Deployment to the live server

With Kentico CMS, you can easily develop the website on your local machine. When the website is ready to go live, you need to export it into an export package. You will need to make sure that the ASP.NET account has the Modify permission for the disk, specifically for the CMSSiteUtils\Export folder. See the Troubleshooting installation issues -> Disk permissions problems chapter for more information on how to set up these permissions.

Go to Site Manager -> Sites and click the Export site icon next to the site to be exported. Enter the name of the export package and click OK. The site will be exported to the <web project>\CMSSiteUtils\Export folder.

Now you need to install Kentico CMS on the live server. If you're using a remote server without desktop access, you need to:

1.	Run Kentico CMS Web Installer on your local development computer.

2.	Choose to create a new website on a remote (production) server and deploy the website into some local disk folder.

3.	Copy all deployed files to the root of your web server (i.e. the web.config file must be placed in the root of the server). If you need to run the website in a sub-folder, you need to create virtual directory manually as described in Additional configuration tasks -> Creating a virtual directory.

4.	Copy your exported package into the <website root>\CMSSiteUtils\Import folder.

5.	Make sure your live server is configured for ASP.NET 2.0. It's also highly recommended that the ASP.NET account has Modify permission on the server disk for easy import (however, it's possible to complete the import without Modify permission as well).

6.	Open the page /default.aspx of your live web server in the web browser.

7.	You will be displayed with Database setup wizard. Create the database for Kentico CMS.

8.	You may be asked for the license key for your production domain.

9.	In step 3, choose to Import existing Kentico CMS website.

10.	Choose to import the previously exported package and overwrite all duplicates. The import wizard is described in Managing sites -> Export and import -> Importing a site.

Now that you have imported the site, you may need to adjust its configuration:

1.	Go to the Sites section. Edit website properties and make sure the website domain and domain aliases are configured correctly for the production domain(s).

2.	Go to the Site Manager -> Settings and make sure your site settings contain correct values, especially the SMTP server value in the E-mails section.

3.	Go to the Sites section. Click the Open live site icon next to your new site and make sure the website is displayed correctly.

Alternative Approach

If you, for some reason, cannot deploy the website using the procedure described above, you can use a classic backup/restore approach:

1.	Backup your development database and restore it on the production server.

2.	Copy the web project folder into the root of your production website.

3.	Update the CMSConnectionString value in the web.config file.

Shared Hosting Environment and Medium Trust Level

If you're deploying Kentico CMS on a shared hosting server that requires medium trust level, you may need to make additional configuration changes as described in Additional configuration tasks -> Configuration for Medium Trust environment.

Page url: http://devnet.kentico.com/docs/devguide/index.html?deployment_to_the_live_server.htm