I'm new to these forums, and was also new to DNN and GoDaddy.com. But since I work in IT and I'm impatient, I spent hours and eventually figured this all out and since everyone has been friendly and helpful, I'd like give back by writing a quick guide on how to get DNN working on GoDaddy the manual way. This guide is intended for the ABSOLUTE beginner, so I try to keep this as simple as possible.

note: Most of where I got my ideas was from this thread.

First off, you need a GoDaddy hosting account. You need at least the "Deluxe Plan" because DNN requires a MS SQL 2000 database, and that is not an option on the "Economy Plan"

Step 1: Get your virtual directory setup

• Login to your GoDaddy.com account
  
• From the top menu, click My Account
• On the icon that says "Hosting & Email", click "Web Hosting & Databases"
• You should see a list of your hosted sites, for the site in question, click "Settings"
• On the right, click "Custom Directory Permissions"
• In the box, pick a name, this will be the location of your DNN site (eg www.mysite/portal, portal being the name you put in the box now). Click EACH checkbox. Write down the folder name you use here (eg "portal"), we'll need this later.
  
• Save your settings
• Now lets go back to the page where it lists your sites (look at step 3 above)
• Click "Databases"
• Under "Create New Database", Create a MS SQL database. For username/password I suggest using the same as your GoDaddy login, or just write it down, we'll need this later.
• Its going to take a while for the new folder to process and be setup, same with the database.
• The last part here is that after the database has been created and setup, we need both the server and database name. Going back to where your sites are (again look at step 3), click on Databases, and you should see a new record showing your new database. From here we need the server name, this should be the leftmost column and should look something like: whsql-v02.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net (write this down).
• On this same line, under DB Name, is the database name, should look something like: DB_10421 (write this down)

Step 2: Get DNN & Config

• First off, goto http://www.dotnetnuke.com/ and register for an account (takes 1 min), then login
• Now you have access to the download site.
• Get the Source Distribution (for this example I got version 3.0.13), and download it to your computer.
• Unzip the file to some folder.
• Before we upload, lets modify the web.config file, this should be in your new unzipped folder, or if you have version 3.1.0, then locate a file named release.config and copy this file and rename it as web.config.
  
• There is only one line you need to modify, its about the 22nd line and looks like this:  <add key="SiteSqlServer" value="Server=(local);Database=DotNetNuke;uid=;pwd=;" />
  
• For Server, replace "(local)", with the database server name that you wrote in the above steps.
• For Database, replace DotNetNuke with the database name that you wrote in the above steps
• For uid & pwd, this is the username and password that you used to create your database, write them here.
• Your new line should look something like this: <add key="SiteSqlServer" value="Server=whsql-v02.prod.mesa1.secureserver.net;Database=DB_10421;uid=thekubrix;pwd=mypass;" />
• OPTIONAL (yet recommended): On the 55th line you'll see:  <customErrors mode="RemoteOnly" />. If you want to get useful errors, you need to change this parameter to "Off", like this: <customErrors mode="Off" />
  
• Save this file.
  

Step 3: Upload DNN to your site

• Now FTP to your site (don't have a client? try CuteFtp, or search google for a client), your FTP server name/ip is the same as your site, and your login is the same as your GoDaddy login.
• Locate the virtual folder you created from the first steps above. Copy all the files from your recent download into here.

Step 4: Install

• Just go to your virtual directory, and the install will start itself, so for example: http://www.mysite.com/portal
• The setup will begin to run and display its progress and any error messages

Thats it! Its recommend that you immediately change the password for both the Host and Admin accounts.

Enjoy!

(please reply if you find any problems with this guide, I'd like to keep this up to date and correct)

-thekubrix

Great job!  DNN installation is not straight-forward on Hosts such as GoDaddy, as anyone can see by the number of posts recently added on the topic.  While the Core team does try to document specific installation instructions, it's just plain difficult to keep up with the number variances in the Hosting world.

This type of post is a great example of a DNN community member taking an issue causing a lot of frustration, and rather than complaining about it, sat down and got busy.  I cannot confirm the procedures, but given thejubrix has it going, I'm sure it will be updated, if you other GoDaddy 'DNNr's' find a mistake.  There's just no substitute for getting your hands dirty and giving it a shot.  Now, the hard work done can 'pay forward', and that's the way to get it done... :)

Cheers

I've been struggling with getting a manual dnn install on godaddy so I really appreciate you taking the time to document this. I used the directions but am still having issues. Maybe I missed something.

In following the steps I did not find a web.config file anywhere in the unzipped files (step 2). I renamed the 03.01.00.config file to web.config. Is the right thing to do?

