With Kentico CMS, you can easily develop the web site on your local machine. After the web site is ready to go live, you need export it into the export package. You will need to make sure that the ASP.NET account has Modify permission on the disk, specifically on the CMSSiteUtils\Export folder.
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 folder <web project>\CMSSiteUtils\Export.
Now you need to install Kentico CMS on the live server. If you're using a remote server without desktop access, you need to:
| • | Run Kentico CMS Web Installer on your local development computer. |
| • | Choose to create a new web site on a remote (production) server and deploy the web site into some local disk folder. |
| • | Copy all deployed files to the root of your web server (e.g. the web.config file must be placed in the root of the server). If you need to run the web site in a sub-folder, you need to create virtual directory manually as described in Creating a virtual directory. |
| • | Copy your exported package into the <web site root>\CMSSiteUtils\Import folder. |
| • | 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). |
| • | Open the page /default.aspx of your live web server in the web browser. |
| • | You will be displayed with Database setup wizard. Create the database for Kentico CMS. |
| • | You may be asked for the license key for your production domain. |
| • | In step 3, choose to Import existing Kentico CMS web site. |
| • | Choose to import the previously exported package and overwrite all duplicates. The import wizard is described in chapter Importing a site. |
Now that you have imported the site, you may need to adjust its configuration:
| • | Go to the Sites section. Edit web site properties and make sure the web site domain and domain aliases are configured correctly for the production domain(s). |
| • | 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. |
| • | Go to the Sites section. Click the Open live site icon next to your new site and make sure the web site is displayed correctly. |
Alternative Approach
If you, for some reason, cannot deploy the web site 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 web site. |
| 3. | Update the CMSConnectionString value in the web.config file. |
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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 chapter Configuration for Medium Trust environment. |
Related topics: Pre-compilation (Publish function), Configuration for Medium Trust environment