Parallels H-Sphere - 3.1 Administrator’s Guide

Parallels® H-Sphere

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ISBN: N/A Parallels 660 SW 39th Street Suite 205 Renton, Washington 98057 USA Phone: +1 (425) 282 6400 Fax: +1 (425) 282 6444

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Contents

Preface 15

Typographical Conventions ......................................................................................................... 15

Feedback ..................................................................................................................................... 16

About This Guide 17

Introduction To Parallels H-Sphere 18

DNS Management ....................................................................................................................... 19

Server Management .................................................................................................................... 20

User Signup ................................................................................................................................. 20

Billing And Plan Management ..................................................................................................... 21

Merchant Gateway Management ................................................................................................ 21

User/Account/Domain Management ............................................................................................ 22

Resellers ...................................................................................................................................... 23

Domain Management .................................................................................................................. 24

SSL .............................................................................................................................................. 25

Support Center ............................................................................................................................ 26

Look and Feel Management ........................................................................................................ 26

Getting Started 27

Step1. Disable Global Resources ................................................................................................ 28

Step 2. Set up a Domain Registrar .............................................................................................. 29

Step 3. Configure Mail Notification Addresses ............................................................................ 29

Step 4. Set up Payment Settings ................................................................................................. 30

Step 5. Create Plans.................................................................................................................... 31

Step 6. Create Billing Periods ...................................................................................................... 31

Step 7. Configure Support Center ............................................................................................... 32

Step 8. Configure Look and Feel ................................................................................................. 32

Server Configuration 33

Physical Servers .......................................................................................................................... 34

Adding Physical Servers ................................................................................................... 35

Physical Server Controls ................................................................................................... 36

Deleting a Physical Server ................................................................................................ 37

Logical Servers ............................................................................................................................ 37

Adding Logical Servers ..................................................................................................... 38

Enabling User Signup on Logical Servers ......................................................................... 40

Removing Logical Servers ................................................................................................ 41

Setting Logical Server Additional Options ......................................................................... 41

Adding IPs ................................................................................................................................... 46

DNS Servers ................................................................................................................................ 50

Mail Server Settings..................................................................................................................... 51

SPF and SRS .............................................................................................................................. 52

Enabling SPF and SRS ..................................................................................................... 52

Configuring SPF and SRS ................................................................................................. 53

AntiSpam and AntiVirus ............................................................................................................... 54

Enabling AntiSpam and AntiVirus in Control Panel........................................................... 54

Preface 4

Configuring AntiSpam and AntiVirus Default Settings ...................................................... 55

System SMTP Relays .................................................................................................................. 56

Advanced Web Server Settings ................................................................................................... 57

Apache Version ................................................................................................................. 57

Apache Modules ................................................................................................................ 58

PHP Modes ....................................................................................................................... 64

PHP Plugins ...................................................................................................................... 67

Server Groups ............................................................................................................................. 68

Load Balanced Server Clusters ................................................................................................... 71

Platform Change .......................................................................................................................... 73

Updating Physical Boxes From CP Interface .............................................................................. 76

Procedure .......................................................................................................................... 76

Physical Server Installation/Update Profiles ................................................................................ 77

Resource Prerequisites ............................................................................................................... 81

System Service Management ...................................................................................................... 85

DNS and Hosting 87

DNS Manager .............................................................................................................................. 88

Adding DNS Zones ...................................................................................................................... 88

Instant Alias Templates ............................................................................................................... 90

Adding Instant Alias Templates ......................................................................................... 91

Editing Instant Alias Templates ......................................................................................... 93

DNS Records ............................................................................................................................... 94

Adding custom A records .................................................................................................. 95

Adding custom MX records ............................................................................................... 96

Adding custom CNAME records ........................................................................................ 96

Re-generating System Custom DNS Records .................................................................. 98

Hosting Your Corporate Site ........................................................................................................ 98

Step 1. Make sure you have a service DNS zone ............................................................. 98

Step 2. Create a service plan ............................................................................................ 99

Step 3. Disallow signups from outside your admin account. ........................................... 100

Step 4. Create a service account .................................................................................... 100

Adding Domains for Third Level Hosting ................................................................................... 101

Providing Mail Under Service Domain for Third-Level Hosting ................................................. 101

Control Panel Web Interface 102

Regional Settings ....................................................................................................................... 103

Images and Icons ...................................................................................................................... 105

Logo Images .................................................................................................................... 105

Icons And Control Images ............................................................................................... 107

Interface Texts ........................................................................................................................... 109

Login Texts ...................................................................................................................... 109

Signup Texts .................................................................................................................... 109

Miscellaneous Texts ........................................................................................................ 109

Skins and Colors ........................................................................................................................ 110

Disabling CP Skins .................................................................................................................... 112

Disabling CP Skins globally ............................................................................................. 112

Disabling CP Skins for reseller plans .............................................................................. 112

Setting Interface Language ....................................................................................................... 113

Setting Default System Language ................................................................................... 113

Setting Admin Interface Language .................................................................................. 113

E-Mail Notifications 114

Setting E-Mail Notification Recipients ........................................................................................ 115

Editing E-Mail Notifications ........................................................................................................ 116

Preface 5

Configuring User Notification Rules ........................................................................................... 121

Online Invoices ................................................................................................................ 122

“No Charge” Notifications ................................................................................................ 123

Control Panel Configuration 124

Entering Company Information .................................................................................................. 125

Disabling Global Resources, Hosting Platforms And Reseller CP SSL .................................... 126

Using Background Job Manager ............................................................................................... 129

