Okay, it might be (read: probably is) just me but the documentation for dasBlog is just slightly less than ideal… I usually figure everything out but it's almost always written at such a high level that you really need to know your stuff to get the job done. Apparently I know just barely enough stuff. Thank goodness. I guess this post could also be called, "Upgrading dasBlog for Dummies".

In my case I upgraded dasBlog from 2.0 to 2.3 but these instructions would probably work for just about any version upgrade. Why upgrade? 2.2 had the features I really wanted (OpenID, fixed Daylight Saving bug, enable anti-spam, etc.) and I just got the latest version available.

This post assumes that you have console or at least RDP access to your server, that you are a member of the local Administrators group on your server and that your server is running Windows Server 2003 and that IIS 6 is your web server.

So I tried to follow the upgrade instructions and failed. When I would load my blog the version was not being displayed correctly so something about the engine was not right. I thought about it for a bit and then realized that dasBlog is really compartmentalized in that the content is quite separate from all the other stuff so I figured I could try to perform a 'fresh' install and then just dump my content in this. It worked!

Okay, let's get to the nuts and bolts.

1) BACKUP YOUR SHIT. It goes without saying, right? Of course not so I'll say it here. In my case I backed up/copied the entire dasblogce directory but if that is prohibitive you can get away with just the following things.

• The entire content directory.
• The entire SiteConfig directory.
• The directory containing any custom theme you might be using. If you are using a stock theme you can forget about this step.

I would also recommend taking a screen shot of your configuration.

Once you are sure you have all that stuff in a safe place you can blow away everything in the dasblogce directory on your server.

2) Now download the dasBlog 2.3 web files.

In the upgrade instructions it tells you to run the DasBlogUpgrader.exe script against your content but it's assumed that this script is packaged with the Web Files download and as of this post it still isn't. Luckily I found it and you can download it here.

3) Now open a Command Prompt and navigate to the directory where you have the DasBlogUpgrader.exe script and run it against your content like so:

If you are not sure what to do it's fine to answer Y to all the questions. That's what I did.

4) Next you want to upload everything. Put the entire contents of the 2.3 dasblogce directory in the dasblogce directory on your server.

Then put all of your upgraded content in the content directory on your server.

ASIDE - I use Windows Live Writer to post most of the time and all of that is saved in the content folder so if you back up all of it you are good to go.

If you were using a custom theme you will need to upload this to the themes directory.

5) Correct permissions are critical to allow dasBlog to run. You need to give the NETWORK SERVICE account the Modify permission on your content, logs and SiteConfig directory.

6) Lastly you need to configure your blog. In the SiteConfig directory you want to edit site.config. Just edit all the recommended values near the top, it should all be really easy and obvious stuff. If you are using a custom theme this is where you will need to specify the name.

You also want to edit the siteSecurity.config file in the same directory. This is where you add your account as an admin and the accounts of anyone else that needs the ability to post to your blog. If it's just you, simply edit the only admin entry and you're done.

7) If you had customized your blogroll or links you can quickly and easily restore them simply by copying the appropriate .opml file and navigatorLinks.xml file up to your SiteConfig directory.

8) Load your blog in a browser, log in and check all the configuration entries. Here is where you can enable OpenID, email, anti-spam, etc.

Done!

Someone is no doubt going to read this and go, "What a retarded way to upgrade dasBlog…" What can I say, it works and this way I know I'm running the latest engine with all the features and fixes and patches for sure.

I've done this a few times now but I wanted to write it all down so that I would have a reference guide. There are instructions available on the dasBlog web site but I think mine are a little more complete.

To level the playing field I need to make some assumptions. I'm assuming that you are performing a clean/fresh install of dasBlog 2.0 on a Windows Server 2003 computer running IIS 6 and that IIS is setup in the default mode and not in Isolation Mode. It's also assumed that you have the .NET framework 2.0 installed on the server and that you have enabled ASP.NET 2.0 for the site you want to use dasBlog in. Also, I prefer NOT to run the 'automatic' VBS script and to do the install manually. Lastly, it's assumed that you already have a web site configured with a unique host header and that you want this blog to be located at mysite.com/blog. Here goes.

• Download the latest version of dasBlog from here:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=127624

• Unzip the files to any directory and then copy the dasblogce folder to the root of your site.
• Give the NETWORK SERVICE account the Modify permission on the content, siteconfig, and logs subdirectories of dasblogce.
• Go to the SiteConfig directory in dasblogce and open the site.config file. In that file you will need to change some settings. The most important change is to set the <Root> value to the proper URL for your weblog so per my example here you would change it to http://www.mysite.com/blog/. If you are experienced enough to add another host header to your site and you control DNS for your domain then you can make this anything you like. You can also change the <NotificationEMailAddress> to your email address, the <Title> to whatever you want the title of your blog to be, the <Contact> to your email address and the <Copyright> to your name.
• Open Internet Information Services Manager and create a virtual directory called "blog" for your site. Point it to the dasblogce directory. Make sure the permission are Read and Run scripts. Now go to the properties of this virtual directory and add the default document "default.aspx" and move it to the top of the list.
• Open siteSecurity.config in the same directory and set up your own account with a proper password. You will want to edit the first <User> that has the role of admin. Change <Name> to whatever you want your login name to be, change <Password> to whatever you want your password to be, change <DisplayName> to your name and change <EmailAddress> to your email address.
• Now fire up a browser and go to your blog. The first visit will take a couple of seconds but it will load after it performs the initial configuration.

The rest is all customization. The first thing you will want to do is pick a theme. If you find one you love, great! Or you can find one that is close and customize it. More on that later.

I wanted to add some additional Blogrolls on the home page of our blog and I wanted to be able to name them whatever I wanted. After poking around I found that you can edit this file here:

dasblogce\themes\your_theme\homeTemplate.blogtemplate

All I had to do was this.

• log in to our blog
• under Blogroll, create a new OPML file (called "martin" in my case)
• add an entry to this new file
• in the homeTemplate.blogtemplate file in our theme I added this code:

• save the file

Now, when I refresh my blog home page I can see my Blogroll on the side. In my case I also commented out the original Blogroll entry to hide that.