is go into IIS Admin.Net and double click on whatever site you want to access, to start up the site in IIS. One you start using IIS Admin.Net, it will become one of the tools you cannot live without.
Note: You can also setup each site to run as a virtual directory while at the same time also be able to run it as a web site. below is the additional steps on how to do this.
1) Create a virtual direcotory that points to the same home directory as the sites above.
- DNN3: Home directory should be the directory DNN was installed into, C:\IneptPub\wwwrroot\mySite1Dev.
- DNN4: The Home directory should be the website directory that is under the directory that DNN was installed into, C:\IneptPub\wwwrroot\mySite1Dev\WebSite.
2) Acces the sites using the web site URL and add the alias for the localhost (localhost\{mysite1Dev}).
Now when the default web site is running you can use http://localhost/mysite1Dev and when the mySite1Dev.com is running you can use http://mySite1Dev.com.
I hope this information makes development life easier and I will appreciate any feedback given.