Manipulating Cron Jobs ................................................................................................... 129

Cron Job Details .............................................................................................................. 132

Current Jobs .................................................................................................................... 133

Supported TLD‟s ........................................................................................................................ 133

Installing Shared SSL Certificates ............................................................................................. 134

Shared SSL installation wizard ........................................................................................ 136

Managing Mail SSL.................................................................................................................... 138

Enabling Mail SSL ........................................................................................................... 139

Editing Mail SSL .............................................................................................................. 141

Reposting Certificates ..................................................................................................... 142

Disabling Mail SSL .......................................................................................................... 143

Using Credit Card Encryption .................................................................................................... 143

Turning On ....................................................................................................................... 143

Loading Private Key ........................................................................................................ 145

Turning Off ....................................................................................................................... 146

If You Lose Your Private Key .......................................................................................... 146

Adding Credit Card Brands ........................................................................................................ 147

Domain Registrars 148

Domain Registrar Manager ....................................................................................................... 149

Configuring Domain Registration Settings ...................................................................... 149

Step 1. Creating Connections with Domain Registrars ................................................... 150

Step 2. Associating Top Level Domains with Domain Registrars ................................... 150

Step 3. Setting Default Domain Registration Prices........................................................ 151

Step 4. Configuring Registrar Connections for Resellers ............................................... 151

Editing Registrar Connection Settings ............................................................................ 152

Removing TLD Associations ........................................................................................... 152

Deleting Registrar Connections ....................................................................................... 152

Enom Configuration ................................................................................................................... 153

Setting Up Enom Connection .......................................................................................... 153

OpenSRS Configuration ............................................................................................................ 155

Setting Up OpenSRS Connection ................................................................................... 156

Asynchronous Response Management .......................................................................... 158

OnlineNIC Configuration ............................................................................................................ 160

Getting Prepared ............................................................................................................. 160

Setting Up OnlineNIC Connection ................................................................................... 160

RRPproxy Configuration ............................................................................................................ 162

Setting Up RRPproxy Connection ................................................................................... 162

Ascionic Configuration ............................................................................................................... 164

Setting Up Ascionic Connection ...................................................................................... 164

TPPInternet Configuration ......................................................................................................... 166

Setting Up TPPInternet Connection ................................................................................ 166

Email Domain Registration ........................................................................................................ 168

Configuring Email Registrar ............................................................................................ 169

Merchant Gateways 172

Merchant Gateway Manager ..................................................................................................... 173

Preface 6

Setting Up Merchant Gateway ........................................................................................ 174

Editing Merchant Gateway Settings ................................................................................ 174

Associating Merchant Gateways with Credit Card Vendors ........................................... 175

Editing Description for User Credit Card Statements ...................................................... 175

Handling CC Charge Request Failures ........................................................................... 176

One Step Gateways ........................................................................................................ 177

AssureBuy Configuration ........................................................................................................... 177

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 177

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 177

AuthorizeNet (Sim Protocol) Configuration ............................................................................... 180

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 180

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 180

Bibit Configuration ..................................................................................................................... 182

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 182

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 182

Cardia Services Configuration ................................................................................................... 183

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 183

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 183

ECHO Configuration .................................................................................................................. 184

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 184

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 184

ePDQ Configuration................................................................................................................... 185

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 185

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 185

eWay Configuration ................................................................................................................... 187

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 187

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 187

HSBC Configuration .................................................................................................................. 188

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 188

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 188

Innovative Gateway Configuration ............................................................................................. 189

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 189

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 189

LinkPoint (API v3.01) Configuration .......................................................................................... 190

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 190

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 191

Moneris Configuration................................................................................................................ 194

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 194

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 194

NetBilling Configuration ............................................................................................................. 195

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 195

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 196

NTPNow Configuration .............................................................................................................. 197

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 197

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 197

Paradata Configuration .............................................................................................................. 199

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 199

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 199

PayGate Configuration .............................................................................................................. 200

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 200

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 200

PayJunction Configuration ......................................................................................................... 202

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 202

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 202

Plug‟n Pay Configuration ........................................................................................................... 204

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 204

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 204

Pay-Me-Now Configuration ....................................................................................................... 206

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 206

Preface 7

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 206

PosNet Configuration................................................................................................................. 207

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 207

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 207

Protx (VSP Direct Protocol 2.22) Configuration ........................................................................ 208

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 208

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 208

PSiGate (XML API) Configuration ............................................................................................. 209

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 209

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 209

SecurePay Configuration ........................................................................................................... 211

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 211

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 211

SkipJack Configuration .............................................................................................................. 212

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 212

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 213

SecurePay.com.au Configuration .............................................................................................. 214

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 214

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 214

SecureTrading Configuration ..................................................................................................... 215

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 215

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 215

ThePayDesk Configuration ........................................................................................................ 217

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 217

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 218

Tucows Configuration ................................................................................................................ 219

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 219

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 219

VeriSign PayFlow Pro Configuration ......................................................................................... 221

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 221

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 221

VeriSign PayFlow Pro With SSL Support .................................................................................. 223

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 223

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 223

Web-based Payments 226

Web Payment Systems Manager .............................................................................................. 227

Work Principles................................................................................................................ 227

Configuration Procedure ................................................................................................. 227

Setting Web Payment Instant Notification URL ............................................................... 228

2CheckOut Configuration .......................................................................................................... 229

Authorize.Net (Sim Protocol) Configuration .............................................................................. 230

Setting Up Authorize.Net ................................................................................................. 230

ChronoPay Configuration .......................................................................................................... 232

