Hosting Setup in WebsitePanel

1. Log into the WebsitePanel portal with the “serveradmin” username. As a reminder, you can access the portal via the IP address you used during the initial setup and installation of the software in chapter 2, using port 9001.

For example, if your IP address is 67.199.116.177, you will access the WebsitePanel portal by visiting “http://67.199.116.177:9001” (without quotations).

2. Under the Account Menu, click “Hosting Plans.”

3. On the Hosting Plans page, click “Create Hosting Plan.”

4. From here, you’ll have the ability to completely customize your hosting plan. Start with providing a “Plan name,” then select “My Server” from the “Target Server” dropdown. *Please note that the hosting plan specifications selected and shown in the screenshots throughout this chapter are only examples, and not necessarily recommended plan configurations. The intention here is guidance only, and to only show you how and where to create your own hosting plans within WebsitePanel.

5. Click the “System” checkbox to configure the system settings for the hosting plan. From here, you’ll need to set the Disk space limit for the plan (or set to unlimited), the bandwidth allocation, number of allowed domains and sub-domains, and more.

6. Click the “Web Sites” checkbox to configure the webspace settings for the hosting plan. In the example below, the option for PHP 5.x and ASP.NET 4.0 are selected. Be sure that you only select supported options for the hosting plans that you actually have installed on the server. If, for example, you select “PHP 5.x” but you do not have PHP installed on the server, you will receive and error later when setting up a customer hosting space with this plan.

7. To provide customers on this plan an FTP account, select the “FTP” checkbox, then specify the number of FTP accounts are allowed under this plan.

8. To include mail accounts with this plan, select the “Mail” checkbox, and then specify the allocations.

9. To include SQL space with this plan, select the “SQL Server 2008” checkbox, and then specify the allocations.

10. To provide customers with the ability to edit their domain’s DNS, click the “DNS” checkbox, then click “Enabled.”

11. To provide stats with this plan, select the “Statistics” checkbox, then specify the number of Statistic Sites allowed.

12. Once you’re done configuring the hosting plan, click “Save.” *Note that you can repeat the above process to create as many different hosting plans that you need.

13. To create a customer account, click “Customers” under the Account Menu.

14. On the Customers page, click “Create Customer.”

15. Provide a User name and Password for your customer’s account, along with their name and email address. Then click “Create.” *Note that your customers will be able to login into their account by visiting your WebsitePanel portal page. Once logged in, they will only have access to their account and hosting space areas.

16. Now that a customer account is created, you’ll have the ability to create a hosting space for them. To do so, click “Create Hosting Space.” *Note that you are able to create more than one hosting space per customer. So, for example, if you have a particular customer with multiple websites under multiple hosting plans, you’ll want to create multiple hosting spaces (each space is associated with a hosting plan).

17. From the “Hosting Plan” dropdown, select the hosting plan for this hosting space.

18. Click the checkbox for “Create Space Resources,” then provide a domain name.

To create a website, click “Create Web Site” checkbox (this will create the site in IIS).

To provide the customer with an FTP account, click the “Create FTP Account” checkbox.

To create a mail account for this customer, click the “Create Catch-All Mail Account” checkbox.

Then click “Create Space.”

19. In the above steps (steps 13 - 18), a domain name and website is created when you first set up a customer’s hosting space. But what if this customer’s hosting plan allows for more than one domain and website? Here’s how to add an additional domain to an existing hosting space.

Go to the Serveradmin account home. If you’re not already there, click the “serveradmin” link to navigate back to it.

20. From the Serveradmin account home, click “Customers” from the Account Menu.

21. Click on the intended customer User Name.

22. Click “Domains” under the hosting space you’ll be adding another domain to. *Note that if the hosting plan associated with this hosting space does not allow for multiple domains, you will encounter an error when trying to add it.

23. Click “Add Domain.”

24. Select “Domain.”

25. Provide a domain name, set the Provisioning Options, and then click “Add Domain.”

26. To add Website Statistics for a domain, be sure that the hosting plan has Website Statistics enabled. If not, you’ll need to edit the hosting plan to allow for it.

Under the Hosting Space Menu, click “Advanced Web Statistics.”

*Note: if you’re not on the Space home level at this point, you can navigate there from the Serveradmin home by clicking “Customers” from the Account Menu > then selecting the appropriate User name > then clicking on the plan name.

27. Then click “Add Statistics Site.”

28. From the Web Site dropdown, select the domain name you wish to add site statistics for.

29. Do not try to modify the “Site ID” field; this will be created for you. Provide a username, password, and customer name for the site stats login.

30. To add additional login users, click “Add User.”

31. Once you’re done, click “Add Site.” This will create the stats account for the domain within SmarterStats.

32. You or your customer will be able to access site statistics from this location, or by logging into the SmarterStats server directly.

33. From the Hosting Space Menu, go to Databases > SQL Server 2008.

34. Next, click the Databases icon > SQL Server 2008.

35. Click “Create Database.”

36 Provide a database name, then click “Save.”

37. Next, you’ll need to create a user to access the database. Click “Create User.”

38. Provide a User name and password. Under the “Databases“ section will be a list of all databases you’ve created. Click the checkbox for the database you would like this user to access, then click “Save.”

39. You’ve now successfully created a hosting plan, a customer account, a hosting space, as well as added domains, website stats, and a SQL database.