Reseller Webhosting

The reseller Webhosting from netcup offers you the possibility to sell our high-quality cloud Webhosting to your customers. You have extensive configuration options via the Plesk interface. The following instructions will show you how you can use your new cloud Webhosting product optimally.

Overview and login

You can access your reseller Webhosting plan via your CCP or directly via the URL sent to you by email during the order process. You can also view this in the CCP and pass it on to your customers, for example. Please log in to your CCP, click "Products" on the left and then click the magnifying glass in front of the reseller Webhosting plan.

Using the "Auto Login" button, you can log in to the Plesk interface without entering a password. Alternatively, you can click "Change Password" to set a password for your reseller access so that you can log in directly to the plan via the displayed URL without detour via the CCP.

Permissions Structure

User roles

You are logged in as a reseller in the Plesk interface. Plesk has a multi-level user role concept, with each user role being able to exist multiple times and receiving its own access data:

• Administrators: Administrators have the highest rights in the user interface. For reseller Webhosting, netcup is the only administrator.
• Resellers: Resellers can create customers and thus offer hosting subscriptions. For netcup reseller hosting, you are the reseller yourself.
• Customers: Customers can only access their own subscriptions. Customers represent the lowest user role in Plesk.

Subscriptions

Subscriptions are the plans/Webhosting packages booked by your customers.

Service packages

Service packages represent your plans: In a service package you define the services that customers should have available in subscriptions, i.e. a booked plan. A subscription is therefore assigned a service package that defines the services included in the subscription.

Planning

It is important that you plan well before creating the service packages. First, you must not exceed the plan limits of your netcup reseller plan with a service package. Otherwise, you will receive errors later when creating and assigning subscriptions to the respective service package. You must also consider that all subscriptions together should not exceed the plan limits. Therefore, your service plans must be designed so that you can assign them to your planned number of subscriptions without exceeding the netcup plan limits.

Changing roles

As a reseller, you can always switch to your customers' view. To do this, click either "Log in as customer" under "Customers" next to the desired customer. You can also click "Manage in customer panel" next to the created subscription or domain under "Subscriptions" or "Domains". This will then show you this from the customer's perspective. To switch back to the reseller account, click "Return to Administrator" at the top right.

Summary

Resellers have customers. Customers in turn have subscriptions that contain their domains. These subscriptions have a service package as a template that defines which services the respective subscription includes. Of course, there are exceptions to this. For example, resellers can also have subscriptions directly. Basically, however, the described structure is the usual one.

My first Webhosting customer

In the following parts of the instructions, we will go into detail about the individual options that the Plesk interface offers you for managing your customers, service packages and subscriptions. This section, on the other hand, is intended to show in a simplified manner how you can get started quickly: How do you create your first customer, your first service package and your first subscription?

Create customer

Click "Customers" on the left and then "Add Customer". In the first part of the form under "Contact Details", enter the customer's contact details. The required fields are marked with an "*".

Under "Access to Plesk" you define the access data for the customer. This allows the customer to log in to the Plesk interface independently.

If you wish, you can create a subscription immediately. We will deactivate this option as part of these instructions in order to explain the individual steps, including creating subscriptions and service packages, in more detail. Remove the checkmark next to "Create subscription for customer". Click "OK" to create your first customer.

Create service package

To create a service package, click "Service Packages" on the left and then "Add Package". Creating a service package is a process that provides you with a wide range of configuration options. For information on the resources and permissions that can be set, we recommend consulting the Plesk manual.

Please note that you should not exceed the plan limits of your reseller plan in a service package. If you do, you will receive a corresponding message when creating subscriptions. The subscription values will then be set to the maximum allowed and the subscription will not be synchronized with the service plan.

Don't forget to give your service package a suitable name (e.g. the name of your plan) in addition to "Service Package Name" and then save it with a click on "OK".

Create subscription

Your created customer should now receive a subscription based on the plan services defined in the service package, in which they can host their content. To do this, first click "Customers" on the left, then the customer's name and then the "Subscriptions" tab. Then select "Add Subscription".

First you have to specify the main domain of the subscription. This is the domain that is first stored in the subscription. Each subscription requires a domain.

Each reseller plan includes one IPv4 address. This should be selected next to "IPv4 Address". For IPv6, on the other hand, you have your own address available for each customer. Here you can select an address of your choice. If you select "No specification", the subscription will not be reachable via IPv6.

Enter the data for the system user of the subscription under "Username" and "Password". This can connect to the Webhosting server via FTP, for example, to transfer files. Next to "Service Package" now select the previously created plan.

You now have the option to select the option "Continue adjusting the subscription parameters after creation. Please note that this will lock the subscription for synchronization.". This allows you to individually adjust the settings from the service package after creating the subscription. However, synchronization between the service package and subscription is stopped. So if you make changes to the service package later, they will not be applied to the modified subscription. We therefore advise against selecting this option.

You can now choose whether you want to receive a free "Let's Encrypt" certificate for the domain or use Git. Then you can create the subscription by clicking "OK".
You may now receive the message "Synchronization failed". This happens if the underlying service package has set limit values that exceed the limits of your netcup reseller plan. Plesk will then set the maximum allowed values for the subscription. However, the subscription will not be synchronized with the service package. In this case, make a note of the values shown in the message, proceed with "OK", go to the created service package and set the plan-compliant limit values there. Please note that the values apply to each assigned subscription, which means you must plan so that you do not exceed the limits of your plan in total (with all subscriptions).

