How to: Host a Blog on Windows Home Server With Graffiti

We Got Served loves blogs. In fact, not only do we love reading blogs, I guess we love writing a blog too! Given the traffic we receive here at WGS, it would be really difficult for us to host WGS on a home server – our internet connection simply wouldn’t be up to the job! But Windows Home Server is actually able to host a blog, and if you’re a WHS owner who’s always wanted to have their own blog, today might just be the day to start one up.

Here’s how to host a kick-ass blog on your Windows Home Server, courtesy of WGS reader, jstueve. You’ll find a copy of this tutorial of at the WGS Wiki which is packed full if tips, tricks and how tos on making the most of your home server.

Introduction

Graffiti CMS is a ASP.Net script developed by Telligent. Several editions are available for a price, however Telligent provides an Express Edition with the following limitations:

The Express Edition of Graffiti is free and for non-commercial use only. It’s limited to 3 content publishers, has limited support availability, and disables some of the commercial capabilities. The Express Edition also requires displaying a “Powered by Graffiti” image on all pages.

The Express Edition provides all you need to setup a blog served from your WHS. It doesn’t require installing PHP/MySQL or other installations. The default installation will use a simple file based database (VistaDB) but can also use an Microsoft Access database, or Microsoft SQL Server backend. This tutorial will cover a basic installation using the included sample VistaDB database.

What you will need

• WHS Console
• Whiist Add-in
• Remote Desktop Connection (RDC) or Advanced Admin Console (AAC)
• Graffiti CMS Express Edition

What to Do

Install Graffiti

1. Create a Website using Whiist (enable Allow site to run ASP Applications in the default options section). I’ve used blog as the alias for this tutorial.
2. Extract the Graffiti files. Copy the GraffitiWeb directory contents to your new Whiist directory.
3. Optional: Read the Getting Started section at the Graffiti CMS website. This tutorial provides a walk-through based on the information on their website.

 Set-up Permissions for the website

1. Using RDC or the AAC navigate to the folder whiist created and that now contains the files you’ve extracted. Right-click the folder and select Properties.
2. Select the Security tab, and click Add.
3. Enter Network in the Enter the object names to select, click Check Names.
4. Select ComputerNameNetwork Services.
5. With the new user selected, click Modify in the Permission box in the lower half of the Properties dialog.
6. Click Apply, then OK.

 Set-up Database Access

The Graffiti CMS files includes a sample database (Graffiti.vdb3) and a blank database (Graffiti_Sample.vdb3) in the App_data directory of the distribution. I recommend copying these files to a directory in a non-pooled drive (either on the C: drive, or another added drive that isn’t added to the pool) or directory outside of the D:shares directory.

The following steps will setup the database access, you’ll have to replace the text ‘|Data Directory|’ with the location of your database files. For this tutorial I’ll use C:Graffiti as the location of the data files. Setting up SQL Server access is beyond the scope of this tutorial.

Access the shared folder and find the file ‘Web.config’, near the top find the following section:

<add name=”Graffiti” connectionString=”Data Source=|DATADIRECTORY|Graffiti_Sample.vdb3″ />

Make the following change to the last line

<add name=”Graffiti” connectionString=”Data Source=C:GraffitiGraffiti_Sample.vdb3″ />

Make note or change the admin user password by finding this line in Web.config

key=”Graffiti:User:DefaultPassword” value=[password]“

Follow the following steps to give IIS and Network Services modify access to the database.

1. Using RDC or the AAC navigate to the c:Graffiti folder. Right-click the folder and select Properties.
2. Select the Security tab, and click Add.
3. Enter Network in the Enter the object names to select, click Check Names.
4. Select ComputerNameNetwork Services.
5. With the new user selected, click Modify in the Permission box in the lower half of the Properties dialog.
6. Click Apply, then OK.

 You’re Done

Access your blog by going to the following address: http://yourserver.homeserver.com/blog

Access the Administration page using the following address: http://yourserver.homeserver.com/blog/graffiti-admin/

Use the password in the Web.config file for initial access.

More Info: WGS Wiki