Portal Administration

1. The Control Panel
1. The Control Panel is primarily a palette of shortcuts for frequently used tasks, most of which are accessible from other pages through the Admin menu.
2. The Site Wizard
1. A slick addition to version 3.0 and later versions is the Site Wizard, which is the quickest way to make the most common customizations for those new to managing their own DotNetNuke web site. It walks you through a short conversational process, step by step, with extensive help and the ability to cancel at any time without saving the changes. Standard navigational controls appear on each page of the wizard for Back, Next, Finish, Cancel (without saving changes), and Help.
3. Site Settings
1. You can reach your site settings by clicking the Settings button in the Common Tasks area of the toolbar or by selecting Admin ð Site Settings. The Site Settings page contains expandable and collapsible categories of configuration options.
2. Advanced Settings: Security Settings

1. Portal Registration drives fundamental behavior of your site that should be part of your initial design. Through registration, anonymous site visitors can join (or apply to join) the Registered Users role and be granted access to privileged content or site functionality. Because the Registered Users role requires registration and authorization (either explicit or automatic), these functions combine to provide for different options in the registration process
   

2. Security — Portal Registration Options

   Option	Description
   None	Registration is not an available option to site visitors. The Login button remains visible so that administrative access can be gained; however, the Registration button is hidden. Sites that select this option often change their skin to move the Login button to a less prominent location than where it normally appears on the default skin. This setting is appropriate for sites that do not publish privileged content or that process registration offline.
   Private	Registrants apply for privileged access to the site. Until authorization is explicitly granted, access is limited to that of any anonymous user. This setting is appropriate for sites that require approval of registration requests (for example, a private family web site that invites friends and relatives to apply). An e-mail is sent to the registrant advising him or her of the private nature of the site. An additional e-mail is sent upon authorization (if and when it is performed). It is good practice to explain the process for approval of private registration prominently on your site.
   Public	Registration is automatically (and immediately) authorized without validation of the e-mail address. A welcome e-mail is sent to the registrant. This setting is appropriate for sites that want to track usage but do not require validation of contact information.
   Verified	Registration generates a verification code, which is included in the welcome e-mail sent to the address supplied by the registrant. Authorization is granted when the user supplies the verification code at the time of their first login. This process ensures that all registered users have supplied a valid e-mail address.
4. Security Roles
   
1. The DotNetNuke architecture enables you to control access to your content both at the page level and the module level through the application of user roles. A role can be thought of as a group with a purpose (for example, Newsletter Subscriber, Gallery Administrator, or Team Member).
2. Modules may extend the concept of permissions to include purposes relevant to their specific function, but for planning purposes you should consider that roles address two types of purposes (permissions) in the context of portal administration: View and Edit.
3. Public roles are made available to users via the Membership Services area of their Account Profile page. Roles that are not public typically define privileged access for users or areas of responsibility for maintenance purposes.
5. Pages Management
1. Pages are the building blocks of your DotNetNuke portal. They are the real estate where you deposit content to create an interesting site. You can see them represented in menu items, bread crumbs, and site links.

2. If you have created a page that employs a layout of modules that will be common in your site, it may be useful to begin developing new pages using that same layout. You can specify which page to copy and whether the module content should be the same. If you select Copy Content, the modules on the new page will be shadows of existing modules on the Copy Modules From page. All of the shadow copies are linked so that changes to any one will update every instance on each copied page. This can be particularly helpful for things like links modules used for navigation, banner modules displayed on selected pages, and so on. If you do not select Copy Content, new empty modules are placed on the page in the same layout and with the same permissions as the page specified to copy from.

6. Skins Management
1. The Skins page, which is accessible from the Admin menu, gives you the ability to browse and apply skins and containers to customize the look of your site.
7. File Manager
1. File management is an area that was radically improved in version 3.0 and updated with version 4.0 and the introduction of the ClientAPI. Prior to introduction of the File Manager, all files were maintained in a flat structure in the portal root directory, which could easily become unwieldy. Now files can be managed in subdirectories, and those subdirectories can be protected through role-based permissions.
2. Important Properties of the .NET Framework HttpPostedFileClass dictate the size limits for uploading files. DotNetNuke sets these properties in the default web.config file as follows:
   
   
   

3. Using FTP with File Manager

   The File Manager provides a convenient way to move files through the interface. For bulk operations, however, you may prefer to utilize FTP to transfer files (if permitted by your Host). If files are added to your site through any means other than the file upload interface, you need to click the Synchronize Database and File System button. That command instructs DotNetNuke to iterate through the portal root and resolve for any files and folders that may be added or missing. Your Host may have enabled a scheduled job to perform this synchronization for you on a periodic basis, but if you do it yourself, you'll see those files in your drop-down lists immediately.

4. Note Do not delete files outside of the File Manager. Using the File Manager ensures that database references are updated appropriately throughout the application where file references are made (in other modules, for example).
   
8. Languages

1. Languages and localization features are primarily controlled by the Host account; however, the Portal Administrator has limited control to override localization strings and to define the default language for your portal. These settings are specific to your portal and therefore no mechanism is provided to export or import these changes.

9. Authentication
1. Windows Authentication was officially introduced in version 3.2 (for ASP.NET 1.1) and version 4.0 (for ASP.NET 2.0), increasing DotNetNuke's capability to provide a robust platform for intranets. If your portal is in an intranet environment, Authentication allows you to specify an external authentication source for your users (that is, Open LDAP, ADAM).
10. User Accounts
1. The Portal Administrator is able to manage users from the User Accounts page . Access it by selecting Admin ð User Accounts.
2. In support of the Private Registration option, checking Authorized causes an e-mail to be sent to users that provides them with their login credentials and a welcome message.
11. Managing Security Roles
12. Vendors
1. At some point, you may want to develop partnerships with others in promoting your web site and/or complimentary products and services. DotNetNuke provides a number of built-in features to get you started in developing these relationships.
13. Newsletters

1. Periodically, you'll want to communicate with your users. The Newsletter page provides a convenient way for you to do this by enabling you to send e-mail to users in specified roles. Remember when you set up the Newsletter Subscribers role? Here's where you put that to use.

14. Site Log
1. The Site Log displays text-based reports only
2. Logging occurs at the discretion of the Host, who has a number of options for how it is configured. If the Host chooses to generate text-based log files (like IIS logs), these reports become obsolete because they work only with database logging information (at this time).
15. Recycle Bin

1. The act of deleting a page or module doesn't really delete anything — it merely sets a flag that DotNetNuke understands internally as deleted and ignores it in the general interface. Items that have this flag set can be found in (and restored from) the Recycle Bin.

   Note

   Developers can see this implementation by looking at the database fields Tab.IsDeleted and Modules.IsDeleted.

16. Log Viewer
1. The Log Viewer gives a Portal Administrator the ability to monitor a variety of events and associated details including (but not limited to) exceptions. Out of the box, DotNetNuke is configured to log exceptions only; however, any of the (approximately) 48 defined events can be logged at the discretion of the Host.