You can then restart synchronization with the service package under "Subscriptions" -> click on the subscription -> "Synchronization" (bottom right in the "Account" box).

DNS records

What DNS records should the customer now configure for their domains in the subscription? We recommend checking the domain directly to see what IP addresses are being used. The IP addresses are displayed in the Webhosting Control Panel (WCP) at the bottom of the dashboard next to the domain.

Example DNS records could be as follows:

Web server

Mail server

Web and mail server

Note that the records will only work as intended if the default DNS settings are used and emails are sent exclusively via the product's mail server. Emails sent via alternative methods such as the web server (e.g. phpmail or sendmail) or an external mail server are excluded and not valid.

Hosting services

Customers

Under "Customers" you can create users with the user role "Customer", change their status or remove them.
By clicking on a created customer in the list, you will receive an overview of the associated domains and subscriptions and can directly add new elements for this customer. In the box on the right, you can change the customer's status, change their login details or remove the customer. You can also switch to the customer view directly from this view by clicking "Log in as customer".

Add customer

By clicking "Add Customer" you can create a new customer in Plesk. If desired, a subscription can be created at the same time and assigned to the customer.

Change status

Here you can block or activate selected customers. By blocking, the customer will no longer be able to log in to the Plesk user interface. The customer's subscriptions will also be blocked. Websites and emails will then not be reachable.

Remove

With "Remove" you can remove the selected customers. This will also delete the assigned subscriptions. Thus, deleting a customer will completely delete all associated subscriptions, websites, email addresses and databases.

Domains

Under "Domains" you will find an overview of all domains created in your reseller hosting, regardless of which subscription they are created in.

Click on a domain in the list to display it in the Plesk panel. You can then change settings on it. Please note that the domain is displayed to you with the rights of your reseller account and you can therefore make more changes than your customer may be allowed according to the service package. If you want to view the domain from the customer's perspective and possibly make changes, click "Manage in customer panel".

Add domain

Here you can add a new domain. You can directly assign this to a subscription or alternatively to a customer.

Add subdomain

With subdomain you can add a subdomain to an existing domain.

Add domain alias

Domain aliases are domains that point to an existing domain and its content. It is therefore possible to create a domain that has the same content as another domain.

Change status

Here you can block, deactivate or reactivate a domain. When deactivated, the page is completely blocked and no longer reachable (exception: via FTP clients and the File Manager). Visitors see the default page of the Webhosting. The email service is also not available in this case. When blocked, the website will not be reachable and visitors will be redirected to the error page defined by the user with the HTTP error code 503. The email service remains available.

Remove

By clicking the "Remove" button, you can delete a domain completely. Caution: This will irrevocably remove all data for the domain, including content on the web space, email addresses, associated applications and databases, etc.

Subscriptions

The "Subscriptions" area allows you to add subscriptions, change the service package of a subscription, change the subscriber, i.e. the customer to whom the subscription is assigned, as well as change subscription status or remove subscriptions.

By clicking on a created subscription in the list, you will go to the administration of the subscription in Plesk. Please note that you are actively working with reseller rights, so you can make more changes than the customer may be able to according to the applied service package. Alternatively, you can also view and manage the subscription like a customer by clicking "Manage in customer panel" in the list.

As a reseller, you have the option to change the package / add-ons or adjust the subscription independently of the service package in the "Account" box on the right in the subscription.

Add subscription

Here you can add a subscription. A subscription always has a main domain name, which you specify here. Furthermore, depending on the assigned service package or granted permissions, it is possible to add additional domains later.

As username and password, enter the access data for the subscription here, i.e. the data to access the hosting via FTP (and possibly SSH if activated later).

You can also select the service plan and (if created) add-ons to be assigned to the subscription.

Change package

With "Change Package" you can assign a new service package or add or remove add-ons to the selected subscription.

Change subscriber

This function can be used to transfer ownership of the subscription to another customer.

Change status

You can block or reactivate a subscription here. When the subscription is blocked, the included websites and email addresses will not be reachable or usable.

Remove

This will irrevocably delete a subscription including all content.

Service packages

Under "Service Packages" you can create, clone and remove service packages, as well as add so-called "add-ons" which can extend existing service packages with services.

By clicking on an existing service package in the list, you can edit it. If possible, the existing subscriptions will be synchronized with the changes.

Add package

With "Add Package" you can create a new service package and configure the intended services and permissions. For information on the resources and permissions that can be set, we recommend consulting the Plesk manual.

Clone package

The "Clone Package" function allows you to clone an existing service package. This is particularly useful if you only want to adjust some settings from an existing package.

Add add-on

Add-ons represent individual extensions of a service plan. The correct use of an add-on is best described using an example:

For example, if you have a customer with a subscription that allows five additional FTP users according to the service package, and the user actually needs ten, you basically have the following options:

• You add five more FTP users to the entire service package (and thus to all subscriptions based on it)
• You manually modify the customer's subscription with your reseller rights in the customer panel, in which case the subscription will no longer be synchronized with the associated service package, which is usually not the desired state
• You add the five FTP users as an add-on. The user then always has five more FTP users than allowed in the subscription, as long as the add-on is assigned to them.

The latter option is implemented with an add-on. Via the "Add Add-on" button you can define such an add-on.

Remove

With the "Remove" button you can remove created