DasBlog, instructions for the rest of us.

Ben Coffman — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:39:00 GMT

Jumping right in. The instructions on the dasBlog website of how to install dasBlog on a shared hosting environment are close to zero. The discussion boards offer some insight but in order to get some real feedback you had to post the question, wait and hope they reply soon...if ever.
I will start by showing you the painful way of installing dasBlog on a shared hosting environment and end with showing you the painless way on Godaddy.

Painful starts Below:

Getting the Code and Getting it to Your Hosting Provider (Godaddy)

Get the code from dasBlog. Download the "web files" unless you want to tinker with the source, a topic I don't cover.

Unzip the code and pull out the "dasblogce" folder. I renamed this folder to "blog." Next I uploaded the folder to my hosting service at Godaddy

Permissions and Config's

Edit the web.config and siteSecurity.config according to the instructions on the website. You will also need to change the permissions on three folders logs, content, siteconfig to have read/write access.

I will discuss the web.config edits a little because it seems there is a bit of ambiguity on the web with how the trust should be set up.

The out of the box setup of the web.config trust elements:

<trust level="Full" originUrl="" />

I simply removed <trust level="Full" originUrl="" /> so all I had was the commented out  element. I have heard some talk to just remove  all together and others saying if you un-comment the element the blog should work. For Godaddy removing the one line and commenting out the other is what worked for me. I always like to leave configuration setting in the file and just comment them out. I will forget about them if I don't....I blame college.

Adding Virtual Directories and Changing Settings

This is the part which slowed me down. You will need to not only create a virtual directory the same name as the folder that holds the content for your blog, in this example that directory is named "blog", but you will also have to create 3 sub virtual directories under the "blog" virtual directory on Godaddy called "logs," "content," and "siteconfig." Notice the virtual directories are the same name as the folders within the "blog" folder.

Next, you will need to change the settings on all four virtual directory folders to have "anonymous access" and "application root." Finally you will need to change IIS7 from integrated mode to classic mode. (Update: i've been told that if you use the web.config file that is meant for IIS7 integrated you will not have to make this change. For right now the standard package with dasblog is the web.config which requires you to use classic mode).

Once you have followed these steps and followed the steps provided by dasBlog you should be good to go on installing dasBlog on a hosting provider the hard way.

Some of the problems I ran into.

The first error I was recived was a "HTTP Error 500 - Internal server error." This error really tells you nothing and was quite frustrating. I eventually fixed the error by switching IIS7 to classic mode on godaddy.
The second error I encountered was "System.Security.SecurityException: Request for the permission of type 'System.Security.Permissions.SecurityPermission," This was due to the fact I did not have the 3 virtual directories set up under my "blog" virtual directory in IIS7.

Painless way

Click "Your Applications" from the home screen of your "Hosting Control Center"

Select "blogs" from the left hand menu
Select "dasBlog" from the list of blogs
Select "Install Now"

If by chance Godaddy states your hosting plan is not supported for this product. You have to have .net and IIS. If you have IIS7 make sure you have it on classic mode. Without classic mode, .net, and IIS, Godaddy tells you your hosting plan is not compatible.

bencoffman.com/blog - dasBlog

DasBlog, instructions for the rest of us.