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Web Hosting Quick Start Guide

From hosting to billing

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In this guide, we walk you through the entire process of setting up your Upmind instance for hosting, including:

  • Creating your Upmind instance
  • Setting up a custom domain
  • Adding a cPanel/WHM server
  • Adding a payment gateway
  • Creating hosting packages

The setup process takes about ten minutes and requires no technical knowledge or server configuration. All you need is a cPanel/WHM account which you can buy from any cPanel web hosting provider.

If you already use WHMCS, we recommend following our import guide instead.

Creating your Upmind instance

First, you need to create your Upmind account.

We ask for a desired organization name. This will usually be the same as your brand name; however, if you plan to use multiple brands under one umbrella use a parent name.

You will have to verify your email address. Once done, your account is live.

Setting up your domain

Upmind will be the client area and order system for your hosting brand. As a hosting company, you will almost certainly want to use your own domain name for the Upmind instance, rather than the [string].upmind.app placeholder that we provide. Let’s sort this out first.

While we could use it for our main frontend website, most users would have the frontend website built on software like WordPress (We have explained how to easily embed features like domain availability checker widgets in a YouTube tutorial). Therefore we want our Upmind instance to run on a subdomain of our domain.

  • Navigate to Settings on the bottom left of the side menu, and then click Domains
  • Click Add Domain
  • Enter your desired URL. Please note this domain should be registered. You can use a subdomain if you like. For this example, we will use https://clients.megahosting.com
  • Toggle on Enable login for clients and Enable login for admins. This will allow users and clients to log in using this URL.
  • Copy the CNAME instruction. You need to set this as a CNAME on your domain.
  • Click Save.

You may need to wait a few minutes for the DNS to update. Once done. you can return to this step and make this domain the default.

In the meantime, you can continue with this guide on your default.[upmind.app] domain.

Email Piping

As we are setting up the domain, we can also quickly configure email piping for support tickets. To do this go to Settings > Support Departments.

You will see that a general department is created. You can either use this or create a new one. In the settings screen, you will see an option to set a forwarding destination. Enter a string here.

You can then forward any emails you want to pipe into this department to that email address.

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Important

The recipient of any email that pipes in should be in your domains list. In our configuration, for example, only emails @clients.megahosting.com are accepted. If you want emails that are sent to @megahosting.com to be accepted then megahosting must be added as a domain.

Key Settings

Finally, before we add a server, we need to fill out our business settings. Go to Settings > Business Settings and add your information there. Of most importance is the Store Currency. This is what we use as your primary currency and, even though Upmind is multi-currency, we tie reporting and conversions to your primary currency. This cannot be changed after you have added the first transaction.

Now we are ready to set up hosting.

Add a cPanel/WHM Server

Upmind supports a number of web hosting server types. We will use a cPanel/WHM server for an example but the process is similar for others.

Data needed from a cPanel/WHM account:

  • Hostname This is usually the server name.
  • Username This is the username you use to log in. If you have root access this would be ‘root’. If you do not have root access then it will be a reseller username e.g. ‘myuser’
  • API Key You can get this in WHM -> API Tokens. Tick ‘Full access’ to give the API token all access rights.

We call servers ‘Provision configurations’ Go to Settings > Provision Configurations.

You need to add the server information here. You should tick ‘Accepting New Accounts’.

The meta configuration is optional and allows for advanced deployment options (e.g. creating hosting accounts on different servers based on what the client orders). Ignore this for now - we will cover this in another guide.

Hit Create and we are done.

Add a payment gateway

You should now add a payment gateway under Settings -> Payment providers. You can add an offline payment gateway by choosing offline or configuring a payment gateway such as PayPal. If you do not yet use a payment gateway, we recommend Stripe.

Creating Hosting Packages

Now we are ready to create hosting packages. We will create one hosting package.

First, you should create this package in your WHM. We will create one called 'starter'.

Now, in Upmind, you need to create a product to sell. Go to Settings > Products & Services. Click Add New. Give the product a name and description.

On the next screen, you need to do the following:

  • On the main product screen, ensure 'is active' and 'is visible to clients' are ticked.
  • Under product billing, set the billing to recurring. Add prices for at least one billing cycle.
  • Under Provisioning, set the Provisioning Blueprint to "Web Hosting" and select 'cPanel' under the Provision Providers.
  • Scroll to the bottom of the page and set the 'Package Identifier' to your package name in WHM - 'starter'.

Save your changes.

You are live

Those are all the needed steps. Your brand is now live. You can visit your shop to try out a purchase.

Next Steps

You may want to explore one of the following next:

Updated 6 months ago