sub domain as main hosted domain?

[theLarry]

Here's today's puzzler.... can we purchase a hosting account and use a sub domain as the main hosted domain? Here's the scenario... we'd like to use subdomain-here.domain-hosted-elsewhere.com as the main hosted domain on a business plan and then host domain-hosted-here1.com and domain-hosted-here2.com and so on underneath it? Yes, we're aware of the DNS dance. We've done this with cpanel, but still getting our head around your platform!

-Thanks guys!

[clivejo]

That should work, add a hosted Domain in the CP. You will have to Host the domain first (just leave it blank and point it where ever you choose to host it) then add a sub-domain (this will add the folders in your File Manager). Then go to the DNS manager and copy the IP address of the server and update your DNS with who ever is managing your domain. Once the DNS rolls out, you should see your site, hosted on your RSP account.

In the Hosted Domain Manager



In the File Manager



If you choose in future to transfer in the domain, you can just click "Transfer" and follow the instructions. Remember to log-in to your account as reseller to get the domain at wholesale price

[theLarry]

That should work, add a hosted subdomain in the CP. Then go to the DNS manager and copy the IP address of the server and update your DNS with who ever is managing your domain. Once the DNS rolls out, you should see your site, hosted on your RSP account.

Thanks clivejo, yes, if its possible here the "how" is pretty straight forward... as we said, trying to learn the specifics of RSP platform. WE LOVE THE FLEXIBILITY so far. You've probably noticed we do a few out of the box stuff. No fun in just being normal.

[clivejo]

Yes, its a big jump from cPanel to Hepsia, for a while you kind of just scratch your head, wondering can it really be that simple!! For me, Hepsia is much, much easier to use and more intuitive. It is a pleasure to offer support for and to use on a daily bases.

If you have the DNS cluster, go to demo.yourdomain.com and log into the demo account. Its nice to be able to play about with it and learn the structure. That is also where I get the screen-shots, I can use "fake" data. I also use it when giving Telephone support as I can walk the customer through the screens

[doneritehosting]

I feel same way of hespia... the file manager is just outright incredibly easy to use.. like managing files on a desktop...... cpanel's file manager reminds me of x-tree gold. some ought to remember that shell for dos on here....

[theLarry]

...reminds me of x-tree gold. some ought to remember that shell for dos on here....

... but will they admit it.. okay I WILL!

[theLarry]

@clivejo - THANKS for the screen shots. You made me realize the obvious.... we can use the actual domainhostedelsewhere as the main hosted domain, NOT point DNS at it here (because its hosted elsewhere. We'll then create the subdomain and point an A record at it here... Duh, so my question really doesn't matter since we could do it either way. We were thinking we would just originally use ONLY the subdomain as the main hosted domain. Either way we're set! WE REALLY APPRECIATE THE "GRAPHIC" EFFORT!

[clivejo]

Yes, the domain is active on the host, but you control the DNS and you point it where ever you want!! Its like mail servers, once you manage the DNS you can point the mail servers where ever you want!!

But with RSP wholesale prices being so competitively priced and the DNS manager being so easy to use, you will over time start moving domains over!! You can actually request that domains be moved into a "Domain Manager Account". For example say you have a customer is interested in coming to you. You can order the domain in a new domain hosting account (free with the domain name). You can then add the domain as hosted in your business account, update the IP host and host from your account. If and when the customer wants to get hosting, they can upgrade their Domain Manager account (or you can by logging in as reseller and paying wholesale) to a hosting account. The only draw back is transferring files. However, RSP new services will probably do this for you. If you tell suppport the names of the two accounts and the domain to be transferred, they will probably do this for you. Just try to be as clear and concise as you can, unfortunately they are not mind readers!

[doneritehosting]

Yup RSP has a jewel in the domain manager... their domains are plenty cheap enough too. If RSP added added 100 - 200mb of email services to it like godaddy....

[theLarry]

Yup RSP has a jewel in the domain manager... their domains are plenty cheap enough too. If RSP added added 100 - 200mb of email services to it like godaddy....

ya know GD stopped their free email with domain several months back? current ones that were active were of course grandfathered in...not happy about losing that.

[clivejo]

If the domain is in a domain manager account and you have a business or enterprise account and the DNS Cluster, you could probably host the email address for them. The email cluster seems to act like one big server accepting mail for all the Hepsia accounts. If you parked the domain in your account then in theory you should be able to offer them an email addresses too. But yes it would be a nice feature to have it so a small email service was provided, maybe if it was just for resellers with DNS Cluster and only pop access with a small 'inbox' limit of 20-100Mb

[theLarry]

...you could probably host the email address for them. The email cluster seems to act like one big server accepting mail for all the Hepsia accounts. If you parked the domain in your account...

...interesting but i don't know if "parking" would work; i would think it would have to be an add-on domain in the account to get access to the email feature, but at that, doesn't all hosting accounts share 2gig across all of their email accounts? ...prettty restrictive?

