DotNetNuke Info: The difference between Parent and Child portals

So, in training classes I always get the question “What is the difference between parent and child portals?” Well, the Professional DotNetNuke 4 book defines the two pretty well, but me being a programmer and lazy, I wanted to come up with a more simple description.

Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Parent portals require configuration in IIS, either though the configuration of a virtual directory, or a website. Child portals will create a directory in the root of your DNN website, placing a default.aspx file in the directory, and then handling URL requests through the URL handler.

A tad more info, child portals will reside within (under) whatever domain you’ve created the child portal. Parent portals can exist in their own domain, or as a subdomain of another domain, or as a directory (virtual) under another website/domain.

Do you have DotNetNuke questions? Email them to me at [email protected] with the subject of “DotNetNuke Tips and Tricks Questions” and I will try to post questions and answers here on my blog.