Dotnetnuke 5 User's Guide get your website up and running excerpt 3

The Super User Account

Dnn differs from other CMS systems because it enables you to host multiple websites (portals) out of the same set of files and a single database. this flexibility is what causes the need for Super User and administrator accounts. the super user, or host, account has the ability to create new portals within a dnn instance. this account has access to everything within a dnn instance; it can manage all the content and users of a website, as well as add new extensions. this chapter will cover a majority of the information you need to know about the Super User Account. the important thing to remember is that a Super User can do anything on any portal.

 

The Administrator account

So, if the Super User Account has the ability to manage everything with an instance of dnn, what does an administrator have the rights to do? An administrator account is tied to one portal within a collection of portals in a dnn instance. An administrator can manage all the content and users within a single portal,

As well as utilize the modules installed within that portal, but he or she cannot install modules or skins. the reasoning for this is twofold. first, because a host/Super User Account is set up to be the manager of everything, he or she is likely to be the person who set up and configured the database, the website in IIS, and other hosting-specific information. the host account is generally someone who will be doing the upfront homework of investigating modules and skins before they are installed to ensure that they are from a trusted source. the second reason is that when a module or skin is installed, it can impact all portals in a dnn installation. because modules and skins can, and most likely do, contain computer code that is executed on the server, it is possible for code to be malicious. even if a module or skin is not malicious, changing the functionality that a skin or module provides can easily impact more than just an individual website. for this fact alone, the Super User Account is the account that has the ability to install modules and skins. this is a little different from previous dnn versions. in prior versions of dnn, it was possible to allow administrators to install skins for their portal. because of the potential for code to live in the skins, however, dotnetnuke 5 restricts this to only super user accounts. it is possible for a dnn instance to have multiple Super Users and multiple administrator accounts for a portal. in general, it is recommended that you use the administrator accounts when logging in to a website and managing the content. you shoshould use super user accounts only when you need to access the extended information provided to them. we'll cover some of that Super User information after we talk about logging in to a dnn website.