There are basically three ways to deploy your ASP.NET or any other application to HostingFest servers; they support FTP, Microsoft FrontPage & Microsoft WebDeploy. There is a fourth way too which is using the file manager available in the control panel but let’s just ignore it because you will probably not use it if your application is larger than 3-4 static pages. It has to be kept in mind that Microsoft FrontPage is only available on their Windows 2003 servers while Microsoft WebDeploy is only available on their Windows 2008 servers. If you do not know what kind of server you have then it is best to ask their support and they will be happy to help you as I have found out in my dealing with them.
The FTP service on HostingFest’s servers can be used like any other FTP service; you need to have an ftp client on your PC. I recommend FileZilla, it’s free and fast and works very well. You also need to know the host that you will connect to; so that you can upload your files. You can generally use ftp.yourdomain.com(yourdomain.com should be replace with your actual domain) on HostingFest servers. You also need a username/password. You can create a username/password in their control panel. If you are on Windows 2003 you will login into HELM to create the username/password and if on Windows 2008 you will do the same using WebSitePanel control panel.
Once you have all of the above information you can connect and upload your application. On Windows 2003 servers you will upload everything inside the wwwroot folder which should show up when you login using ftp. On Windows 2008 after you have logged in using ftp your will see the list of your domain names as folders in the ftp window. You have to first go into the folder of the domain name on which you want to upload your application and then you will see the wwwroot folder now you can upload everything inside that folder. You will also see some other folders on both Windows 2003 & Windows 2008. The logs folder contains the visitor’s log of your website while the db folder is where you will place any MS Access or SQL Compact databases that your site may need.
FrontPage is only available on Windows 2003. To use FrontPage you will have to first login into HELM and activate it on the domain on which you want to use it. You will also have to create the username/password that you will use to connect and upload your application. Remember the username will be automatically generated for you; you will only need to create the password. Once done you can use Microsoft Expression or Microsoft FrontPage to connect using FrontPage. For the hostname use your domain name.
Just like FrontPage if you want to use Microsoft WebDeploy(Remember it is only on their Windows 2008 servers) you have to activate it first in your control panel. In the case of their Windows 2008 offering the control panel is WebSitePanel. Login into WebSitePanel, navigate to your Website in WebSitePanel and then in the extensions enable it. You will also have to create a username/password from the same page after activating it. After that is done you can connect and upload your application using Microsoft WebMatrix or Visual Studio. The hostname that you will connect to is the domain name on which you are uploading your application.
I hope this article has helped you in deploying applications on HostingFest’s servers. Good Luck.