This step is required to host your corporate or primary reseller website within your hosting system. You can create your Service domain under either a Unix or Windows plan. We will use Unix in this example.

IMPORTANT: You must setup a "service" domain -- and it should be fully propagated to our servers -- before you change the DNS for any of your client websites, otherwise they will not work fully since they will be using the Service domain as the "DNS zone" on our system. 

1. Select Plan Creation Wizards in the INFO menu:

   

2. Click the Select icon for Unix plan wizard:

   

3. On the fist step of the Unix Plan Creation Wizard, set the plan name to SERVICE PLAN.
   

4. Check the Include boxes next to the resources you would like to use with your site. (Read more about plan resources in "Creating And Editing Plans" from the H-Sphere User Manual).
   

5. Be sure to check Service Domain under the "Domain Types" section.
   

6. Scroll down to the the Settings section and set Billing Type to Without Billing.
   

7. Click the Next button to go to Step 2.
   

8. Complete the wizard by assigning the quotas you want to allow yourself for this account. Create "Service Plan."
   

9. Select Plans in the INFO menu.
   

10. Click the "Access" icon next to your newly created Service Plan.
    

11. Make sure only Admin is checked. This will indicate this plan is "private" and not for customers to sign up to.
    

12. Select Plans in the INFO menu.
    

13. Enable your Service Plan by turning the OFF button to ON. 
    
    Now you are ready to "signup" your domain to your Service Plan.
    

14. Select Signup from the left menu.
    

15. Click Select next to the recently created Service plan. The Service Plan Signup Form appears.
    

16. Create the service account by filling out the signup form. Please observe the following:
    

    • On the signup pages, click the Arrow in the lower right hand corner of the page to continue the signup process.
      

    • When entering your contact/billing information, your e-mail address should be of a different domain from the one you are about to manage with your CP. Otherwise you won't get any setup info.
      

    • At the Payment Information page, select Use my contact information as my billing information.
      

    • When prompted for the type of the domain, select Register a Service domain.
      
      IMPORTANT: The above step must be followed, otherwise you will get an error. Do not select "Other Domain Registration or Transfer" or any other option except "Register A Service Domain" - even if the domain is already registered. This does not register it at the Registrar, only on our system.
      

    • On the next screen you should already see your domain name in the drop-down menu. Select it and hit next.
      

    • Enter a username and password for this account. It should be different from any other login in the system.
      

    • Continue by clicking the right arrow to finish setting up your Service Domain and close the window when prompted.

Now, to access the end user control panel for your newly created service domain, click on "Search" from the left hand menu of your Administrative Control Panel. You can pull the account up by the domain, by the username, or simply hit "search" again on the right hand screen and that will bring up all users.

When you have your Service Account pulled up, click the "Login" icon on the far right hand side of the screen.

You are now in the End User Control Panel. This is the exact same level of control panel your customers will have to manage their domains. (For more detailed information on using the various features included in the End User control panel, see the H-Sphere End User Manual).

Next, you will want to upload your files and create your mailboxes for your domain. It's important that you do those two steps before you update the DNS to ensure no downtime for your site or email while you switch it to our servers.

To upload before your domain name has propagated, you can use the server name as the hostname, ie., "web5.onnetsecure.net," "win3.onnetsecure.net," etc.

In order to determine which server any given domain is on, click on the "FTP" icon in your end user CP and you will see it listed there.

IMPORTANT: there is an 8 character limit for the FTP username, so if you used a username longer than that it would have been truncated to the first 8 characters. This applies to all domains.

Simply connect to the above location via ftp using the username and password you used when you filled out the signup form for your service account.

To setup your mailboxes:

1. Click on the "Email" icon from the Quick Access menu of the End User control panel for your service domain. 
   

2. On the page that displays, click on "Add New Mail Resource" at the bottom of the page. 
   

3. Leave "mailbox" as the selection in the drop down menu and select "Next." 
   

4. Assign a username and password for your mail account and save it. 

That's it! 

Note that you use the same procedure to setup mail forwards, autoresponders, mailing lists, etc. You would just select the appropriate item from the drop-down menu (instead of mailbox) if you wanted to use one of those resources.

Updating Your DNS

Now that you have your files uploaded and email setup for your Service Domain, it's safe to have your Registrar update your nameserver information to point your domain to our servers. You should allow 48-72 hours for the domain to be switched over fully once you submit the request to your Registrar.

Adding Additional Domains To Your Service Account

If you have additional domains that you manage and don't need to provide end user control panels to, you are ready to add them now under your Service Account. 

1. Click on the "Domains" icon under the Quick Access menu of your End User Control Panel.
   

2. Enter the domain name in the appropriate box on this page and "continue" to add the domain.

The newly added domain will now appear in your end user control panel. 

Simply click on the domain name to setup mailboxes and any other features. 

Additional domains will also appear in the root folder when you connect to the service account via ftp. To upload files to the additional domain, simply connect to your service account via ftp and click on the domain name. Then place your content in that directory.

Tip: If you need to give clients ftp access to domains created under your Service account, you can give them their own logins by using the "FTP/User" link in your end user control panel. Click on "add sub-account" and assign them their own username and password for their domain name folder. The relative home directory should be set as:

/theirdomain.com

Now that you've setup your service account and know how to add additional domains, the next step is to configure your system for selling web hosting plans... 

Go to Step 5...