I have installed one copy of DotNetNuke and would like it to run two portals with different domain names. The twist is I'm migrating existing web sites, so I cannot instantly put everything into DNN. Also, I'd like to keep the DNN files separate from the root web folders for simplicity.

My environment is:
DNN 4.0.2
ASP.NET 2.0
IIS 5/Windows 2000

So far, I have created three web sites in IIS with the following structure:

MAIN DNN INSTALLATION
devroot.domain.com
c:\inetpub\dev

PORTAL 1
dev.portal1.com
c:\inetpub\portal1
c:\inetpub\portal1\site (virtual directory that points to c:\inetpub\dev)

PORTAL 2
dev.portal2.com
c:\inetpub\portal2
c:\inetpub\portal2\site (virtual directory that points to c:\inetpub\dev)

Within DotNetNuke's Host > Portals menu, I set up the following aliases:
Portal 1 dev.portal1.com/site
Portal 2 dev.portal2.com/site

This works pretty well, but I'm noticing a few bugs.

1) When I hit http://dev.portal1.com/site in a browser with the default DNN installation, two of the modules produce errors. That concerns me. I can edit the content and get rid of the errors, but please confirm that I'm not doing anything "weird" before I customize this installation.

Error: Sponsors is currently unavailable.
DotNetNuke.Services.Exceptions.ModuleLoadException: StartIndex cannot be less than zero. Parameter name: startIndex ---> System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: StartIndex cannot be less than zero. Parameter name: startIndex at System.String.InternalSubStringWithChecks(Int32 startIndex, Int32 length, Boolean fAlwaysCopy) at System.String.Substring(Int32 startIndex) at DotNetNuke.Modules.Html.HtmlModule.ManageUploadDirectory(String strHTML, String strUploadDirectory) at DotNetNuke.Modules.Html.HtmlModule.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) --- End of inner exception stack trace ---

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Error: Books is currently unavailable.
DotNetNuke.Services.Exceptions.ModuleLoadException: StartIndex cannot be less than zero. Parameter name: startIndex ---> System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: StartIndex cannot be less than zero. Parameter name: startIndex at System.String.InternalSubStringWithChecks(Int32 startIndex, Int32 length, Boolean fAlwaysCopy) at System.String.Substring(Int32 startIndex) at DotNetNuke.Modules.Html.HtmlModule.ManageUploadDirectory(String strHTML, String strUploadDirectory) at DotNetNuke.Modules.Html.HtmlModule.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) --- End of inner exception stack trace ---

2) When I change the portal skins using the host account on the main DNN installation at http://devroot.domain.com, it "takes" on the page but does not actually change the skin. However, when I log into a portal using http://dev.portal1.com/site, I can change the skin through Site Settings. Am I just misunderstanding the permissions and inheritance here?

TIA,
John

I figured out the issues in my original post. For posterity:

Bug #1
Bug #1 occurred only with TextHtml modules that contained images in the content. DNN's ManageUploadDirectory assumes all home directories are under the Portals folder, and that causes problems interpreting image paths. Originally, I set up the "home directory" for each portal in a unique location that was not in the Portals folder. To fix, I created new directories at:

c:\inetpub\dev\Portals\portal_home_portal1 and
c:\inetpub\dev\Portals\portal_home_portal2

Then I manually changed the home directories in the database after running this query.

SELECT PortalName, HomeDirectory
FROM Portals

For more, see http://www.dotnetnuke.com/Community/ForumsDotNetNuke/tabid/795/forumid/34/threadid/6740/scope/posts/Default.aspx

Bug #2
I don't think this was a bug so much as my misunderstanding of DNN. There's no need for a "Main DNN" portal. As long as you have parent portals, you can manage those settings using their unique URLs.

-John