Hello I am trying to make a DNN website public to the internet, so I got myself some dedicated hosting through LunarPages (Windows Web Server 2008). I have deployed standard ASP.NET websites using Plesk Control Panel successfully before.  But after oodles of research I have come to find out that it's a bad idea to try to setup a DNN portal through Plesk and it should be done manually on the server itself.

Here's my question.. how do I manualy setup a public website to display a simple Hello World? I wanted to start with this to break my Web Server 2008 virginity first before complicating things with a DNN install. My god, I thought this would be simple to set this up using IIS7 and Windows DNS server.  But I can't seem to resolve to my website polarjewellers.com

Here's as far as I have gotten

• I have registered two name server ns1.polarjewellers.com and ns2.polarjewellers.com to point to my servers IP address 67.210.105.238
• IIS7 role and DNS role is installed on my server
• I have placed an index.html to display "Hello World" at C:\dnn
• I have granted "Network Service" user to have full control over this folder
• In IIS Manager I have created a new website:

1. Site name: polarjewellers.com
2. Application pool: polarjewellers.com
3. Physical path: polarjewellers.com
4. IP Address:  67.210.105.238    Port: 80
5. Host name: polarjewellers.com
6. I have double checked to make sure "index.html" is listed as a Default Document
7. I have checked the application pool's user identity, and it is "NetworkService"

When I click the "Test Settings..." button I get a warning: Cannot verify acces to path (C:\dnn).  I've read somewhere I can ignore this. So far I don't seem to have a choice.

Now I figure that I am going to have to setup a Forward Lookup Zone through the DNS manager so here's what I got so far.  Using the "Configure DNS Server" wizard, these are the choices I have taken.

1. Create a forward lookup zone
2. This server maintains the zone
3. Zone name: polarjewellers.com
4. Create a new file with this name: polarjewellers.com.dns
5. Do not allow dynamic updates
6. No, it should not forward queries

Under "Forward Lookup Zone" --> "polarjewellers.com" I have created the following records:

1. (NS) - FQDN: ns1.polarjewellers.com     IP: 67.210.105.238
2. (NS) - FQDN: ns2.polarjewellers.com     IP: 67.210.105.238
3. (A) - FQDN: polarjewellers.com     IP: 67.210.105.238

Why am I doing all of this? I have no idea. I'm just trying to replicate what I see Plesk create. I honestly have no idea what I'm doing.  All I want is a big "HELLO WORLD" to show up... but no luck after lots and lots of research. I need a Windows Server 2008 guru to save me from my youthful stupidity. Please help!

Zen

Then you really want to post at www.iis.net, where the Server 2008 / IIS 7 gurus hang out.  :)

Try this to start:

http://learn.iis.net/

Jeff