Increasing the timeouts for a DNN website

I found this online (here), and thought I'd jot down the important pieces for myself any anyone else who might run across this. There are several places you can adjust timeouts for websites in general, let alone a DotNetNuke CMS-based site. Here's a walkthrough:

• increase session time-out for the webserver
  
  
  • Open the properties for your DNN site in your IIS manager
  • Go to the tab "Home Directory"
  • Click the button "Configuration" in the lower section of the screen
    (You now have a window named "Application Configuration")
  • Go to the tab "Options"
  • Make sure "Enable session state" is enabled, and increase the value. Personally I prefer 60 minutes.
• Enable content expiration for the webserver (so nobody screws up their data using the back/foreward buttons in their browser)
  
  
  • Open the properties for your DNN site in your IIS manager
  • Go to the tab "HTTP Headers"
  • Make sure "Enable content expiration" is enabled and set your desired expire-time. Personally I prefer immediate expiration.
• Increase the session time-out for your DNN portal
  
  • Log in as Host
  • Go to the Host/provider configuratino page
  • Open the "Advanced" section
  • Increase the number of minutes users can be online without interaction
  • Save the setting
• Adjust the forms timeout for .NET web applications on your site
  
  • Open your web.config file
  • find the forms tag
  • Set the timeout value to whatever you like. The new default value for DNN is 60, but in older files (or sites where someone messed with the value) it might be lower. I prefer timeout="60" which also matches the above.
• Cycle/restart your IIS server

Recreating Exchange 2003 Virtual Directories for Outlook Web Access

Found this on the web and it worked perfectly. I knew everything about restarting the system attendent, but I had to remove my default website and recreate a blank one, so it had a different "ID" than the original one, which is where the kicker was. I'll put that part here first, although you need the IIS Resource Kit described in the steps below it to get to the Metabase Explorer.

I immediately had to wonder how the System Attendant service knew what my default website is.. or was. How does IIS flag the ‘ default website’ ?

A rummage though the IIS metabase basicly shows that under the W3SVC node, the site with ID 1, is the Dafault Website. I made a new site, which got a unique identifier, and just renamed it to 1 in the metabase. 5 minutes later the System Attendent service had rebuild my Exchange virtual folders! Woohoo!


a. Download and install the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools. To obtain the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=56FC92EE-A71A-4C73-B628-ADE 629C89499&displaylang=en
If you do not want to install all the IIS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools, click the Custom installation option to install only Metabase Explorer 1.6.

b. Start IIS Manager.

c. Back up the metabase. To do this, right-click Default Web Site, click All Tasks, and then click Save Configuration to a File. Type a filename for the file and click OK.

d. Expand Default Web Site, and then delete the following virtual directories:
• Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync
• OMA
• Exadmin
• Exchange
• Public
• ExchWeb

e. Start Metabase Explorer. To do this, click Start, point to All Programs, point to IIS Resources, point to Metabase Explorer, and then click Metabase Explorer.

f. Expand the LM key, right-click the DS2MB key, and then click Delete.

g. Close Metabase Explorer.

h. Restart the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service to re-create the virtual directories in IIS.

Note If the virtual directories are not re-created after 15 minutes, restart the server.

i. In IIS Manager, expand Default Web Site, right-click Exchweb, and then click Properties.

j. Click the Directory Security tab, and then click Edit under Authentication and access control.

k. Verify that only the Enable anonymous access check box is selected.

l. Right-click Default Web Site, and then click Stop.

m. Right-click Default Web Site, and then click Start.