hmm.. well, documentation is a bit beyond DNN, as the question you are asking is mainly a db management question. This is how it works:

DNN is a web application that stores all dynamic content in a DB, files are stored either in the DB (with secure file system), or in a physical file system folder (usually /portals/[portalid]). The connection to the DB is definined in web.config. One of the important things is you have to realize is that because DNN offers site virtualization, ie. one instance can serve many different websites (portals) with different domain names, domain names (portal aliases) are stored (per portal) in the db as well. If you should move the complete dnn installation and db from a dev environment to a live environment, you have to make sure that the dnn instance running in the live environment can find an http alias that actually points to a portal in that instance. The easiest way to accomplish that is to add the http alias for the live environment to the portal prior to the move from dev to live.

Moving a site from dev to live really just comes down to the following:

• (in dev environment) add http alias that point to live environment to all portals
• copy all files from dev to live
• copy db from dev to live (either by doing a backup, or by using a tool such as red-gate sql compare and sql datacompare)
• (in live environment) point iis website to proper dnn root
• (in live environment) edit sql connectionstrings in web.config to point to live db server and database
• browse to live site

Of course, you have to make sure that also in the live site all permissions are correct. Often permissions in a dev environment are less secure than on a live web server, so setting the proper security settings might need some attention. You can look in the installation documentation for that.

HTH

Cheers,

Erik

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