Setting Up ChronoPay ..................................................................................................... 232

GestPay Configuration............................................................................................................... 233

PayNova Configuration .............................................................................................................. 234

PayPal Merchant Gateway Configuration ................................................................................. 235

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 235

Configuration ................................................................................................................... 235

Sentry Configuration .................................................................................................................. 236

Preparation ...................................................................................................................... 236

Setup Procedure.............................................................................................................. 236

Webmoney Configuration .......................................................................................................... 238

1. Set your own purse ..................................................................................................... 238

2. Activate Webmoney payments in your Parallels H-Sphere control panel ................... 238

WorldPay Configuration ............................................................................................................. 239

Setting Up WorldPay ....................................................................................................... 239

Preface 8

Plans 241

Creating and Editing Plans (Plan Wizards) ............................................................................... 242

Starting Plan Creation Wizards ....................................................................................... 242

Starting Plan Edit Wizards ............................................................................................... 242

Simplified Plan Wizards ................................................................................................... 243

A Typical Plan Wizard................................................................................................................ 245

Step 1. Selecting Resources and Configuring Plan Settings .......................................... 246

Subsequent Steps. Setting Prices ................................................................................... 257

MySQL Plan Wizard .................................................................................................................. 258

Windows Plan Wizard ................................................................................................................ 258

Windows RealMedia Plan Wizard ............................................................................................. 259

E-mail Plan Wizard .................................................................................................................... 259

VPS Plan Wizard ....................................................................................................................... 259

Markup Plan Wizard .................................................................................................................. 260

Admin Plans ............................................................................................................................... 261

Creating Admin Plans ...................................................................................................... 261

Editing Admin Plans ........................................................................................................ 262

Demo Plans ............................................................................................................................... 263

Access to Plans ......................................................................................................................... 266

Plan Controls ............................................................................................................................. 267

Show ................................................................................................................................ 268

Copy ................................................................................................................................ 268

Delete .............................................................................................................................. 268

Plan Settings .............................................................................................................................. 269

Controlling RAM And CPU Usage ............................................................................................. 271

Enable RLimit in Plans .................................................................................................... 271

Configure RLimit Values .................................................................................................. 272

Limiting Resource Use For Individual Accounts .............................................................. 272

Placing Plans on Particular Boxes ............................................................................................. 273

Resources 276

Users, Accounts, Domains ........................................................................................................ 277

Users ............................................................................................................................... 277

Accounts .......................................................................................................................... 277

Domains .......................................................................................................................... 280

Traffic ......................................................................................................................................... 281

Traffic Calculation ............................................................................................................ 281

Traffic Limit ...................................................................................................................... 282

Traffic Pricing ................................................................................................................... 282

Restricting Traffic Usage and Traffic Limit ...................................................................... 283

Charging for Traffic .......................................................................................................... 284

Traffic Configuration Changes ......................................................................................... 289

Tracking End User Traffic Consumption ......................................................................... 290

Disk Space ................................................................................................................................. 290

Charging Users for Disk Space ....................................................................................... 291

Enabling/Disabling Summary Disk Usage ....................................................................... 292

Recreating Resources ............................................................................................................... 293

Blacklists in Parallels H-Sphere ................................................................................................. 294

Domains in blacklist ......................................................................................................... 294

Emails in blacklist ............................................................................................................ 295

Uploading and Exporting Black Lists ............................................................................... 296

Billing 297

Plans ................................................................................................................................ 297

Preface 9

Billing Types .................................................................................................................... 297

Trial Hosting .................................................................................................................... 297

Billing Profiles .................................................................................................................. 297

Prices ............................................................................................................................... 298

Limiting Resources .......................................................................................................... 298

Billing Periods .................................................................................................................. 298

Crediting Accounts .......................................................................................................... 298

Debiting Accounts ........................................................................................................... 298

Billing Modes ................................................................................................................... 299

Traffic ............................................................................................................................... 299

Disk Space ...................................................................................................................... 299

E-mailing Invoices ........................................................................................................... 299

Taxes ............................................................................................................................... 299

Promotions ...................................................................................................................... 299

Billing Resellers ............................................................................................................... 300

Managing Debtors ........................................................................................................... 300

Money Returns ................................................................................................................ 300

Billing Statements ............................................................................................................ 300

Billing Types .............................................................................................................................. 302

Billing Profiles ............................................................................................................................ 303

Billing Periods ............................................................................................................................ 303

Creating Billing Periods ................................................................................................... 305

Changing Billing Period Starting Date ............................................................................. 305

Setting Discounts for Billing Periods ............................................................................... 306

Credit Limit ................................................................................................................................. 308

Fees Collected From Customers ............................................................................................... 308

Plan Fees ........................................................................................................................ 308

Free Units .................................................................................................................................. 309

Setting Prices and Free Units .................................................................................................... 311

Comments on Resources ................................................................................................ 311

Discounts ................................................................................................................................... 317

Billing Consequences of Editing Prices and Free Units ............................................................ 318

Taxes ......................................................................................................................................... 318

Tax Exemption ........................................................................................................................... 320

Enabling Tax Exemption ................................................................................................. 321

Setting Tax Exemption Mode at Signup .......................................................................... 321

Activating User Accounts with Tax Exemption Code Entered ........................................ 322

Money Returns .......................................................................................................................... 324

Events that Trigger Refunds ............................................................................................ 324

Refund Formulas ............................................................................................................. 325

Moneyback Period ........................................................................................................... 325

Reducing Quotas and Limits ........................................................................................... 325

Refund Percentage ......................................................................................................... 326

