While getting started with a new project and hopefully successful business venture. One of the first things I did was to install the latest version of DotNetNuke 4.8.0. The install went flawless as usual with DNN. One of the things I love of the newer releases of DNN was the ability to test at each stage of the install.
During the initial install of DNN it checks to see if the database is at the same version as the DotNetNuke assembly. If the version is not the same or the database doesn't currently contain any DNN Tables then it runs the Install Wizard which looks like this on the first running.
DNN Installation Screen 1:
I believe it was in version 4.4.0 that introduced this new wizard tool for installing DNN on the server. I've really grown to love this as it allows for much more testing at each stage of the setup for the Directory Permissions as well as for Database Connections.
This screen offers us 3 choices for installing DNN.
- Custom - The "Custom" installation method provides you with the ability to completely customise your DotNetNuke installation. Select this option if you wish to control which optional components get installed.
- Typical - The "Typical" installation method makes some "typical" choices for you.
- Auto - The "Auto" installation method bypasses the Wizard completely and uses the legacy Auto-Install procedure.
I typically select Custom to give me the most control over what features I want to install with the portal. With these newer versions we also have the ability to choose what language we want to work in with the portal during the install. After choosing the Installation Method and Language click Next.
After clicking Next this takes us to the "Checking File Permissions" screen. This looks like the following:
By clicking the "Test Permissions" button that will allow the installation screen to check to see what permissions that the web application will have available to it. And also, to check that we will not have any conflicting issues during the install process.
DNN routinely writes things to the file system for caching, logging and other functions that are common practice with a Content Management System (CMS). As you can see by the image we have full permissions to do the following on the file system.
- Create Folder
- Create File
- Delete File
- Delete Folder
Once the test permissions test is complete it will display the following if it was successful: "Your site passed the permissions check.". At this point we are ready to click the Next button.
The next screen we land on during the install process is the "Configure Database Connection" screen. This screen looks like the following:
This screen allows us to configure the connection to the database that will be used within DNN. At this point I normally have setup the database and database user within the Sql Manager for the Microsoft Sql Server, if that is what I'm using for working with the framework.
"There are two options for SQL Server 2005. SQL Server 2005 supports the use of Database Files. In most situations you should choose the Database option, but if you are using SQL Server 2005 Express then you should use the File option."
This screen gives us the following options:
- Select Database: Sql Server 2005 (Express) Data File or Sql Server 2000/2005 Database.
- Server: IP Address, Named Pipes or Named Host of database server.
- Database: Name of database.
- Integrated Security: Use this if you will logon on to the database server with your windows account information.
- User ID: User account within Sql Server that will access the database.
- Password: Password for the account.
- Run as db owner: Check this checkbox if you will running the database as the database owner or just a user within the database.
- Object Qualifier: Use this to provide a prefix to use on all your database objects so as to avoid an object name clash within the database.
After you have filled out all the necessary information click the Test Database Connection button this will then return "Connection Successful" if there are no issues with the connection information. Once this is complete then click the Next button.
The next screen we will see will be the "Run Database Installation Scripts" screen. This screen looks like the following after all the scripts have been run:
There is not much interactivity with this screen as it will simply run the scripts within the installation folder to build the database that will allow the development of a web site on the framework.
As I'm installing the 4.8.0 release of DotNetNuke, the installer starts installing from the 4.4.0 version of DNN. It then incrementally upgrades the database with any changes that occurred between version 4.4.0 and 4.8.0. The page also reports back whether the update was successful or not. As you can see with this setup all the incremental stages were successful.
If there is a stage that is unsuccessful it will display an error message beside the version upgrade and tell you the filename to check to find out more information about why that version had errors.
At the end the page will display Installation of Database Complete and at this point the Next button will be enabled so that we can click the button and continue on to the next screen.
Once this is complete then click the Next button.
The next screen we will see will be the "Configure Host User" screen. This screen looks like the following:
On this screen we have the ability to create our Host account which is the super user of the instance of DotNetNuke. In previous versions before the latest ones the super user was set as Host with a password of either host or dnnhost depending on the version installed. With this new customized installation of DNN it allows the installer to determine the super user account. With the following attributes:
- First Name:
- Last Name:
- User Name:
- Password:
- Confirm Password:
- Email Address:
Once all these attributes are set for the super user then we can click the Next button.
The next screen we will see will be the "Install Optional Modules". This screen looks like the following:
This screen of the installer allows us to choose which optional modules that we want to install during the initial installation of DNN framework.
By default the following modules are installed as required modules:
- AdSense - version 01.00.01
- HTML - version 04.07.00
- MarketShare - version 01.00.00
- Links - version 03.03.07
The optional modules that are available by checking the checkbox beside the module are:
- Announcements - version 04.00.00
- Blog - version 03.04.00
- Documents - version 03.01.06
- Events - version 03.03.08
- FAQs - version 04.04.00
- Feedback - version 04.04.02
- Forum - version 04.04.03
- Help - version 03.00.01
- IFrame - version 03.02.03
- Media - version 03.02.03
- NewsFeeds - version 03.01.01
- Reports - version 04.05.02
- Repository - version 03.01.13
- Store - version 02.00.01
- Survey - version 04.01.10
- UserDefinedTable - version 03.04.00
- UsersOnline - version 03.01.00
- Wiki - version 04.00.01
- XML - version 04.03.04
Once you've selected the modules that you would like to install then click the Next button. It will take a few seconds to then install all the modules to the framework that you have chosen.
The next screen in the installation process is the "Install Authentication Services" screen. This screen looks like the following:
As we can see we have four additional authentication systems to choose from when we use our DNN framework.
Two of them are already installed:
Two of them are optional:
- ActiveDirectory
- CardSpace
Once we choose any of the optional authentication systems that we want to use we can then click the Next button. If we choose later on that we need one of these authentication providers we can install them in the authentication page.
Next we end up at the "Install Optional Skins and Containers" screen. This one looks like the following:
This screen shows us any available optional skins or containers that we have available for installation in this current install. As you can see the default installation that is downloaded from DotNetNuke does not contain any additional skins other then the blue and grey themes that are available after installation.
We can click the next button to continue on with the installation from here.
Clicking Next takes us to the "Install Language Packs" screen. This screen looks like the following:
As in the screen before, if we had any optional languages that were located in the installations folders we could now install these languages to allow us to have greater flexibility in managing the framework.
These language packs can be downloaded from DotNetNuke and installed at a later date.
After we have added any additional languages if we choose then we can click the Next button.
This takes us to the "Portal Title" page of the installation. This page looks like the following:
This page allows us to setup the administrator for the initial portal within the framework. This administrator has the following initial attributes:
- First Name:
- Last Name:
- User Name:
- Password:
- Confirm Password:
- Email Address:
This page also allows us to set the Title of the initial portal and choose a template to use for creating our first portal. These items can be modified within the installation folder to allow customization of the installation process.
Once we have the fields that we are going to fill out completed then click the Next button.
At this point we get taken to the final screen of the installation process which looks like this:
Congratulations we've successfully installed the 4.8.0 version of DNN. At this point we can click the Finished (Goto Site) button at the bottom which will take us to a fully functional portal. This portal will have the super user that we defined previously and the admin that we created.
It will contain all the modules we chose as well as any skins or languages that were available that we chose to install.
At this point have fun modifying your content.