I've been searching, I've found nothing that makes complete sense to me, so I ask for your mercies. This is a long post - I apologize for that. Like I said, nothing has been making much sense to me.
Let's say I've got dotnetnuke installed on a site on a VPS I've been assigned to care for, we'll call the site "generic.com", in a folder called DNN4. Generic.com is supposed to be a regular old html site, which can easily be maintained by a designer who craves the simplicity that html & frontpage provide him. That said, DNN is installed as it is supposed to carry the mighty power of DNN for those who need the designer's services but want the power afforded to them with a CMS. (this is done via the designer's lackey, in this case, me. lonely old dumb as a rock me. I digress.)
So the designer decides his new band's website should be a DNN website. He wants to use the powerful CMS sitting right there on his precious generic.com. But he wants it to have its own domain name. Let us call this domain myawesomeband.com. Now my headache is coming back. I'm new to this web server stuff and I feel just shy of frightened and scared.
Portals and aliases are confusing me something fierce. I started out by making a child portal, "generic.com/dnn4/myawesomeband", because myawesomeband.com was already hosting a few html pages that included show dates and the like, so I couldn't just dump it. I added the aliases "myawesomeband.com" and "www.myawesomeband.com" to the child portal's http aliases. I have myawesomeband.com in IIS pointing and it is redirecting to default.aspx inside the "generic.com/dnn4/myawesomeband/" folder. "generic.com" and "myaweseomeband.com" are both on different IPs. So if you go to "myawesomeband.com" you get to the portal just fine. But the address bar looks like techno-vomit. You get redirected to "generic.com/dnn4/myawesomeband/default.aspx...."
I want to browse to "myawesomeband.com" and not be taken from that url to "generic.com/dnn4/myawesomeband/..." I don't want a redirection to the "generic.com" DNN folder. I want to keep my boss's little html site on "generic.com". I want to have DNN installed in the "dnn4" on "generic.com". I want the DNN portal for the site "myawesomeband.com" to only have "myawesomeband.com/..." in the URL. I realize my current method is not the way to do it, and potentially could be the dumbest thing I've done in many moons. I too realize that I may not know what I'm talking about and could potentially be confusing a wide variety of things into one confused mess. That is why I need your help.
My background is dealing with LANs and radio/audio production software, not hosting websites or dealing with DNS. The stuff makes sense, but I have no practical knowledge of it. You are not capable of talking down to me here. I am like a dimwitted child who's fallen out of the tree - talk slow to me and if you can do an interpretive dance, that might help.
I don't have direct access to the DNS server we've been using. (if you tell me I need to do something with the DNS, be specific, I'll pass it on)
I do have complete & total free reign to IIS and all things "root" on the VPS.
I have access to one MS SQL database and one alone.
We are tight on money. Very tight.
How do I configure things so I can have my dinky little html site on "generic.com" and still have DNN running with user friendly URLs that contain "http://myawesomeband.com/..." and not "http://generic.com/dnn4/myawesomeband/..."? This answer will also be my template for any other sites we have as DNN portals on this VPS of ours.
I am at the mercy of the mob. Please be gentle.
-rich