Managing Debtors ..................................................................................................................... 327

Punitive Measures ........................................................................................................... 327

Punitive Measures Automation ........................................................................................ 327

Start Date of Time in Debt ............................................................................................... 328

Promotions ................................................................................................................................. 329

Promotion Types ............................................................................................................. 329

Calculating Promotion Discounts .................................................................................... 329

Creating Promotions ........................................................................................................ 329

Associating Promotions With Plans................................................................................. 331

Extra Packages .......................................................................................................................... 331

Creating Extra Packs ....................................................................................................... 331

Managing Extra Packs .................................................................................................... 332

Anniversary Based Billing .......................................................................................................... 333

Switching Between Billing Modes .............................................................................................. 333

Sending “No charge” Notifications ............................................................................................. 334

Warning of Immediate Charges in Case of Buying Additional Resources ................................ 334

Preface 10

Dedicated Servers 335

Enabling Dedicated Servers in Globals ..................................................................................... 336

Adding MRTG Logical Servers and Network Switches ............................................................. 336

Adding MRTG Logical Servers ........................................................................................ 337

Adding Network Switches ................................................................................................ 337

Viewing MRTG Server Info .............................................................................................. 339

Creating/Managing Dedicated Server Templates ..................................................................... 340

Custom-built Dedicated Servers ...................................................................................... 341

Dedicated Server Plans ............................................................................................................. 342

User Plans ....................................................................................................................... 342

User‟s Choosing a Server at Signup ............................................................................... 344

Reseller Plans ................................................................................................................. 344

Managing Dedicated Servers .................................................................................................... 346

Adding Dedicated Servers ............................................................................................... 347

Editing Dedicated Servers ............................................................................................... 348

Deleting Dedicated Servers ............................................................................................. 349

Dedicated Server Status ............................................................................................................ 349

Assigning Additional IP Ranges ................................................................................................ 351

1. Set Prices for Extra IPs in Plans ................................................................................. 351

2. Add IP Subnet ............................................................................................................. 351

3. Split IP Subnet to Smaller IP Ranges ......................................................................... 353

4. Create PTR zone for Reverse DNS Records .............................................................. 354

5. Assign IP Range to Dedicated Server ......................................................................... 355

6. Unassign IP Range ..................................................................................................... 356

Billing Dedicated Servers .......................................................................................................... 356

Bandwidth Billing Types .................................................................................................. 357

Bandwidth Billing Types Options ..................................................................................... 358

Dedicated Servers‟ Maintenance ............................................................................................... 358

Regular Backups ............................................................................................................. 359

Maintenance Requests .................................................................................................... 359

Automatic Cancellation Settings...................................................................................... 361

Resellers 362

Plans ................................................................................................................................ 362

Dual Nature of Resellers ................................................................................................. 362

Private Label .................................................................................................................... 362

Look and Feel and Regional Settings ............................................................................. 362

Merchant Gateways ........................................................................................................ 363

Domain Registration ........................................................................................................ 363

Providing Support ............................................................................................................ 363

Control Panel ................................................................................................................... 363

Web, Mail, and SQL Resources ...................................................................................... 363

Servers ............................................................................................................................ 364

SSL .................................................................................................................................. 364

Billing ............................................................................................................................... 364

Markup plans ................................................................................................................... 364

Reseller DNS ............................................................................................................................. 365

Step 1. Adding Reseller CP Alias Template .................................................................... 365

Step 2. Configuring Reseller DNS Servers ..................................................................... 367

Creating And Editing Reseller Plans ......................................................................................... 367

Step 1. Configuring The Plan .......................................................................................... 368

Step 2 .............................................................................................................................. 371

Billing Resellers ......................................................................................................................... 374

Fees Collected From Resellers ....................................................................................... 374

Fees for services provided with reseller account ............................................................ 374

Fees for services distributed with user accounts ............................................................ 374

Preface 11

Charging Resellers for Traffic .......................................................................................... 375

Reseller Control Panel SSL ....................................................................................................... 376

Enabling Reseller Control Panel SSL Protection ............................................................ 378

Disabling Reseller Control Panel SSL Protection ........................................................... 382

Reseller Shared SSL ................................................................................................................. 382

Resellers‟ Own Wildcard Certificates .............................................................................. 383

Sharing Your Wildcard Certificates with Resellers .......................................................... 384

Placing Resellers on Separate Boxes ....................................................................................... 386

Allocating Physical Servers to Resellers ................................................................................... 389

Supporting Resellers‟ Customers .............................................................................................. 390

Deleting Resellers ...................................................................................................................... 390

Suspending And Resuming Resellers ....................................................................................... 391

Moving Accounts Between Resellers ........................................................................................ 391

Customer Signup 393

Signing Up Users ....................................................................................................................... 393

Signing Up Users from Admin Control Panel .................................................................. 393

Signing Up Users from the Street .................................................................................... 395

Moderating User Signups .......................................................................................................... 395

Moderated Signups ......................................................................................................... 395

Email Notifications ........................................................................................................... 396

Activating Or Rejecting Signups ...................................................................................... 396

Changing Details of Moderated Accounts ....................................................................... 397

Moderated Credit Card Signup ........................................................................................ 398

Signup Guard Settings .............................................................................................................. 399

Creating moderation rules ............................................................................................... 399

Setting Signup Guard Blacklist ........................................................................................ 401

Viewing Signup Info ................................................................................................................... 405

Signup IPs ....................................................................................................................... 405

Signup Statistics .............................................................................................................. 405

Trial Hosting ............................................................................................................................... 407

