DotNetNuke Bulk Extension Installation

About two months ago, I responded to a DotNetNuke question on StackOverflow.com with regard to automating the installation of modules within the installation. This is a question that I have seen many times, but with different business requirements and end desires, but the trend is the same, installing extensions one-by-one is an inefficient process, and with a heavily used site can cause performance issues that would impact regular traffic for an extended period of time. This is simply because there is a delay between each install, and with each install and update to the /bin directory the application recycles. Thankfully there is a method built into DotNetNuke that easily allows you to bulk install extensions.

The Setup

The process to prepare for bulk installation is very easy. Within your DotNetNuke installation there is an /Install folder and inside this folder you will find multiple others. Such as /Container, /Skins, /Modules, etc. Simply take your installation package based on the type of extension you want to install and FTP/Copy them to their respective directories. Once they are staged and ready to go, you can then trigger the installation process.

The Installation

Once all extensions have been loaded simply navigate to http://www.yoursite.com/install/install.aspx?mode=installresources and the installation process will start, installing each extension and providing you summary results on success/failure of the installation. It is that easy!

Going to the Next Level?

So, the real question here is what does this allow us to do? Well, that takes me back to the question that I responded to on StackOverflow, knowing this and the way that DNN provided status information it would be easy to automate this process for quick deployment across sites. Chris Tybur the individual with the question on StackOverflow has blogged about this in his article An easy way to update DNN from another app.

Conclusion

I hope that this article has helped shed some light on a little known feature of DotNetNuke and potentially given you some ideas on ways that you can automate and leverage the DotNetNuke framework. Feel free to share comments below, if you have technical questions, please use the forum.

Posted by Mitchel on Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Tags: DotNetNuke, DotNetNuke Administration, DNN Install/Upgrade

Comments

Comments from the following blog entry: DotNetNuke Bulk Extension Installation, located at: http://pimpthisblog.com/DotNetNuke-Bulk-Extension-Installation

By PimpThisBlog.com on Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 9:50 AM

I think there is a problem with that bulk install , on reinstalling the same module.
i tried couple times and didn't succeeded.
i forced to do the manual module installation.

it doesn't do a repair install .
when i'm in the developing process i create package zip file every compilation and send it to the install folder . every time i use "installresources" feature it says "Success" but no change to the module installed -stays the old module and not the new one.

By zahi kramer on Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 9:14 AM

I would review the event log and see if you have an error reported.

What isn't happening with the update?

(Please post to the forum for specific help.)

By mitchel.sellers@gmail.com on Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 9:29 AM

it says green "Success" on the update.
but no change is made.
you can try it yourself.
take some existing installed module, change some .ascx view form on it, repackage it and insall it via "installresources".

By zahi kramer on Saturday, October 17, 2009 at 10:37 PM

Yeah, i have the same issue trying to have an daily automated build to a test server. Is there any way to automate a Repair install to force the install? The only thing i have come up with is to bump up the version number on the module with the automated build so it does an upgrade, but this doesn't work well in our environment.