[doneritehosting]

ya know GD stopped their free email with domain several months back? current ones that were active were of course grandfathered in...not happy about losing that.

didn't know that larry..... hmmmm playing field is getting even more level...... I'm talking of someone hitting a reseller site and ordering a domain... just a domain..... including 100-200mb of email with the domain manager using roundcube..

doesn't all hosting accounts share 2gig across all of their email accounts? ...prettty restrictive?

I've never had problems space wise with email on rsp's shared or vps platform course I'm not lazy and read mine.... delete as necessary. for ppl that want to store arcaic email in the cloud there is the binary storage upgrade for shared hosting or a vps upgrade (probably better)... 2 gig of unread email per domain? lets get realistic.... RSP's platform is fast for a reason....

How many wordpress sites do you think can be hosted on a enterprise account with a 12% cpu quota? (I think thats right for enterprise) General practice... if you are hosting enough domains to exceed 2 gb for mail you need a vps, be it one domain or multiple domains. cpanel reseller accounts are generally limited to 25% cpu quotas and that is my personal experience with justhost and a couple of other prominent companies, for example ask rsp what the cpu quota is on their unlimited resource cpanel reseller plans are... there is one I assure you..... I dont think RSP's quota's are limited for hespia email, rather they dont promise what cannot be delivered.

[theLarry]

OKAY, back on topic for an UPDATE:

Here's what we've done (might be a long post, but the results might be interesting!

Review of our situation: We wanted to use the namespace of one of our enterprise sites here as an alternate "off-site" location. We also wanted to host other enterprise sites here either as a primary or secondary fail-over hosting. We also want all add-on domains covered by a single SSL (self signed) protected entry point. Problem, if A records don't actually point here how to do it?

What we did with main domain: we used one of our enterprise domains as "main hosted domain", we'll call it domain1.com (remember, nothing is here and A record points elsewhere. We then created a subdomain "sub.domain1.com" and edited the default path created by Hepsia to point at root folder of "domain1.com" . Now any request coming in at "sub.domain1.com" hits the root of "domain1.com folder. Now we want to protect this namespace with a self signed SSL for certain calls. We created another subdomain called "secure.domain1.com" and again edited the default path to point to the root folder of domain1.com. We created a self signed SSL for this subdomain and forced ANY call to "secure.domain1.com" to HTTPS through .htaccess magic.

Here's the results so far.... imagine an index.htm file that reports "hello world" in the root of domain1.com. http://[www]domain1.com goes ELSEWHERE. http://sub.domain1.com shows "hello world" from here. http:// OR https://secure.domain1.com also shows "hello world" on HTTPS (forced) from here.

Now to deal with addon domains protected by singe https entry point: So we want to do an add on domain "domain2.com", again officially hosted elsewhere. We created a folder called "domain2" under domain1.com folder in Hepsia.. as in /www/domain1.com/domain2. Now we create the add-on domain domain2.com in Hepsia and manually edited the default location folder to /www/domain1.com/domain2. Still a DNS problem as the A recored for domain2.com points elsewhere. We created another subdomain "sub.domain2.com and edited the default path to domain2 folder as in /www/domain1.com/domain2. So...

Now imagine an index.html file in the folder /www/domain1.com/domain2/ that reports "hello world from domain2". Any call for domain2.com will go to its hosted site ELSEWHERE. Any call for sub.domain2.com will report "hello world from domain2. This allows us to access and edit our domain2.com (or 3, 4, 5... ) HERE.... it gets better!

We wanted single HTTPS entry point for all our domains here (we really like single entry point). Imagine a Joomla! site on domain2.com (okay it could be WordPress) We can access the site here with "sub.domain2.com" BUT we can protect it's /administrator log on by using https://secure.domain1.com/domain2/adminstrator ! (remember above SSL trick above?) See the magic?! (old Cpanel trick applied to RSP Hepsia)

Bottom line: We can get to any of our enterprise secondary sites here via sub domains and can securely access their admin areas by drilling down from the Https:/secure.domain1.com/whatever namespace.

4 more things to consider...

• Clean up... since we're redirecting our add-on domains and subdomains, we went back and deleted the default folders created by Hepsia.
• If you find you cannot "Browse" when trying to edit the domain/subdomain path, just wait 5 - 10 minutes... seems Hepsia sometimes take a bit to propagate internally.
• obviously this takes a small bit of DNS knowlege to point subdomain A recoreds to go where they need to, whether DNS zones are here at RSP or hosted elsewhere (our situation).
• This was done with a Self-Singed SSL, errors are expected until you import the certs to your browser, this is NOT to be used for forward facing https URSL. The good news is it would work with a REAL SSL as well since its protecting a SINGLE NAMESPACE at all times.

Submitted respectfully for anyone that might be interested or have a similar need/application.

WE TAKE PRIDE IN THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX!

[clivejo]

...interesting but i don't know if "parking" would work; i would think it would have to be an add-on domain in the account to get access to the email feature, but at that, doesn't all hosting accounts share 2gig across all of their email accounts? ...prettty restrictive?

Sorry parked is the wrong word, I meant Hosted. Another idea would host or redirect a static "holding page" with links back to your webstore. " xyz.com is registered on behalf of a customer at hostingbrand.com, if you are the customer in question you can access your control panel here login,hostingbrand.com" With your own adverts and the likes on a pretty branded page