With all of the posts related to running DNN on Brinkster, I thought it would be good to summarize the steps I used to get my site up and running.

1.) Get a premium account, something X4 or higher. If you get X4 or X6, remember to buy the SQL Server space. 15MB is enough to start. The DNN stock database takes approx 3MB.

2.) Purchase your domain name. I used GoDaddy. not bad. I had my name and DNS lookup in about 24 hours.

3.) Tell Brinkster about your domain name and point the DNS servers to ns1.brinkster.com, ns2.brinkster.com

4.) Before uploading DNN to Brinkster, do the following:
a.) Alter the Web.Config to match your database name(same as your account), Userid, and Password.

5.) Upload DNN to your account/webroot

6.) If you try to navigate to your site, you will get the generic page, default.htm. This file is in the root. I recommend leaving this active until you have configured and changed passwords.

7.) Navigate to site using http://www.yourname.com/default.aspx This will get the ball rolling. My site took about 90 seconds to get going to first time. Remember, the database is being built.

8.) Change passwords, screens, etc.

9.) Contact premium support and get them to grant "Write Access" to the directory under webroot\portals\GUID. The GUID directory is what you want. If you don't get access, you cannot upload any files through the portal.

That's about it. Now, let's say you want to add another portal. So, you get another domain name, www.yoursecondname.com. Here is what I did. Remeber, this is just what I did, milage may vary. Since Brinkster does not grant Create Directory to ASP, you need to do the following:

1a.) Alter the code is SIGNUP.ASCX. Remove the lines related to creating the GUID directory and the copying of PORTAL.CSS. The lines below are not comment here, but these need to be removed:

Private Sub cmdUpdate_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles cmdUpdate.Click
.
.
.
dr = admin.GetSinglePortal(intPortalId)
If dr.Read Then
strEditRoles = dr("AdministratorRoleId").ToString & ";"

' create the upload directory for the new portal
System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(strServerPath & "Portals\" & dr("GUID").ToString)

' copy the stylesheet to the upload directory
System.IO.File.Copy(strServerPath & "portal.css", strServerPath & "Portals\" & dr("GUID").ToString & "\portal.css")
End If
dr.Close()

The CreateDirectory and File.COPY get commented. Yes, I know this creates a little havoc. Hold tight.

1b.) Rebuild the solution.

1c.) Upload the new DOTNETNUKE.DLL into the webroot\bin directory.

1d.) Login to original site using SuperUser signon.

1e.) Goto Host, Portals, Add new Portal

1f.) Fill in information for new Parent Portal.

2.) The site will now be redirected to the new name. If DNS is setup correctly, the site will work, just look very crappy because you don't have a style sheet.

3.) Using Enterprise Manager, or SQL from Brinkster's site, query the PORTALS table. Find your new portal, and locate the column called GUID. Copy this out.

4.) Create a directory using any FTP tool or Brinkster's file manager with the GUID name.

5.) Copy webroot\Portal.CSS into that directory.

6.) Refresh the site. Should be fine now.

7.) Remeber to ask for WRITE permissions to this new directory.

Again, this is what I did. In the words of LimpBizkit, Results May Vary.

Thanks, jspohn. I plan on using WebHost4Life, but your post is nevertheless very helpful and useful.

I also have an account at Brinkster and have been dabbling in DNN. Here is another method to get around the security issue for those interested:

Have a local copy of DNN with the Web.config pointing to the database on Brinkster.
Add modules, portals, etc. on the local copy and FTP the entire application to Brinkster after all modifications have been made.

This seems to work fine.

Keep in mind that other features of DNN such as adding modules will require the creation of directories. You can work around this with the FTP client. I'd look for another host personally.

Charles

You should not have that much trouble... what is the problem with setting write permissions to your site if you are aware of what this potentially could do and know how to prevent it being exploited ??

Has anyone tried using DNN on Brinkster with an Access Database?

Also, I'm getting the typical first error everyone else gets when deploying to a host:



Server Error in '/' Application.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Configuration Error
Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately.

Parser Error Message: It is an error to use a section registered as allowDefinition='MachineToApplication' beyond application level. This error can be caused by a virtual directory not being configured as an application in IIS.

Source Error:

Line 24:
Line 25: <!-- Forms or Windows authentication -->
Line 26: <authentication mode="Forms">
Line 27: <forms name=".DOTNETNUKE" protection="All" timeout="60" />
Line 28: </authentication>

Source File: \\SERVERNAME\dotnetnuke\web.config Line: 26

Any suggestions?

hi

i read your post. its good.

but i have different problem , I have uploaded some folders which contain some files .

and i want to access those files  from my code , but i dont know how to use that path, i have uploaded all these folders thru ftp service of brinkster.

i dont know how i access these folders.

for egample.

fsBioPatFile=File.OpenRead("c:\\BioPatentWizard\\PatentTextFiles\\sample"+count.ToString()+".txt");

srTxt=new StreamReader(fsBioPatFile);

this code will read the text file stored in local directory

how can we do the same kind of operation in brinkster account?

help will be greatly appreciated.

Do you love to get so much problems just to get a DNN site up ?
You can create your own DNN site in 5 minutes and sue 2000$ of modules for free, skins and free hosting. You also get 100MB of web space for pictured and movies and unlimited sql space.