First, I want to thank Nik for his post above, because that post gave me the 'faith' that portal resolving to a simple URL (www.sampledomain.com) is possible. And the fact that Nik mentions multiple portals was the really helpful pointer I needed.
I've been using DotNetNuke 4.0.3 for just a week or so, and during that time I've only been working with one portal, the first-DNN-install-created-portal made when installing DNN. I figured, "let me get good at this first portal before creating another", but Nik's post urged me to move on, to make another portal now.
The very first thing I did was to make sure DNS was resolving www.sampledomain.com to the machine where my DotNetNuke installation resides.
Next, using IIS 6.x, I created a new Web Site that had the Home Directory point to my DotNetNuke installation:
Web Sites [folder] > SampleSite (highlight and right-click) > Properties >
Home Directory [tab] > "The content for this resource should come from:" A directory located on this computer [radio button] > Read (access) [checkbox] > Local Path: C:\DotNetNuke > OK [button]
... then I set a Host Header to the simple URL I want my DNN portal to resolve to:
Web Sites [folder] > SampleSite (highlight and right-click) > Properties >
Web Site [tab] > Advanced [button] > Add [button] > IP Address: (default, or select); TCP Port: 80; Host Header Value: sampledomain.com > OK [button]
Back in DotNetNuke, logging in as Host to my first-DNN-install-created-portal, I created a new Parent portal with an alias to www.sampledomain.com:
Host > Portals > Add New Portal >
Portal Type: Parent
Portal Alias: www.sampledomain.com
Template:(select one)
Security Settings: (complete all fields)
Create Portal (link)
And with that, I created my first-by-me-created-portal. This new portal resolves perfectly to a simple URL like www.sampledomain.com, just as Nik describes above.
J
One thing I would note. At this point, I don't know much about Export Template feature (under DNN : Host > Portals > Add New Portal), but I will try exporting my first-DNN-install-created-portal to a template file. I worked so hard on that portal over the past 8 days; I'd rather not have to reconfigure a new Parent from the beginning. If Export Template works OK, I'll suppose I can select it from the Template dropdown menu when I’m creating a new portal. That should get my new portal looking just like my first-DNN-install-created-portal.
Maybe someone’s already come up with a shorter name for the first-DNN-install-created-portal; if not, I vote for something like Core Portal. First portal really sounds to me more like the first portal that we create on our own.
Summary: I think the trouble I was experiencing (and maybe you, too Andreas?), was that I was trying to mess with my Core Portal, to get it to do more than it should have to do. It may be best to leave that portal as a mostly clean, un-configured Admin/Host portal that you reach by www.yourdomain.com/dotnetnuke or similar sub folder path name. Leave the Core Portal alone and immediately get to making a new Parent Portal, if resolving to a simple URL is your goal.
Tikkune