Introduction to Trial Hosting ............................................................................................ 407

Managing Trial Accounts ................................................................................................. 407

Enabling Trial Registration .............................................................................................. 408

Grouping Trial Plans ........................................................................................................ 409

Managing Trial Accounts ................................................................................................. 410

Enabling Trial Registration .............................................................................................. 411

Grouping Trial Plans ........................................................................................................ 412

Account Management 413

Finding User Accounts............................................................................................................... 414

Generic Search................................................................................................................ 415

Search by Domain Name ................................................................................................ 416

Search by Contact Info .................................................................................................... 416

Search in Resellers ......................................................................................................... 417

Search Suspended Accounts .......................................................................................... 418

Search Deleted Accounts ................................................................................................ 419

Search Dedicated Server Accounts ................................................................................ 419

Search by VPS Hostname ............................................................................................... 420

Search by Account Balance ............................................................................................ 420

Search by Merchant Gateway Transactions ................................................................... 420

Search by Invoice/Balance Entries.................................................................................. 420

Search by Credit Card Charges ...................................................................................... 420

Search by Transfer Traffic ............................................................................................... 421

Search by Disk Usage ..................................................................................................... 422

Search by CC Processing Errors .................................................................................... 422

Search by Logical and Physical Servers ......................................................................... 422

Preface 12

Search by Reseller Traffic ............................................................................................... 423

Search by Resellers Disk Usage ..................................................................................... 423

User Details ............................................................................................................................... 423

Admin Notes .............................................................................................................................. 424

Crediting Accounts ..................................................................................................................... 425

Debiting Accounts ...................................................................................................................... 426

View debits ...................................................................................................................... 429

Deleting Accounts ...................................................................................................................... 429

Suspending and Resuming Accounts........................................................................................ 431

Suspending Accounts ...................................................................................................... 433

Resuming Accounts ........................................................................................................ 434

Restoring Accounts.................................................................................................................... 434

Reports ...................................................................................................................................... 435

Exporting Reports ............................................................................................................ 437

Billing Balance ................................................................................................................. 437

Estimated balance exhaustion date ................................................................................ 439

Daily Report ..................................................................................................................... 440

Web Payments Log ......................................................................................................... 441

Charge Log ...................................................................................................................... 441

Registrar Log ................................................................................................................... 442

Credit Card Charge ......................................................................................................... 443

Billing Entries ................................................................................................................... 444

Signup/Go-away Statistics .............................................................................................. 446

Monthly Revenue ............................................................................................................ 447

Monetary Transactions .................................................................................................... 448

Transfer Traffic Report .................................................................................................... 449

Disk Usage Report .......................................................................................................... 450

Reseller Traffic Report .................................................................................................... 451

In Resellers Disk Usage Report ...................................................................................... 452

IP Addresses Report ....................................................................................................... 453

CC Processing Errors Report .......................................................................................... 454

Account Check ................................................................................................................ 454

Reports Installed in a Package ........................................................................................ 455

Processing Check Payments ..................................................................................................... 462

Setting up the Check Mailing Address ............................................................................ 463

Setting E-mail .................................................................................................................. 463

Moderating Accounts ....................................................................................................... 463

Turning Off Check Payments For the Entire System ...................................................... 464

Splitting Multiple Accounts ......................................................................................................... 465

Granting SSH Access To Users ................................................................................................ 466

Migration 468

Moving Domains Between Accounts ......................................................................................... 468

Domain Move Requirements ........................................................................................... 468

Moving Domains with Domain Mover .............................................................................. 469

Compatibility .................................................................................................................... 470

Manual Domain Move ..................................................................................................... 470

Moving Accounts Between Servers ........................................................................................... 470

Account move implies: .................................................................................................... 470

Cautions .......................................................................................................................... 471

Requirements .................................................................................................................. 471

Procedure ........................................................................................................................ 472

Migrating Individual Cobalt RAQ4 Accounts to Parallels H-Sphere .......................................... 473

Migration Procedure ........................................................................................................ 474

Billing Issues .................................................................................................................... 476

Migrating Individual cPanel Accounts to Parallels H-Sphere .................................................... 477

Preparing for Migration .................................................................................................... 477

Migration Procedure ........................................................................................................ 478

Preface 13

Billing Issues .................................................................................................................... 480

Migrating Individual Ensim Accounts to Parallels H-Sphere ..................................................... 481

Preparing for Migration .................................................................................................... 482

Migration Procedure ........................................................................................................ 483

Migration Notes ............................................................................................................... 486

Billing Issues .................................................................................................................... 487

Migrating Mass Accounts to Parallels H-Sphere ....................................................................... 487

Preparing for Migration .................................................................................................... 487

Migration Procedure ........................................................................................................ 487

Billing Issues .................................................................................................................... 488

Technical Support 490

Client Support Center ................................................................................................................ 492

Configuring Administration Security ................................................................................ 493

Managing Trouble Tickets ............................................................................................... 494

Task System .................................................................................................................... 498

Searching Trouble Tickets ............................................................................................... 499

Exchanging Private Messages ........................................................................................ 500

Managing KnowledgeBase .............................................................................................. 501

Ticket Statistics................................................................................................................ 501

Ticket Queues ................................................................................................................. 502

Supporting Reseller End Users ....................................................................................... 503

Configuring Support Center ....................................................................................................... 504

Knowledge Base ........................................................................................................................ 507

Creating Knowledge Bases ............................................................................................. 508

Editing and Removing Knowledge Bases ....................................................................... 509

Exporting Knowledge Base ............................................................................................. 509

