Installation Documentation 


Installing CSKDotNet 1.1:

Unlike CSK 1.0 releases, CSKDotNet 1.1 does not include an installation wizard. Though you will have to perform some manual installation and configuration, the installation should be relatively simple to perform.

Requirements:

Please see the General documentation for details on the system requirements for the CSKDotNet 1.1 release.

Configuring the CSKDotNet web application:

The first step in installing CSKDotNet 1.1 is to create the web application.

  1. Download and unzip the CSKDotNet 1.1 release file.
     
  2. Copy the files from the release to the location on your hard drive where you want the web site to reside. You can use any folder anywhere, but you will need to make sure that your ASP.NET user account (<machine>\aspnet) has read access to the location where you place the files.
      
    If you are copying to a production server and will not need to recompile the application, you can omit the contents of the /SQL folder, as well as all of the *.cs and *.resx files. The included DLL file in the /bin folder has been pre-compiled for the .NET framework 1.1. You will need the contents of /SQL to install the database, but you do not have to place these files in the web application folder. 
       
  3. Open your IIS management tool (sometimes called Internet Service Manager). This tool can be found in the Control Panel's Administrative Tools folder.
     
  4. In the IIS admin tool, create a new web site or virtual directory. You can name the site/directory anything you want, however the default configuration of CSKDotNet uses the name "CommunityStarterKit". Point the new site or virtual directory at the physical location where you copied the application files.
     
  5. In IIS, you will also need to create application mappings for 3 file extensions. You must map .gif, .jpg, and .jpeg to the aspnet_isapi.dll (same mapping that the .aspx extension uses). 
    1. Right-click the CSK web site or virtual directory you just created and choose properties. In the Virtual Directory (or Home Directory) tab, you will see a section called "Application Settings". To the right there will be a button labeled "Configuration" (if this button is disabled click the "create" button to enable it). Press the Configuration button to invoke the Application Configuration dialog.
       
    2. On the Mappings tab, highlight the mapping for .aspx, then click the edit button. In the Add/Edit Extensions dialog that should open, highlight all text in the "Executable" field, then right click and choose "copy" (ctrl + c doesn't work in this dialog). Press cancel to return to the mappings tab of the Application Configuration dialog.
       
    3. Click the Add button, which should open up the Add/Edit Extensions dialog again. Click in the Executable field again, right click, and choose "paste" (again, ctrl + v will not work here). In the Extension box, type ".gif". Make sure the "Check that file exists" checkbox is NOT checked. Click OK to return to the mappings tab of Application Configuration.
       
    4. Repeat step 3 for the .jpg and .jpeg extensions.  
       
  6. Press OK to return to the site or virtual directory properties, then OK again to return to the IIS admin tool.
     
  7. Open a Command Prompt, navigate to the /SQL folder that was included in the release, and run the CSKDB.CMD file with the [action] parameter set to "new" or "populate" to create your database. Refer to the section titled "Using the Database Command File" for instructions on using the CSKDB.CMD file.

After these steps are completed, you should be able to open your application in a web browser and start using it.

In order to use the project file to open the application in VS.NET, you may need to edit the CSKDotNet.csproj.webinfo file to point to the correct URL of your CSKDotNet installation. Refer to the Developing with CSKDotNet document for more information.

Upgrading CSK 1.0 to CSKDotNet 1.1:

Upgrades of CSK 1.0 installations are supported in the CSKDotNet 1.1 release, but before you begin an upgrade please keep the following in mind:

To upgrade a CSK 1.0 installation, perform these steps:
  1. Download and unzip the CSKDotNet 1.1 release file.
     
  2. Backup your database and make a copy of all files on your web server.
     
  3. Copy all files from the CSKDotNet 1.1 release into your web server. If your web server is a production machine and you do not intend to recompile the application then you can omit all *.cs and *.resx files. The CSKDotNet 1.1 release contains a pre-compiled DLL in the /bin folder that should work with the .NET framework 1.1 without requiring a recompile. You can also omit the contents of the /SQL folder from the web application's folder if you wish.
     
  4. Open a command window (DOS prompt) and navigate to the /SQL folder in your web application (or a copy of this folder on your local machine).
     
  5. Run the CSKDB.CMD file with the "upgrade" switch. (See: Using the Database Command File for more details.)
     
  6. Edit web.config in the application root and change the database connection string to use the correct database, user, and password for your CSK 1.0 database (you can copy the CSK 1.0 web.config file's connection string).

Using the Database Command File, CSKDB.CMD:

The CSKDotNet project contains a command file, CSKDB.CMD, that can automate installing the CSKDotNet 1.1 database objects. The command file resides in the /SQL folder of the release, and executes scripts from sub-folders as needed depending on the parameters you supply when you execute the command file. 

CSKDB.CMD can operate in 3 modes:

The CSKDB.CMD file can be executed from a command window (DOS prompt). You can copy the entire /SQL folder to your local machine to make running the command file easier.

CSKDB.CMD Syntax:

CSKDB.CMD [Server], [Database], [Login], [Password], [Action], [CSKUserName], [CSKUserPwd]

CSKDB.CMD parameters:
Usage Examples:

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