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Installing Umbraco 4 on reliablesite.net (or similar hosts)

    reliablesite.net is a full trust .net hosting provider that supports umbraco.

    These are the basic steps for the IIS7/Server 2008 hosting platform at reliablesite.net

    1. UPLOAD UMBRACO 
      • Delete the default.aspx and web.config files in the WWWROOT folder at the host
      • Upload the umbraco ZIP file to the wwwroot folder using the reliablesite.net FILE MANAGER found in the control panel
      • Of course you can use FTP if you prefer, but the file manager has a full set of tools to make things easy without FTP

    2. UNPACK UMBRACO
      • Use the FILE MANAGER in the hosting control panel to UNZIP the Umbraco archive

    3. SET PERMISSIONS 
      • Using the FILE MANAGER in the hosting control panel, change the folder permissions on the WWWROOT. Check the boxes for READ and WRITE for both listed accounts. One will be NETWORK SERVICE and the other will be the DOMAIN account. YOU MUST also check the box to propagate the changes to all subfolders.
      • Note that giving write permission on the wwwroot folder is a quick and easy way to get up and running. However it is best practice in a production environment to only give write permission on the folders that require it. Here is a list detailing the folder permissions.

    4. CREATE THE DATABASE
      • Use the DB manager to create a SQL server 2005 database.
      • Name it something like mydomain_umbraco (where mydomain is somethign meaningful) because there is only 1 SQL server instance at the host and you will later need to be able to find your database in the list of databases presented in the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express.
      • Use the DB control panel to create a database user and password.

    5. FIND THE DATABASE CONNECTION STRING  
      • Click the SPACE HOME link in the control panel.
      • At the SPACE HOME page, you will see a link on the right hand side of the page called VIEW SPACE SUMMARY. 
      • About 2/3 of the way down, the SPACE SUMMARY will show the database instance IP and port in the form x.x.x.x,x  Make not of this, you will need it later.

         
    6. CONFIGURE THE DATABASE
      • Install SQL Server Management Studio Express on your local machine. This is part of MS SQL Server Express, a free download. See the this page for details
      • Open the Management Studio
      • Use the server address that you found above along with the db name and account credentials you created (use SQL SERVER AUTHENTICATION)
      • Navigate to Databases->your database->Security->Users->your database user
      • Right-click and select Properties
      • Below "Database role membership", check the following boxes:   
        • db_datareader
        • db_datawriter
        • db_owner
    7.  EDIT WEB.CONFIG
      • Use the FILE MANAGER in the hosting control panel to edit the web.config file in the WWWROOT folder.
      • Modify the umbracoDbDSN entry in web.config to reflect the database server hostname, database name, login and password used above
      • Note: You shouldn't have to do this step as the web installer allows you to enter in your db settings and will modify the web.config for you depending on what option you choose.

    8. FINISH THE INSTALL
      • Navigate to the website URL that your are installing to and click next
      • On the setup screen, select SQL SERVER database type from the dropdown list
      • Use the same SERVER address as used above, along with the database name and user credentials that you selected   

    William Burnett
    www.mbtechnology.net