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The <connectionStrings> section holds all the necessary information for database communication from your website. At minimum, there will be at least one connection string for any DotNetNuke website.

By default, the config files that come with your DotNetNuke website has two connection string elements in them; although one is commented out (shown in green below). It is there mainly to give you the proper syntax for creating a connection to a database that is physically located outside of your websites structure. The uncommented connection string is the proper syntax for a connection made to a SQL Express database that is physically located in the App_Data folder within your website structure.

<connectionStrings>
   <!-- Connection String for SQL Server 2005 Express -->
   <add name="SiteSqlServer" 
        connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLExpress;
           Integrated Security=True;
           User Instance=True;
           AttachDBFilename=|DataDirectory|Database.mdf;" 
        providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
   <!-- Connection String for SQL Server 2000/2005
   <add name="SiteSqlServer" 
       connectionString="Server=(local);
           Database=DotNetNuke;
           uid=;pwd=;" 
       providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" /> 
   -->
 </connectionStrings>

As you can see from above, the “name” of the element is “SiteSqlServer”. While you technically can change this name, it is tightly coupled with DotNetNuke and changing the name may have adverse affects with DotNetNuke operations or third party modules. This connection string will dictate where your DotNetNuke data will be stored and retrieved from. Once you have your proper connection string set, there is no need to keep both of these strings on your config file. Some people choose to get rid of the extra lines for simplification and others prefer to leave it for future reference or “just in case”. Either way will work fine.

For more information on connection strings or for proper syntax with other types of database servers, visit http://www.connectionstrings.com/