Configuring Your Installation

Where Do You Begin?

If you're going to master a universe, you have to manifest your superpowers and take some cues from the most famous "in the beginning" of all! Breathe some life into a new user, or, in keeping with the Justice League theme, be a hero and get a sidekick.

The first thing you want to do is create another SuperUser account and then retire the default host account. It's a prudent security measure in any software installation to retire default administrative accounts to thwart dubious hacking efforts. At a minimum, you'll want to change the password for the default host account, although you can delete it entirely.

Note 

Starting with version 3.0, DotNetNuke utilizes a version of Microsoft's ASP.NET 2.0 MemberRole component in the default Membership Provider. One of the many distinct features of this component is the implementation of user lockout. After a specified number of invalid password attempts, a user account will be unable to log in. Although DotNetNuke resets the password lockout after 10 minutes (a default time period that you can modify), the nuisance can be avoided entirely by using a different account and username.

Log in using your new SuperUser account username and password. Notice that you have a top-level Host menu (see Figure 5-1). You'll be getting into the details of each its menu items in this chapter, but right now just select the SuperUsers Accounts menu item.

Figure 5-1

When the SuperUsers Accounts page opens, you'll see a familiar view (see Figure 5-2). The page is literally the same control that is used for managing other users' accounts and works in the same way (if you need a refresher on how this works, consult Chapter 4). It's even titled User Accounts.

Figure 5-2