AspxCommerce Installation Guide
The secret to successful installation is getting the prerequisites
right. If everything is prepared beforehand, installation is straightforward and painless!
Installing AspxCommerce is easy if you follow the instructions closely, yet users have problem with installation because many of the first time installers do not get the prerequisites right
before they start to install.
This guide to 'AspxCommerce Installation Prerequisites' assumes that you have direct access
to the computer. For those using a hosted account, instead of installing
these prerequisites, just ask your hosting provider if these prerequisites are already
set up for you, and if their control panel software will install AspxCommerce for you.
You must first install these items, in the given order:
- Internet Information Server (IIS) .
- DotNet Framework 4.0
- SQL Server 2008 and above.
- If you are using SQL server express, then you must also install SQL Server Management
Console for SQL Server Express (a separate download from microsoft.com).
4 Basic Steps to Install.
There are two things you need to do in SQL Server Management Studio. First,
create a database. Second, create the SQL Server login for that very same database.
Make sure that your database server runs in “
Mixed Authentication Mode”
(SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode” is checked.) You can find this
setting by right-clicking on your server (first node in the SQL Server
Management Studio tree on the left), then
Properties | Security.
Create the Database
- Open SQL Server Management Studio
- Select your desired server from the drop-down list and connect
- Expand the tree on the left-hand side so you can see “Databases”
- Right-click on "Databases"
- Select “New Database”
- In the "Database Name" field, enter a name for your database and click
OK. For example, I have entered “SE3”
- You now have an empty database called SE3
Creating a login for your database:
- Expand the Security node of your server
- Right-click on Logins
- Select “New Login”
- Enter your desired login name. You must remember this login name and password as
we will use it later. For my purposes here, I’ve entered “SE30Login”
(without the quotes) as my login name.
- Select “SQL Server Authentication” and enter a password.
I entered “test” as my password.
- Uncheck “Enforce Password expiration/User must change password at
next login”
- Click “User Mapping” on the left
- Select/Check the new database you created in the top grid “Users mapped
to this login:”
- Select/Check db_owner in the bottom list “Database role membership for: “
- Click OK
- Now look in the Security node under your database (SE3) and you will see a newly
created database user listed, meaning we also created a new database user by mapping
our SQL Server login to our database.
The database part is now complete.
In this step, we create a folder and unzip the source code version AspxCommerce .zip
package file to this directory. You can put it directly under C:\inetpub\wwwroot
or C:\foldername. For this example, I used C:\SE3.
- In Windows Explorer, create a new folder called SE30 on your C: drive. This will
be the folder where your website files will live.
- Extract (unzip) the AspxCommerceV2.5_Source.zip file that you downloaded earlier
into your desired folder (C:\SE30 in our example)
- Lastly, you must change the access permissions of your folder. The Windows account
that is used to access your site must have full control over your AspxCommerce root
folder. To set this, right-click on the root folder of your site (C:\SE30). Click
Sharing and Security. Click the Security tab. If you do not see the Security tab,
you must “turn off” simple file sharing for the folder.
To do this, select the root folder (C:\SE30) in Windows Explorer. Click Tools |
Folder Options. Select the View tab. Uncheck “Use simple file sharing.”
Click OK. You can now right-click the folder and access the Security tab.
- On the Security tab, you will see a list of users who have access to your folder.
Windows XP uses the ASPNET account and Windows 2003 uses the NETWORK SERVICE account.
Add the account and give it full control permissions.
Now that the database and file system are in place, we can create the virtual directory
in IIS.
- Open IIS and expand the tree to see “Default Web Site”.
(You can find IIS in Start | Control Panel | Administrative Tools.)
- Expand the "Default Web Site" node.
- If you have placed your SF root folder under C:\inetpub\wwwroot, you will already
see your website and can bypass this step. If not, you will need to add a virtual
directory.
- Right-click on "Default Web Site"
- Click New | Virtual Directory
- Enter an alias – "AspxCommerceDemo"
- Click Next and enter/browse to the path to the root folder of your website.
- Click Next and leave access permissions as is (should be set to Read/Run Scripts.)
- Click Next and Finish
Now that a virtual directory is in place, you’ll need to modify its properties.
- Click on the "Documents" tab
- An entry for “Default.aspx” needs to be added. Add
default.aspx and move it to the top of the default documents list.
- Click on the "Directory Security" tab
- In the “Anonymous access and authentication control” group box, click
"Edit"
- Make sure that “Anonymous Access” is checked as well
as “Integrated Windows Authentication”
- Next, click on the "ASP.NET" tab and make sure that “4.0”
is selected for the ASP.NET version
- Click OK to save your changes
The very last step is to initiate the SF installation via web browser. In this case, the install
wizard takes over. In doing so, it creates tables and stores procedures in your
database and adds the needed data rows to these tables to house your site. You will
be prompted to test your folder’s permissions, to test the database connection
and lastly, to enter your desired user name and password for your host and admin user.
Note these down!
- Open your web browser of choice and navigate to http://localhost/AspxCommerceDemo (replace
AspxCommerceDemo with the name of your IIS virtual directory)
- If everything has been configured properly, you will be guided through an installation
wizard i.e. http://localhost/AspxCommerceDemo/Install/InstallWizard.aspx.
- Choose the custom install setting. not the choose auto option,
because the custom install allows us to specify the database information.
Even though, the auto option will be disabled if it is your first and fresh AspxCommerce
installation.
- If you are upgrading your previous version of AspxCommerce then the auto option
will be enabled.
- Test your folder permissions when requested.
- Verify your database connection when asked.
- You will see the wizard running the script for each version after you click "Next".
- On successful completion, click on “Finish (Access your Portal)”
and your new AspxCommerce-based website appears.
Note: During the installation, if anything goes wrong from missing any
of the settings above, then delete the database and create a new empty database
and start the AspxCommerce installation process again. The reason for this is that half
completed install will result in a half created database, and it is quicker to start
again than it is to fix a half installed database. Otherwise if all settings are
configured correctly as mentioned above, you should check for sqldataprovider
.sql scripts files under folder http://localhost/AspxCommerceDemo/. Install/Providers/DataProviders/SqlDataProvider/
and rerun the .sql scripts by clicking “Return” button.
Default Username and Password
After the successful installation of AspxCommerce, you can access the default
login page of AspxCommerce as http://localhost/AspxCommerceDemo/sf/sflogin.aspx(replace AspxCommerceDemo
with the name of your IIS virtual directory). Default username and password
for the system are:
Role: SuperUser
Username: superuser
Password: superuser
Role: Admin
Username: admin
Password: admin
Enjoy AspxCommerce!