Importing Knowledge Bases ............................................................................................ 510

Spellcheck ....................................................................................................................... 510

Search ............................................................................................................................. 511

Settings ............................................................................................................................ 511

Custom Jobs .............................................................................................................................. 512

Adding Custom Jobs ....................................................................................................... 513

Adding Tasks to Custom Jobs ......................................................................................... 514

Tracking Custom Job Status ........................................................................................... 515

Mass Mail ................................................................................................................................... 516

Crash Report ............................................................................................................................. 518

Installation ....................................................................................................................... 518

Update ............................................................................................................................. 519

Changing E-Mail Address Where Reports Are Sent ....................................................... 519

Sending Crash Reports ................................................................................................... 520

Extended Physical Server Information ............................................................................ 522

Virtual Private Server 523

Providing VPS Hosting .............................................................................................................. 523

Step 1. Add VPS Network Gateway ................................................................................ 524

Step 2. Add IP Range to Logical Server ......................................................................... 524

Step 3. Enable User Signup on Logical Server ............................................................... 524

Step 4. Enable in Globals ................................................................................................ 524

Step 4. Create VPS Plans ............................................................................................... 524

Parallels H-Sphere VPS Templates .......................................................................................... 525

Adding H-Sphere VPS Templates ................................................................................... 526

Third Party Products 528

Urchin ........................................................................................................................................ 529

Preface 14

Miva Kit (intro) ............................................................................................................................ 529

How Does It Work? ......................................................................................................... 530

Adding Miva Merchant Licenses ................................................................................................ 530

Affiliate Programs ...................................................................................................................... 532

How Do Affiliate Programs Work? ................................................................................... 533

How Do I Set Up an Affiliate Program? ........................................................................... 533

Kanoodle™ Support .................................................................................................................. 535

AWStats Support ....................................................................................................................... 536

Setup ............................................................................................................................... 537

Configuration on Unix/Linux ............................................................................................ 537

Configuration on Windows .............................................................................................. 537

SpamAssassin Configuration Manager ..................................................................................... 538

MS Exchange Hosting ............................................................................................................... 542

Prepare Servers for MS Exchange Hosting .................................................................... 543

Enable MS Exchange Hosting in H-Sphere Global Resources ...................................... 543

Configure Microsoft Provisioning Framework ................................................................. 543

Configure MS Exchange Plan ......................................................................................... 544

Comodo SSL Manager .............................................................................................................. 544

Step 1. Register as a Comodo CA Web host reseller ..................................................... 545

Step 2. Configure prices for various certificate types ...................................................... 545

Step 3. Enable SSL Support in plans .............................................................................. 547

Step 4. Manage your customer requests ........................................................................ 547

EasyApp Collection: Providing Third-Party PHP/MySQL Applications ..................................... 548

Installing/Updating the Package ...................................................................................... 549

Disabling/Enabling Applications ...................................................................................... 549

Making Applications Available for Users ......................................................................... 550

In this chapter:

Typographical Conventions ............................................................................... 15

Feedback .......................................................................................................... 16

Formatting convention

Type of Information

Example

Special Bold

Items you must select, such as menu options, command buttons, or items in a list.

Go to the System tab. Titles of chapters, sections, and subsections.

Read the Basic Administration chapter.

Italics

Used to emphasize the importance of a point, to introduce a term or to designate a command line placeholder, which is to be replaced with a real name or value.

The system supports the so called wildcard character search.

Monospace

The names of commands, files, directories, and domain names.

The license file is located in the

http://docs/common/

licenses directory.

C H A P T E R 1

Preface

Typographical Conventions

Before you start using this guide, it is important to understand the documentation conventions used in it.

The following kinds of formatting in the text identify special information.

16 Preface

Preformatted

On-screen computer output in your commandline sessions; source code in XML, C++, or other programming languages.

# ls –al /files

total 14470

Preformatted Bold

What you type, contrasted with on-screen computer output.

# cd /root/rpms/php

CAPITALS

Names of keys on the keyboard.

SHIFT, CTRL, ALT

KEY+KEY

Key combinations for which the user must press and hold down one key and then press another.

CTRL+P, ALT+F4

Feedback

If you have found a mistake in this guide, or if you have suggestions or ideas on how to improve this guide, please send your feedback using the online form at

http://www.parallels.com/en/support/usersdoc/. Please include in your report the

guide‟s title, chapter and section titles, and the fragment of text in which you have found an error.

Parallels H-Sphere Administrator guide aims at hosting providers and explains how to

C H A P T E R 2

About This Guide

configure and administer Parallels H-Sphere control panel.

Parallels H-Sphere is a comprehensive hosting automation system that allows you to

In this chapter:

DNS Management ............................................................................................. 19

Server Management .......................................................................................... 20

User Signup ...................................................................................................... 20

Billing And Plan Management............................................................................ 21

Merchant Gateway Management ....................................................................... 21

User/Account/Domain Management .................................................................. 22

Resellers ........................................................................................................... 23

Domain Management ........................................................................................ 24

SSL ................................................................................................................... 25

Support Center .................................................................................................. 26

Look and Feel Management .............................................................................. 26

C H A P T E R 3

Introduction To Parallels H-Sphere

provide a heterogeneous operating system environment to your customers across multiple servers. It can manage hosting servers located in various data centers.

