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    Home > Installation > Installing AspDotNetStorefront

    Installing AspDotNetStorefront

    We recommend that you maintain 3 functional types of installs:
    • Live Site: This is your public-facing live site.
    • Staging Site: This is a copy of your live site, usually installed on a separate server. Modifications should be deployed and reviewed here before pushing them to the live site, to protect your live site from issues and down time.
    • Development Site: This is where skinning or code modifications should be made initially. This install is generally the one connected to a source control repository, and is usually installed on one or more developers' local computers. Changes made here should be deployed to the staging site for testing before 'going live'.
    Install 3rd-Party Requirements
     
    The following 3 sections cover the installation of 3rd-party software required for the AspDotNetStorefront software to run.
     
    NOTE: BE SURE your server/host has the Software Requirements met before proceeding with the install.

    Customers installing the software on shared hosting accounts can probably skip the directions in this section, as most hosting companies will already have these components installed.

    IIS

    Windows Server 2012 comes with IIS8 pre-installed, but you may find it necessary to enable features that are not turned on by default. To do so, follow these steps:

    NOTE: These are generalized steps and the images and navigation and such may vary from your system.

    1. Open Control Panel, either by searching for it or right-clicking on the Windows button from the desktop and clicking on Control Panel, then click on 'Programs'.


    2. Next, click on 'Turn Windows features on or off'.



    3. In the Windows Features dialog box, ensure that all options shown below are checked:



    4. Click “OK” at the bottom, and wait for installation to complete.
    5. BE SURE the IIS URL Rewriter feature is installed.

    .NET Framework 4.5

    Most Windows Server installations will already have .NET framework 4.5 installed. You can verify the installation choosing Programs and Features from Windows Control Panel / Programs. If .NET Framework 4.5 is installed, you will see it listed; otherwise you can download and install it from Microsoft's site at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30653.

     

    Also be sure to install this Windows component for the WSI interface:

     

    Microsoft SQL Server Configuration

    See this page for instructions on installing the database components.

    Installing AspDotNetStorefront Software

    File Setup

    The first step in installing the AspDotNetStorefront software is to get the files in place on your machine.
    1. Log in to http://license.aspdotnetstorefront.com and click the link to Download the software next to your license.

    2. The download file is a self-extracting executable. Once the download has completed, double-click the file and follow the prompts to extract the files to your hard drive.  The default location for sites in IIS is C:\inetpub\wwwroot but you can put them elsewhere if preferred.

    3. Follow these directions to install a license key (starting with version 10.0.5 there is no need to install a license key file, but the same permissions will be required on the \Images folder).
    IIS pretty much handles file permissions for websites on its own through the ApplicationPoolIdentity user. If you run into any issues with file permissions during use of the software (unable to save images, encrypt the web.config, etc) then your host or server administrator has likely changed the user account under which your site runs. The server administrator must give that renamed user account Read/Write/Modify access to the web/Images folder (and starting with version 10.0.19 also provide Modify permissions to the web/Skins folder).

    Database Setup

    Next, you need to create the database in which the software will store your data.

    Note: The figures in this section depict a standard SQL Server Management Studio installation with no extra security measures in place. Your screens may look slightly different depending on the setup and security policies used by your administrator or hosting provider.

    1. Open Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and log in with the credentials given to you by your system administrator or host or which you created while installing your own SQL Server instance.
    2. Right-click on Databases in the tree view, then click New Database.


    3. Enter a database name, then click OK.
    4. Click the + next to Databases and your new database should show in the list. Click on it to highlight it, then click File -> Open -> File. Navigate to the /db folder where you just extracted the new storefront files, and double click the ‘Create AspDotNetStorefront Database’ file.

    5. Click the Execute button.
    6. Let the script run until it completes. At the bottom of the window you should see a 'Query executed successfully' message. If you see 'Query completed with errors', scroll through the Messages window and find any text in red, and send it to the Support team in a new ticket for assistance.

