Hi, I'm trying to create a parent portal under my main dnn root www.mainsite.com.  I created it with the portal alias abc.mainsite.com and I added a Domain Alias called abc.mainsite.com.  When I try to open the page in a browser using http://abc.mainsite.com it says page not found.  I know I'm missing something obvious.  How do you access a parent portal off your main dnn root when it's not a registered domain name, or can you?  I'm trying to recreate an existing site in dnn but don't want to point the real domain name to it until I'm done.  Should I create the new site as a child portal instead so I can get at it via www.mainsite.com/abc?  Thanks!  Joan

Here's a follow-up to my original post.

I would like to create a Parent portal because it may be faster than a Child portal because it doesn't have to re-direct back to the main install. However, my registered domain name is currently pointing to a live, non-dnn site. I don't want to point it to the Parent Portal until I'm finished developing the dnn version.

In DNN, I created Parent portal = abc.mainsite.com

To be able to access this via browser for development:

1. Added line (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx    abc.mainsite.com) to my local HOSTS file located in the C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc directory.
2. In Plesk, I added a Domain Alias abc.mainsite.com which created DNS records.  I checked the option to "Synchronize DNS zone with the primary domain" and the also checked the "Mail" and "Web" checkboxes.  I believe adding a domain alias adds the required host header records needed in IIS?
   

I can now access the site abc.mainsite.com via my development pc.  Now I can develop my new dnn site while my registered domain name still points to the live, non-dnn site.

When I'm finished development and want to use my new dnn site for production, I will need to:

1. Create the DNN Portal aliases www.abc.com  and abc.com.
2. Go into my domain registrar (GoDaddy) and point www.abc.com to my ISP's (3Essentials) DNS server.
3. Add another Domain Alias in Plesk for www.abc.com .
   
4. After testing that it works, delete the development domain alias abc.mainsite.com

Hope that I have the steps right.  Please let me know if it won't work!  Thanks, Joan

Jeff, I tried adding the DNS record instead of creating a Domain Alias, but that just got me to the default Plesk page.  Creating the Domain Alias must be doing something else to get abc.mainsite.com to point to mainsite.com.  Regardless, wouldn't I ultimately want a Domain Alias so that www.abc.com points to www.mainsite.com?  Especially since I'll want emails that look like xxx@abc.com?  Joan