Changing the primary domain

[fkatzenb]

Is this even possible?

I am turning my hobby into a business and realized that my original website and scheme just isn't conducive to my business goals.

It wouldn't be a problem, however all e-mail sent from the server is sent from that domain, so it needs to be working and have text, etc.

Suggestions?

Thanks,
Frank

 

[Miraenda]

If you do not administer the machine itself, you will need to contact your provider to ask them to do this for you. It can be done easily for someone with administrative access to WHM by logging into WHM > Modify an Account and then changing the domain name there. This will automatically update the domain for your /home/user/public_html location to the new domain name and set the DNS entries for it.

Of note, your new domain cannot already be parked or an addon domain on the account. If it is, please remove it so it can be changed to the primary domain.

For the old domain, if you will still be using email with it or need it for any reason to still work on the account, you can park that domain or put it as an addon domain after it has been removed as the primary domain. This will then allow you to have any email with it that you need.

 

[fkatzenb]

I run the cPanel server. By primary domain, I mean the domain to which cPanel was configured with upon install.

I used to run a Plesk server and I know with at least the version I owned, that you could not change the primary domain.

I kind of appears that you can with cPanel, but it is massive and I know that there maybe some tricks here and there that I will need to know about.

 

[Miraenda]

If you mean the server's hostname rather than a primary domain for the account, it can be changed in WHM > Change Hostname area, which will also update it in WHM > cPanel/WHM Basic Setup area.

After changing the hostname in WHM > Change Hostname area, you would also need to update the service SSLs in WHM > Manage Service SSL Certificates area to the new hostname.

Using Change Hostname area in WHM will update /etc/hosts and any other locations your system has the hostname set along with adding an A record for the new hostname (if you follow the prompt to add the A record).

If you also needed to change the nameservers for the machine, then you can change those in WHM > cPanel/WHM Basic Setup area at the bottom.

If this is not what you meant but the main account you use on the machine for a primary domain, the prior post I made covers changing the primary domain on any account.

Please note that it doesn't matter if that domain was the one used for the hostname and nameservers, if you need to add a new primary for an account that is used for the hostname and nameservers, you would first change the domain using WHM > Modify an Account area to change the domain on the account that has the old domain, then you'd change the hostname to go with that new domain in Change Hostname area, then you'd change the nameservers to go with that new domain in cPanel/WHM Basic Setup area.