Parallels H-Sphere can have a multiple server layout, called a cluster. The main server in the cluster is the actual Parallels H-Sphere Control Panel, a web application with graphical interface, which centralizes all hosting management tasks, controls all hosting servers and services, manages users, domains, events, and processes. Through Parallels H-Sphere web interface, you can configure and manage these and other subsystems, other servers (on page 18), user accounts and domains, etc. All system data, such as billing, domain, and other info, is stored in the Postgres system database. The Control panel consists of many subsystems, the major of them described below.

Introduction To Parallels H-Sphere 19

DNS Management

All DNS is managed by Parallels H-Sphere. A typical Parallels H-Sphere setup requires one service domain name (example.com)

which is used as:

 the control panel domain (cp.example.com:8080 or cp.example.com:8443),  web server domain (web1.example.com, web2.example.com),  name server domain (ns1.example.com, ns2.example.com), etc.

It can also be used for third level hosting (on page 101) and instant access domain aliases (on page 90), as well as to host the corporate (promotional) website. (on page

98) The most typical configuration is to have two DNS servers, each on a separate box. In

case of one-server installations, you can put two DNS servers on one box (on page 50). By default, Parallels H-Sphere randomly assigns primary and secondary DNS servers for each domain to balance server load. If you want, you can assign master and slave roles to DNS logical servers.

Parallels H-Sphere creates a zone file for each domain name on both name servers, and allows end users to create custom DNS records through a web interface.

You can find more info on DNS Server Configuration in Understanding DNS Server Configuration documentation in Sysadmin Guide.

20 Introduction To Parallels H-Sphere

Server Management

We differentiate between physical and logical servers. Physical servers (on page 34) are actually or virtually separate computers with their own operating systems (Linux, FreeBSD Unix, or Windows). They can be emulated with VPS, VMWare or other software packages. Logical servers (on page 37) are programs that run on physical servers and process client requests. For instance when we talk about web, mail, DNS, mysql and other servers, we mean logical servers. A physical server can have one or more logical servers running.

Logical servers of the same nature and purpose make a server group (on page 68). In case of multiserver installations, logical servers of the same group are located on different physical servers, and Parallels H-Sphere randomly chooses from them to create user accounts, which evens server load and disk space usage.

In most instances, Parallels H-Sphere operates with logical servers, not physical servers. We work with logical servers when we add IPs (on page 46), configure system SMTP relays (on page 56), assign mail server roles, assign name server roles (on page

50), etc.

User Signup

To use hosting services, users (site owners and resellers) need to sign up for a hosting plan.

Parallels H-Sphere offers fully automated user signup (on page 463) through the signup wizard. Depending on the billing type and signup settings, accounts may not be created until moderated by administrator (on page 395). For instance, an account may not be immediately created because it was blacklisted by Signup Guard (on page 399) or because the user doesn‟t pay with a credit card.

Depending on the plan, access to the signup wizard can be unrestricted (available “from the street”) or allowed only from the admin control panel. Registration “from the street” can be performed by anybody without admin‟s interaction. Registration from the admin control panel goes through exactly the same steps, but can be performed only by the administrator. The latter is the only way to sign users up for publicly unavailable plans.

Introduction To Parallels H-Sphere 21

Billing And Plan Management

Parallels H-Sphere comes with a complete billing solution. When users sign up, buy or use hosting resources, it calculates user charges based on the prices you have specified and charges them to users‟ credit cards. When credit card charges don‟t apply, customer payments are added manually in the admin control panel. For more, see Introduction to Billing and Introduction to Plans.

Merchant Gateway Management

Parallels H-Sphere can work with credit card processors and web based payment systems to collect payments from customers. To enable a connection with either of these, you need to configure a connection with the corresponding server.

CREDIT CARD PROCESSORS. Parallels H-Sphere offers complete automation with credit card processing. To charge an amount to a customer‟s credit card, Parallels H-Sphere connects to the merchant gateway server and sends an http request. Next, it waits for a response, and once the success confirmation is received, respective changes are made to the account balance.

Merchant Gateway Manager allows you to set up different merchant gateway accounts for different types of credit cards. For instance, you can process VISA cards with Authorize.Net, and MasterCard, with Verisign PayFlowPro. This way you can maximize your profits by processing every type of credit card with the gateway that offers the lowest rate for this type of card. For more, see Merchant Gateway Manager (on page

173). WEB BASED PAYMENT SYSTEMS. Parallels H-Sphere partially automates payments through

web based payment gateways, including WorldPay (on page 239), PayPal, 2CheckOut (on page 229), GestPay (on page 233), PaySystems, and PayNova (on page 234). Once you have registered an account with one of these gateways, you enter the account details in Parallels H-Sphere. Every time a user chooses to pay, Parallels H-Sphere passes account ID, amount payable, and possibly other details to the gateway. The user is then taken to the gateway‟s web interface to enter the credit card number and complete the transaction. When you receive the payment, you need to credit this user‟s account (on page 425) through the Parallels H-Sphere admin interface, as in processing check payments (on page 462). As a result, Parallels H-Sphere doesn‟t store credit card numbers of customers using web payment systems. For more, see Web Payment Systems Manager (on page 227).

22 Introduction To Parallels H-Sphere

User/Account/Domain Management

On the user side, Parallels H-Sphere operates with three different tiers: users, accounts, and domains.

USERS. A user, for the most part, is nothing but a login and password to enter Parallels H-Sphere control panel. One user can have many accounts (control panels) created under the same or different plans, and switch between them without having to log in every time.

ACCOUNTS. Parallels H-Sphere primarily operates with accounts, not users. One account equals one license and one control panel with its own billing and interface settings. This means an account has its own balance, billing profiles, invoices, etc. The unique thing about each account is the numeric account ID. One user can have many accounts created under different plans and platforms, for instance an account under a Unix plan for SSH access (on page 466) and an account under a Windows plan for ODBC or ColdFusion hosting.

