DNN Newbie here... I have a new install of 4.4.1 with SQL Server 2005 on XP Pro and am having a hell of a time with the IIS setup and Portal Aliases. I have set up hundreds of sites on all kinds of servers over the last 6 years but this is probably the most frustrating, here's the situation. 

Under "Portal Aliases", my non-editable, top-level alias is "localhost\MySiteName", and after tinkering for a while I have it running on the production box, but that's it because it keeps redirecting to the localhost for anyone outside... obviously this does not work and I can't even tell why it would do this at all anyway. Isn't bringing up the default doc good enough? I digress... 

I found the database entry for the Portal Alias and tried to edit it there to see if I could make it work, but even if I give the server's IP address or IP address and the 'MySiteFolder' directory it will not work. Anything other than DNN works on the server fine by surfing to the IP, not a problem, I can upload any .NET, classic or .htm files and they run without a problem. 

My 2 questions are 1) How do I fix this debacle? 2)What is the purpose of this 'portal' setup, how can i best understand 'Portal Aliases' for DNN, and what is it intended for and would it make sense to remove it for all the people who do not create 'portals', whatever that really means?