    7. Navigate to the /web folder where you extracted the storefront files, then open the AppSettings.config file in a text editor such as Notepad or Notepad++. (NOTE that this file is in the web/Config-Internal folder in recent versions)

    8. Find this line and change ‘TBD’ to your own EncryptKey value. The value can be any combination of letters and numbers, and should be at least 8 characters. The application will not run until you change this value.

      <add key="EncryptKey" value="TBD" />
    9. In the same /web folder, edit in a text editor the ConnectionStrings.config file to make the following changes:

      <add name="DBConn" connectionString="Data Source=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx;Initial Catalog=AspDotNetStorefront;User Id=user;Password=pwd;Persist Security Info=True;Packet Size=4096" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/>
      • Data Source – This is the server/instance name where SQL is installed. If installing on a local server, this will often be simply ‘localhost’ or the machine name (check the value in your SQL Server Management Studio app).
      • Initial Catalog – This is the name of the database you created in step 3, above.
      • User Id – The ID used to connect to the database. This MUST be a user with full system administration (sysadmin) rights. Typical local installs will use the "sa" account setup when the instance was created.
      • Password – The password used to connect to the database

      This information was all set up during the SQL Server install you did earlier. If SQL Server was already installed on your computer, your host or server admin will have to provide the information. AspDotNetStorefront cannot tell you what to use for these values.

    10. Save your changes.

    IIS Setup

    The last step in the install is configuring IIS. Note: Your server admin or host may have to provide additional steps for this portion of the install, depending on the server configuration. These steps cover a basic install.
    1. First, open IIS Manager and expand the tree to view the folders under Default Web Site:


    2. Right-click on Default Web Site, and click 'Add Application'.


    3. Enter a name for your site in the Alias field. This will be the virtual directory name you access the site at on your computer (e.g. http://localhost/myalias).

    4. Click the ‘…’ button and use the browse window to select the folder that contains the web.config file you modified earlier (this is the /Web folder as delivered). Click OK.

    5. Right-click the application you just added under Default Web Site, click 'Manage Application', then ‘Browse.’ Your site should open in a new browser window – installation is complete! You can access the admin console by adding /admin to the URL opened when you clicked Browse. Refer to Manage Admin Users for more information.

    NOTE: An alternative here is to Right-Click "Web Sites" (or "Sites") and choose Add Website, set a Site Name (this is internal to IIS only), choose an app pool or create new one (.net v4.5/4.0 Integrated), browse to the web folder for the Physical Path, set a Host Name ("localhost", or use a licensed URL such as aspdotnetstorefront.*.com and set a HOSTS file entry), and you should be set! Click "Browse localhost..." (or your local URL if used) and verify the site runs.

    Install Demo Data (optional)
    This part of the install process is optional. The steps below will add about 200 products, some product groups to organize them in your store, and images for the products. We recommend installing this demo data if you are looking for some guidance on how to set up products and product groups or just need to set up a store to quickly try something out. 

    The SQL script run below clears out several tables in the database before adding data. Do not run this on a database in which you have any data you want to save at this point.

    1. Open SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and select the database you created during the install (click on it). Click File -> Open -> File and browse to the DemoData/db folder where you extracted the AspDotNetStorefront software files. Open the 'Install Demo Website Data.sql' file.

    2. Click the Execute button (or press F5) to run the script against your database.

    3. Let the script run to completion. At the bottom of the window you should see a 'Query executed successfully' message. If you see 'Query completed with errors', scroll through the Messages window and find any text in red, and send it to the Support team in a new ticket for assistance.

    4. Navigate to the DemoData/web/images folder on your hard drive, and copy the 2 folders you see there. Then navigate to the /web folder where you installed the software (the same folder where the web.config file lives). Open the /images folder there and paste the 2 folders you copied earlier. If you are prompted to overwrite any files, be sure you know what they are before clicking Yes or OK! If you encounter such a prompt, you likely had set up products previously, and your original images may be lost.

    5. Log into the admin console of your new store and click the 'Refresh Store' button. That's it, you should have products on your store!


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