Hi all, hopefully someone can set me on the right path here...

I have had DotNetNuke running for a little while and now want to create a new Parent Portal. Ok, thats easy I go in and setup my new portal but when I have finished creating it and click "Create Portal" I get sent to a page saying "The page cannot be found". Does this have anything to do with my alias? My default portal has an alias of: localhost/dotnetnuke_2 I named my new portal test so thought the alias should aptly be named: localhost/test does that sound right? Where have I derailed myself?

Any suggestions appreciated.

--Stephen

I have the same problem with the 4.x installation. Creating a child portal works as expected where a child folder is created in the DotNetNuke folder. I would expect a parent portal to have it's own root and virtual directory in IIS to work as localhost/parent but I can see no folders or references in IIS.

I've looked at all the online help and the download documentation and cannot find any information so far ... 3-4 hours.

The install was great but I feel I've hit a brick wall with this one. I'll write a creating a new portal guide myself once I've cracked it.

cheers

Steve

localhost/ test in IIS will alwasy point to a virtual directory under the root web site.  To verify this create a virtual director under IIS and creat a simple html page and it will access it. The problem is becuase of how XP Pro is limited to one web site and you have to create the DNN in VD under the root.  Normally when you create a parent portal it is create so that the domain all point to the same web site root. See example below.

Web Root C:\Web\DotNetNuke
Portal #1: Parent1.com
Portal #2: Parent2.com

Option #1
1) Download and installl IISAdmin.Net 1.1 from CodeProject. This will allow you to create multiple web site under XP Pro (but you can only run one at a time).  There is an easy interface to switch between web sites.

2) Create a new web site and point the root directory to your current directory.

3) Update your C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file so that any domains you want to point to your DNN install point to 127.0.0.1 same as local host does.  So using the example above you would have 3 entries

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 Parent1.com
127.0.0.1 Parent2.com

3) Access site using the original URL.

4) Go to Host / Portals and edit each portal.  At the bottom of the screen you will see an area to maitain the aliases for each porta.  Add the aliase you created entries for in step #1 correct portal using the old URL

4) Access the sites using the new aliases and DNN should run okay. 

** Now anytime you need to create a new parent portal all you need to do is  add a new entry to the hosts file and then create the parent portal in DNN.  Plus, you must make sure you have the DotNetNuke site running instead of the default web site.

Option #2
1) Update your C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file so that any domains you want to point to your DNN install point to 127.0.0.1 same as local host does.  So using the example above you would have 3 entries

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 Parent1.com
127.0.0.1 Parent2.com

2) Create new parent web site using one of the domains you created an entry for in step #1.

3) You will still get an error when you try to access the site using the new domain.

** At this point you will stil get an error that you cannot access the site.  The reason for this is the new parent domain point to the root of the default web site and not the DNN virtual directory.  So you need to take additional steps to get this to work.

4) Access site using the original URL and login as host.

5) Go to Host / Portals and edit each portal.  At the bottom of the screen you will see the alias you created the new Parent with (Parent1.com, Parent2.com, etc).  So it access the DNN directory you would need to edit the alias and add the DotNetNuke_2 virtual directory (Parent1.com/DotNetNuke_2, Parent2.com/DotNetnuke_2, etc)
 
Option #3
I have also heard of people using redirects to also take care of XP Pros limitation of only allowing one web site.  Since I have never done this I cannot give any advice on how to take care of the problem with this method.