dotnetnuke child portal / subdomain

timruns

timruns

Perch
Hi -- I have found similar posts, but not this exactly as it applies to JODOHOST.
I am running DNN 3.1 on mw website -- www.4sheep.com. I want to, for now, create a child portal on a subdomain al.4sheep.com.
So, I created a child portal www.4sheep.com/al and it works.
I added an http alias on the portal page of DNN as al.4sheep.com.
Have I done all I need? -- I get an unauthorized to view page at the al.4sheep.com, whereas the www.4sheep.com/al/ works just fine.
So... Do I need to have JODO point *.4sheep.com to www.4sheep.com so that DNN can direct it? As it is, 4sheep.com resolves right. Or, do I have to create a subdirectory of /al/ and have it redirect somehow?
Thanks in advance!
 
Timruns,
I just went to a seminar on DNN last night and they used 3.1. Have been dying to give it a try, how easy was it to install and do you use any custom dll's with it?

Thanks

Melee
 
The names are a bit confusing. You need to create a parent portal, not a child portal.

Child portal is, as you've created, www.4sheep.com/al
Parent portal is: al.4sheep.com

I can tell that al.4sheep.com already resolves to the same IP number as www.4sheep.com so you don't need to do anything with the dns.

Try it first but I think you need to add a domain alias to make IIS hit your DNN site when it receives a request for host name al.4sheep.com. Go to 'Domains' in your control, select 4sheep.com if you have more than one domain, and hit the little button to add a domain alias. Enter al.4sheep.com in the box. The www to the left of the box is irrelevant and wrong. I don't think it should be there. I don't think you need to check the 'Create DNS zone' checkbox because the dns is already ready to do.

Hope that helps.

Cheers
Ross
 
Meleehunt said:
I just went to a seminar on DNN last night and they used 3.1. Have been dying to give it a try, how easy was it to install and do you use any custom dll's with it?
Click to expand...
Actually they just released 3.2 (for .NET 1.1) and 4 (for .NET 2.0)

DNN installs very nicely on JodoHost. It doesn't need any 'custom dlls' in the way I think you mean. There are plenty of files with the name ending in .dll but they are .NET dlls, not COM / ActiveX objects that need to be registered. That's one of the many cool things about ASP.NET managed code, a lot of the restrictions and hassles of shared hosting have disappeared.

The easiest way to install is to upload the DNN zip install file and unzip it with the H-Sphere file manager. You can even use the wget feature of the file manager to pull the file directly across from SourceForge. Create the database and then ask Jodo support to set the IIS and MSSQL permissions. They know what's required. Edit the Release.config with the db details, rename it to Web.config and you should be ready to go.

Cheers
Ross
 
Thanks Ross,
Will give it a try tonight,...

uhm isnt 4.0 based on asp.net 2.0?


I probably should wait on that one.
 
Perfecto!
Adding the alias in Hshere was all I needed -- I almost did that earlier but got confused by that www. sticking. Forums are great for good answers fast!!!
 
I'm trying to add a parent portal too. I have 2 domain names registered. I want both to use in DNN. One is the host and i created a parent portal and redirected that domain to the host domain. Is that possible?
 
I can't add a domain alias, it tells me the alias I want to add is already taken. I have it in hsphere do I need to delete it from hsphere?
 
You shouldn't have the domain added in H-Sphere as a 'domain'. It should only be added as an alias of the first domain, not as an independent site. It can't be both.

In the alias section of H-Sphere, be sure to add it with and without the www. It might look as if you're adding www.www.domain.com because of the hardcoded www on the page but that www is wrong. It shouldn't be there and is really an H-Sphere 'bug' in the broad sense of the word. I guess it should be reported to the H-Sphere people.

I think you also need to add it both with and without the www as an HTTP Alias in DNN if you want it to respond to both.

Cheers
Ross
 
There are really three parts to this.

1) The domain or subdomain, one way or another, needs to resolve via dns to the IP of your DNN site. The dns can either be at Jodo or elsewhere.

2) IIS needs to direct a request for that domain to your DNN site. The domain alias in H-Sphere takes care of that.

3) DNN needs to know to display a different portal for that domain. The portal alias in DNN does that.

In my situation, I'm not using Jodo's dns for my second portal at all. For no particular reason, I'm using the free dns at my domain registry to point the 'A' record at the IP of my DNN site. It sounds like you want to use Jodo's dns for the second domain which is perfectly logical. In that case, make sure you check the box where it says 'Create DNS zone (recommended)' when you create the alias in step 2 above. That should do it if your domain is pointing to the correct dns servers at Jodo.

To check, go to a command prompt and type (with the obvious changes):

ping www.TheFirstDomain.com (enter)
and
ping www.TheSecondDomain.com (enter)

You should see the same IP number. That means step 1 is correct.

Ross
 
tetranz said:
There are really three parts to this.

1) The domain or subdomain, one way or another, needs to resolve via dns to the IP of your DNN site. The dns can either be at Jodo or elsewhere.

2) IIS needs to direct a request for that domain to your DNN site. The domain alias in H-Sphere takes care of that.

3) DNN needs to know to display a different portal for that domain. The portal alias in DNN does that.

Ross
Click to expand...

I have a similar situation would like to get some feedback. Here are the details:

- First Parent DNN site www.domain1.com. This site is setup as a domain in HSPHERE.

- I also have another domain www.domain2.com. I want this to share the same user database with the first DNN install so I should be able to create another parent portal.

- Here is the catch. There are times I want NON DNN web pages (dynamic pages with database access) that don't rely upon anything in DNN. In this example the domain2.com site needs some custom pages quickly put online (don't have time to create DNN module). I would like to put it under the subdomain custom.domain2.com. In the description from tetranz it is contingent upon NOT creating a domain, but using aliases. Is there any way to create the domain mydomain2.com or www.mydomain2.com and have it point to the same IP as the original portal and then create a subdomain custom.domain2.com that will work like a normal web site.

Thanks.
 
The issue with DNN is that it is a full web application. So once you install it under a domain - say www.mycompany.com that is the web app in there... If you need another one under the same you need to merge your web.config and global and that is too much trouble. I generally decided to leave the main domain space free and use somethign like dnn.mydomain.com to install DNN. Then another good hint I can give is not to install parent portals. Instead - add a child portal, which will come as dnn.mydomain.com/child1 or dnn.mydomain.com/child2
Once you have those and want fuly qulaified domain names under them just add aliases in hsphere and also http aliases under DNN portals (under host). That works best as creation of your DNS is automated and it is easy to change or move domain elsewhere...
 
I agree in general with webguru's comments although he is describing a different problem if you want the non-DNN site to be at a subdomain of domain2.com.

It should be easy to do what you want but I think you run into H-Sphere limitations if you try to do it all yourself at JodoHost.

If you have external DNS for domain2.com then I think you can do it easily. Many registries have free dns these days.

Here's what I'd try.

Create a site for domain1.com in H-Sphere.
Install DNN there.

Create another site but not using domain2.com. Perhaps a "stopgap" domain.

Set domain2.com and www.domain2.com as aliases on domain1.com without creating DNS zones.

Set custom.domain2.com as an alias for the second site.

At your dns, set A records for domain2.com, www.domain2.com and custom.domain2.com. A wildcard would probably do because the two sites are probably on the same machine.

Maybe Jodo support could do that with their dns but I think the above will work.

Cheers
Ross
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top