For DotNetNuke 4.x, you will need Internet Information Services (IIS) and ASP.Net 2.0 installed on the server where you plan to host your site.
One of the first things you will need to do prior to installing DotNetNuke on a server is to create a virtual directory which will host your DotNetNuke website. If you have a hosting provider, the provider may have a control panel to allow you to create virtual directoies. However, if you have full control over your server, you can create a virtual directory using the IIS Management Console.
Creating a virtual directory will create an alias for your website accessible under the IIS website. For example, if you create a virtual directory called DotNetNuke under the Default Web Site on your local machine, you can then navigate to http://localhost/DotNetNuke in your browser to see your website.
Here are the steps to creating a new virtual directory:
- Open the IIS Management console. This can be found under the Administrative Tools applet from the Control Panel.
- If the server you want to access is not the local computer, right-click the Internet Information Services item at the top of the left panel and click Connect... Then enter the computer name or IP address
of the computer you want to access, enter remote credentials, if necessary and click OK.
- Click the + icon next to the computer you want to work with. Click the + icon next to the Web Sites item. You should see at least one website called Default Web Site. Click the + icon next to the Default Web Site to view the virtual directories inside the web site.
- Next, right click one of the web sites available and mouse over the New menu option and click
the Virtual Directory ... option. This will open the Virtual Directory Creation Wizard; click Next to begin the wizard.
- Enter an alias for the new virtual directory. In the figure below, we will create an alias called DotNetNuke. Click Next to continue.
- Enter the local physical directory associated with the new virtual directory. In the figure below, we will set this to C:\DotNetNuke. Then click Next to continue.
- Finally, we need to change/confirm the access permissions required for our web application. In the
figure below, we will accept the default permissions.
- That completes the creation of a new virtual directory from the IIS Management Console. You can now create or copy web files to the physical directory.
To navigate to your new virtual directory, enter the alias of your virtual directory after the web site URL. For example, to go to the DotNetNuke virtual directory we just created, we would enter the http://localhost/dotnetnuke URL into your web browser.