Hi: I want to make sure I get this right on the first try ;)

I have my own server and have a dedicated IP set up for DNN. I only need to configure a single DNN website for now. If I'm working from VWD2008 and creating a new DNN site, do I want to just install in the root of the IP?

And following the install, do I want to immediately create a new portal for the website, with a URL alias? Or do I use the default website installed by DNN? I'm a little confused about configuring multiple websites in DNN, as opposed to internet services manager.

TIA for any advice!

If your using VWD 2008, it sounds like your planning to do some actual development beyond the core stuff.  If your not, you don't need to use VWD yet.  I would just mount the standard install package and play around before using VWD.

When you install DotNetNuke the first time, it will automatically prompt you for a name for the first host(www.mydoman.com) or in a dev environment it would be more like (local).

Anyhow long story short...Either way, I would on your DEV machine go through this guys tutorials on setup a few times.  He as demos on how to set up wiht and without IIS  and so on.  Very good practice before messing with live stuff that may cost you money.

This tutorial http://www.adefwebserver.com/DotNetNukeHELP/DNN4_DevelopmentEnvironment/DNN4DevelopmentEnvironment1.htm  is how to install a DEV environment WITH iis.  You can find a link back to other methods though off this page.  I'd honestly do the dev environment WITHOUT iis first.

The layout of the tutorials on this guys site could use a little "sprucing" up...but they are indeed very very accurate and if you follow them step by step you will have a site up and running in no time, perfectly.

Let me know if I can help in any way.  Visit my site and register so you can talk in my forums directly to me if you want.  Sometimes conversations get lost on a big board...but I'll try to check back here for your progress.

Josh Martin

Hi All: and thanks for the feedback...let me ask the question a different way.

If I'm creating a new website using VWDexpress2008 and selecting the DNN starter site as the template, I'm prompted to install in a subdirectory instead of the root directory of the website.

Now, I have a dedicated IP for this install...do I want to override the "suggested" path and just install in the root? And if so, will a URL pointing at that IP load the default DNN site properly, or is there anything else I have to do?

The reason I ask is I tried a test install into the root directory some time ago, and hard problems getting the default site to load in a remote browser...i just want to make sure that should work properly, and the problem I had was unrelated, like a dns issue or something. I uninstalled everything so I don't remember exactly what I did...