New user .. Doubt on migration/setup

[srikanth_doss]

Hi,
We have a set of servers and have existing users and all the details are present in our databases. We have our own web admin pages/ web hosting admin pages. Is is possible to migrate to cpanel all the existing users. Also what setup of servers is needed for the new members. Where will the data of the members and the other details of the sites be stored? We have a few technical questions as well and it needs to be clarified before and any decision is made.

Few more general doubts.
- What all databases cpanel/whm support ? By databases i dont mean the DB that the end users(Web admins) use. I mean the DB that is used to store the signup related details.
- How will the existing members and their details be migrated. We have them in our own format in DB. How will WHM understand it?

~Srikanth Doss

 

[Infopro]

Greetings, this link should help by providing you the basic prerequisites for migration to cPanel:
cPanel Migration Services - cPanel Inc.

 

[srikanth_doss]

Few more doubts/questions

- To integrate cPanel with my existing system I will need to interact with the already existing email system. I want to use my existing email system. Is it possible ? If so using what feature of WHM ?

- How does Cpanel handle the domain registrations. I have 2 registrars and I will like to contact them for registrations.

- If I have to provide a end user signup page. Do I have to develop the page? Does cPanel provide those things too?

- For the shopping cart, what are the options for payment that are present in cPanel? In the current system the different features for processing are Authorize.NET/Propay/Manual CC processing. Does CPanel or the addons in cPanel provide all these functionalities?

- I dont see anything discussion about billing. Does cPanel have any integrated billing software ? Suppose if I am using "freeside" as the existing billing software. Can I easily integrate with cPanel?

~Srikanth Doss

 

[JaredR.]

cPanel comes with, and only uses, Exim as its mail transport agent (MTA). There is no provision provided or supported to make cPanel use any MTA other than Exim handle your mail. There is also no provision for it to interface with an existing mail server.

cPanel does not contain anything dealing with domain registrations. Simply register a domain at the registrar of your choice, and make its authoritative nameserver records point to the nameservers you run on your cPanel server. There is no provision in cPanel for interacting with a domain registrar.

You will need to develop your own user sign-up page. cPanel does provide an API that you can use for your custom application, but you will need to do the development yourself. Documentation for our API is available here:

cPanel & WHM's SDK

There is no shopping cart system in cPanel, except for the capabilities in some site software that cPanel can install for you. Please see the following sections of our documentation:

Install cPAddons
Site Software

Some of the site software (a list is provided in the first link) has shopping cart capabilities, but remember that these are third-party applications. cPanel only provides an installer for these applications, and our scope of support is limited only to making sure that the installer installs the applications as expected.

You are free to install any site software that you wish, but you will need to consult the documentation for that software or ask its developer for assistance. Our scope of support does not cover installing third-party software that is not included in cPanel.

There is no billing system included in cPanel. There are some third-party applications that can add this functionality, but they do not come with cPanel by default.

You may want to look at our Application Catalog to see some of the third-party software that is available that can add capabilities to cPanel that it does not have by default.

Application Catalog

 

[Brian]

[1] You can use "WHM -> Edit MX Entry" or "cPanel -> MX Entry" to modify your MX record and signify if the domain's mail is hosted by cPanel/WHM or by a 3rd party's external mail server. That would be the extent of your choices. It would *not* be possible to utilize a custom/different mail system *on* the cPanel/WHM itself. At least, it would not be supported or sanctioned in any way. You basically have two choices:

[A] Utilize the cPanel/WHM server for mail. SMTP -> Exim; POP3/IMAP -> Dovecot (or Courier)
-or-
Point your domains' MX Records to external mail servers that would be independent from cPanel/WHM in every way. They would need to be separately maintained from cPanel/WHM by yourself.

[2] cPanel/WHM does not integrate in anyway with Domain Registrars. The features you're looking for would be a 3rd party custom program. Billing software is often used by cPanel/WHM owners to handle domain registrations, billing, etc.

[3 & 4] The answer here is similar to above. cPanel/WHM is strictly a hosting platform. It is not in any way capable of dealing with billing items. You'd want to explore a 3rd party billing software package to do this for you.

For items 2, 3, & 4 your best bet is to check out our application catalog:

Application Catalog

Specifically, the billing software section:

Billing Automation « Application Catalog

You should be able to find plenty of software packages there which offer everything you're looking for with Items 2, 3, & 4.

 

[srikanth_doss]

Thanks for the quick response people. Cpanel community is good.
Actually for the mail server, ability to change the MX will do.
I went through the list of API's, hook's and the various other modules, but have'nt covered it fully yet.

So here is the list of things that needs to verified. Can you please let me know if this is possible with the list of API's.

Basically we dont want to be using the WHM once the entire setup is done, all should be automated.

The setup is like below.

-> A signup page with the list of TLD/sub domains for the signup customized to the particular reseller(hitting the reseller's domain or some sub-domain should go to the signup page).
-> After the signup it should automatically create the account for the user under the reseller.
-> Change the MX records to point to different server automatically(or add a CNAME).
-> Proceed to billing , billing tool to be used is freeside. So definitely CPanel API's will need to speak to freeside regarding the package/other stuffs.

Also no where I could get information as to how the data is organised for the site. I mean like once the user signup for a site, will a separate /home/[user]/ will be created?
How will that be scalable? If I have several file system and I want to rotate the user's base directory across all file system's, will that be possible with WHM or rather using WHM API's?

For the web site's cgi scripts, what are the limits that are provided? I mean within the jail what are the restrictions that are configurable?

Some I've listed below.
- No. of file the process can open at any time.
- Max execution time.
- Maximum CPU cycles that a process can use.
- Control of fork bomb.

I want to know if these are possible using the various API's provided by WHM/Cpanel.

~Srikanth Doss

 

[srikanth_doss]

Hi,
Could anyone please let me know if the above are feasible with cPanel ?

~Srikanth Doss

 

[Infopro]

Sure I think most of that is feasible with cPanel. You mention freeside, I can't comment on that one, never heard of it. The most popular billing software that I'm aware of is WHMCS.