As we approach the release of Gummy Bear I wanted to get the installation documentation out there for review and to give everyone an idea of the Gummy Bear Setup process. See Installing Gummy Bear in the Sueetie Wiki for the latest updates.
Requirements¶
- Gummy Bear supports IIS6/IIS7, Windows 2003 Server and Windows 2008 Server. 32x and 64x bit.
- Requires .NET 3.5
- SQL2005 and SQL2008 are supported, though I have not fully tested SQL2005 support with setup scripts
- Gummy Bear is intended to be run at the site root, not in a subfolder.
- If used in Visual Studio, Gummy Bear is a Web Site Project. It contains no .proj or .sln files.
- The ZIP binaries are compiled for 64x bit OS. They work in 32x environments with no additional effort whatsoever with the exception of 3 Gallery Server Pro DLLs which need replaced. A link to those 3 32x bit-specific GSP DLLs are available on the Gummy Bear Download page.
Setup Process Overview¶
Gummy Bear uses a single installation page. Here is
an exact copy of the page at
http://gummybear.sueetie.com. As you'll see on that page, the process consists of
- Creating a database and required SQL accounts used by the site (Network Service, IIS identity account, SQL user in Connection String)
- Setting IIS application folders for the Sueetie Applications (screenshot on install page.)
- Setting Read-Write folder permissions. Certain site folders require read-write permissions. For play purposes, set IIS Identity permissions to full read-write. For live sites, here are the folders you need to give Read-Write permissions to:
- /images/avatars
- /blog/app_data
- /forum/uploads
- /marketplace/photos
- /media/gs/config
- /media/gs/mediaobjects
- /wiki/public
- Update connection strings (list of .config files whose connection strings require updating are listed on Gummy Bear install page.)
- Update the Web Service URLs in the root web.config to support the JQuery/Ajax-to-WCF processes in Sueetie, like member following, friends and favorites
- Setting a root url property in /marketplace/app.config (only if using Marketplace)
- Give Album Read Permissions to Registered Users in Gallery Server Pro Administration area
At this point you will walk through the Setup menu, creating the ASPNET Membership and Sueetie Framework SQL objects, step through the YetAnotherForum.NET and Gallery Server Pro setup wizards, and you're done!
The YAF.NET and GSP setup wizards are very straight-forward, but it is essential to enter Sueetie-specific information. Details and screenshots for both wizards are available on these pages:
YetAnotherForum.NET wizard information.
Gallery Server Pro wizard information.
Three user accounts are created:
- admin password is 'password'. This is the account you will use to get started with Gummy Bear. Admin has all permissions.
- testguy password is 'password'. This is a Registered User account. Testguy also has editor permissions on the site blog. He can also post to the test forum. He has no other permissions to upload to the media gallery or create wiki pages.
- anonymous used for system purposes only.
Post-Installation items¶
- Sueetie.config Gummy Bear and the various applications use app.config files. Gummy Bear uses a sueetie.config file in the web root which you will have already seen when updating its SQL Connection String. Look through the /sueetie.config file for any items you wish to change, like avatar thumbnail site or the path to your media gallery. This is optional and is only required if not using default /media path or wish to change the dimensions of user avatars.
- /forum/app.config. A SUEETIE.AppPath property contains the path to the forum. If the path to your forums is, say "/forums/" you'll want to change the default value of "/forum/" accordingly.
- Contact Us email configuration. The Contact Us page uses the BlogEngine.NET /blog contact form. You will want to enter your site's email settings on the BlogEngine.NET admin setting page. This will also enable comment notification and other BlogEngine.NET
- Membership email configuration. For functions like emailing lost passwords, update the MailSettings in the /web.config.
- Give Album Read Permissions to Registered Users in Gallery Server Pro. Gallery Server Pro creates album roles and permissions on the first time it is loaded. See Giving Album Read Access to Registered Users for a step-by-step guide.
- Disable Gummy Bear Setup Property. To prevent anyone from re-installing Gummy Bear over your live data, you'll want to set ENABLE_SETUP = false in /install/default.aspx.cs, or simply delete /install/default.aspx. (Note that since Sueetie is a Website project type, no compile is necessary after updating default.aspx.cs.)
- Change Admin and Testguy passwords. Change both the Admin and Testguy passwords in the Gummy Bear Control Panel.
Gummy Bear Reloaded¶
You most likely will want to fill-up your site with fun content as you familiarize yourself with the great apps supported in the Sueetie Framework, perhaps style it to your liking along the way, then return the site to its virginal state for Go Live! Here is how you might want to do that.
- Create a new database or copy the dummied-up one. The only table I can think you'll want to preserve is Sueetie_ContentParts, and then only if you created custom Content Parts you'll want to keep.
- Walk through the Setup steps in /install. When you do Go Live, it's a very good idea to set the ENABLE_SETUP property to "false" to make sure no one re-installs your site 6 months down the road and you have a very bad day as a result. This is located in /install/default.aspx.cs. Because Sueetie is a web site project, simply change the .cs file. No re-compile necessary.
- You'll then want to clean out any site file storage folders or restore originals. Here are the ZIP folder locations containing the original contents of file storage folders you'll want to reload:
- /images/avatars
- /blog/app_data
- /media/gs/mediaobjects
- /wiki/public
- That should reset your site, preserving your theme changes. Copying over sueetie_contentparts, if necessary, should conclude the process.