I modified the DB settings and custom error messages in the web.config file as directed and uploaded the DNN 3.1.0 source files to my virutal directory created in step 1. I used notepad for editing.

I go to http://www.myserver.com/virtdir (fake name) and get the error below. Looks like my web.config file is not working since it's not picking up the custom error message setting. 

Any ideas on what the problem may be?
 

Server Error in '/virtdir' Application.

---

Runtime Error

Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.

Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a <customErrors> tag within a "web.config" configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This <customErrors> tag should then have its "mode" attribute set to "Off".

<!-- Web.Config Configuration File --> <configuration> <system.web> <customErrors mode="Off"/> </system.web> </configuration>

Notes: The current error page you are seeing can be replaced by a custom error page by modifying the "defaultRedirect" attribute of the application's <customErrors> configuration tag to point to a custom error page URL.

<!-- Web.Config Configuration File --> <configuration> <system.web> <customErrors mode="RemoteOnly" defaultRedirect="mycustompage.htm"/> </system.web> </configuration>

Thanks again for posting this info!
          John
  

First up do what the error msg says and change web.config to  <customErrors mode="Off"/> . This will allow you to see the full .Net error message which will tell you where the problem is. If that has no effect then it is effectively saying there is no web.config file (ie when you renamed a file it wasn't release.config but something else, you mention 3.01.0 config??).

John,
   I know what happened. I looked at the official downloads, and I guess you downloaded DNN v3.1.0, whereas this guide used v3.0.13.

So I looked inside the 3.1.0 package, and you're right, there was no web.config!! Very odd. But renaming that 03.01.00.config file to web.config is incorrect. That file is just a comparison between both versions' web.config, so just locate relrease.config, and copy that as web.config.

Also, as mentioned earlier, modify the customerErrors parameter for mode="Off", so that you get a more detailed error message.

Copying the release.config to web.config and making the edits got rid of the error. But now I have this error.
-----

DotNetNuke Upgrade Error

The Assembly Version ( [ASSEMBLYVERSION] ) does not match the Database Version ( [DATABASEVERSION] )

ERROR: Could not connect to database.

The stored procedure 'dbo.GetPortalAliasByPortalID' doesn't exist.
-----
I checked my DB and no tables have been created - do I need a DSN? Any suggestions.

Thanks again for your help (is there any documentation on the install that I'm missing?).

 John

I found the documentation and fixed the problem.

I made the following change to the web.config file - about the 29th line.

Changed true to false and the portal install completed successfully.
<add key="UseDnnConfig" value="false" />

Thanks thekubrix! Your help with this install has been excellent. I'm sure many godaddy customers down the line will benefit from your effort.

   John

Thanks for the How To on GoDaddy. I've now tried both versions 3.1.0 and 3.0.13 and I just keep having problems. I think DNN just hates me. :P

Now it's telling me that it can't find httpmodules.urlrewrite. Ugh!

I have my web.config file set up exactly how the first post stated and I still receive the same intial error as John.  Pissing me off.  It looks like the app will not connect to the db (db hasn't changed) for some reason.  I know the server name, id and pw are correct too.   Any ideas?   

You just took about 5 hours of frustration out of my life and gave me 5 hours of learning how to use the nuke.

Thanks!
Bryan

So, how would I set this up so that it is at the top level of my domain at godaddy.com.

What I mean is instead of http://www.mydomain.com/portals, I want to use http://www.mydomain.com.

Thanks a million.  This information has been invaluable.

t-a-g

great job man, you beat me to it, since I am lazy and in the interest of expediting information, may i copy your text? I will give you credit and make some minor tweaks, but I would like to put it on my dnn information side for go daddy.

http://gddnn.projectx2.net

please? please? please? :P

sure

thank you thank thank you, you rock

Here's a GoDaddy question:
Now that I've installed DNN following your directions (that was great, thank you), I'd like to set up different alias's.  Lets say my domain is http://www.mysite.com and my DNN portal is http://www.mysite.com/portals.

I'd like to set up a subdomain through GoDaddy called http://subdomain.mysite.com. After setting it up in GoDaddy, I would then   go into DNN as the 'Host' and create a new Portal using the alias http://subdomain.mysite.com.

1- Am I doing this correctly?
2- When I set up the subdomain in GoDiddy (I know it's spelled GoDAddy, but I wanted to be politically correct and recognize the rednecks in the audience), do I tell it to ' Forwarded to Another URL ' or ' Forwarded to a Hosting Sub-Directory'?  I would assume that I need to tell it to 'forward to another url' and send it to my virtual directory which is http://www.mysite.com/portal.  Is this correct?
Thanks,
Nathan
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