DOMAINS. Domains represent the third tier in the end-user side hierarchy. Your customers can have as many domains as they want under their one control panel license, unless you limit the domains they can have. In terms of a web server, a domain is little more than a correspondence to a web-site. Domains within one account share one control panel (one menu tree with the same look and feel), and, having no traffic usage or disk quota of their own, are billed in bulk with the same invoices.

Understanding Accounts, Domains, and Users (on page 277)

Introduction To Parallels H-Sphere 23

Resellers

The Reseller feature allows you to sell your hosting services through resellers. Unlike in other control panels, resellers in Parallels H-Sphere do not resell your plans. Rather, they sell your hosting resources such as disk space, traffic, mailboxes, etc. at retail prices, and are charged for them at wholesale prices. In other words, you set wholesale prices and allow your resellers to group your resources into their own plans and define their own retail prices for them. More on Billing Resellers (on page 374)

With the reseller admin CP, each reseller gets a private label hosting system, which leaves you completely invisible to the end customer even at user signup and domain registration. Resellers can have their own independent control panel URL, DNS server names, company information, and all other parameters visible from the user‟s control panel. They will appear to end customers as totally independent hosting companies. Furthermore, reseller control panels are inaccessible by IP, which excludes the possibility of accidental or intentional visits to your control panel URL.

Through their admin interface, resellers can customize the default look and feel of their users‟ control panels. They can change colors, replace all control panel images with those of their own, edit many texts, change the default control panel language and the currency of end user payments, etc. in exactly the same manner as it is done by the master admin.

24 Introduction To Parallels H-Sphere

Domain Management

There are several options to setting up a domain in Parallels H-Sphere:  REGISTER A NEW DOMAIN. Parallels H-Sphere allows automatic registration of standard

second level domains right from the user control panel. It supports the regisrtation of all TLDs supported by Enom or OpenSRS in real time. You can configure Parallels H-Sphere to associate different TLDs with different registrars using the Domain Registrar Manager (on page 149). TLDs with non-automatic registration, including most regional domains, can be requested by the end user and then manually registered by the admin through the Email Domain Registrar (on page

168).

 TRANSFER an existing domain. Users can transfer domains they have been using

outside Parallels H-Sphere. After the transfer, users will need to update their info on the root DNS servers.

 Set up a THIRD LEVEL DOMAIN. Users can set up domains based on the service domain,

such as userdomain.servicedomain.com.

 Set up a WEBSITE WITHOUT A REGULAR DOMAIN NAME. Such websites have all basic

functionalities and are accessible from the web at automatically generated addresses based on the service domain, such as

123.uNNNN.servicedomain.com.

 PARK A DOMAIN. This allows you to use Parallels H-Sphere DNS server for mapping

IPs and domain names serviced and hosted elsewhere.

 Create an ACCOUNT WITHOUT ANY DOMAIN. The user will be given disk space on the web

server with FTP access, but no DNS to set up a website.

Introduction To Parallels H-Sphere 25

SSL

Parallels H-Sphere recognizes the following uses and types of SSL certificates: WEBSITE SSL - users can install SSL certificates one per website right from their user

control panels. For instance, a user can set up a certificate on user.com to have the user.com website secured with SSL. This can be installed only on websites with dedicated IPs.

SHARED SSL uses wildcard certificates to secure third level domains. For instance, if provider.com is a service domain offered for third level hosting, you can set up a wildcard certificate on provider.com to secure domains like user1.provider.com and user2.provider.com. More>> (on page 134)

CP SSL - you can secure your control panel with a regular SSL certificate. At this point, CP SSL is installed from the command line on the CP server.

RESELLER CP SSL - you can configure your Parallels H-Sphere to let resellers secure their control panels with regular SSL certificates. More>> (on page 376)

RESELLER SHARED SSL - resellers can install wildcard certificates to secure their customers‟ websites. More>> (on page 382)

DELEGATED SHARED SSL - you can allow your resellers to offer their customers your service domain for third level hosting and wildcard certificate installed on it.

MAIL SSL - you can install SSL on the service DNS zone to secure mail sent and received by your customers‟ mail clients (such as Outlook Express). Mail SSL is enabled globally in the system for all end users, including those under resellers. It is available only to master admin. More>> (on page 138)

26 Introduction To Parallels H-Sphere

Support Center

Parallels H-Sphere Support Center includes Ticket Center, Knowledge Base, and Custom Jobs modules.

TICKET CENTER. Trouble tickets can be created either from any place in the user control panel or from email messages. Parallels H-Sphere periodically polls support mailbox, converts incoming messages into trouble tickets, and puts them in the general queue where they can be picked up, assigned to other administrators, answered, and closed. Depending on how they were created, answered tickets are emailed back to the customers or show up in the ticket center of end users‟ control panels. Support personnel can exchange notes on tickets - the notes are invisible to customers. More on Providing Customer Support

KNOWLEDGE BASE. Administrators can add common questions and answers to a centralized location, group them by categories, and perform search by keywords. The knowledge base is integrated with the ticket center to suggest answers to typical questions. More on Knowledge Base (on page 507)

CUSTOM JOBS. Parallels H-Sphere also offers an interface to track additional services offered to resellers or end users, such as web design and development, installation, migration, and alike. The list of custom jobs and their status can be viewed from the customer‟s interface. More on Custom Jobs (on page 512)

Look and Feel Management

Parallels H-Sphere comes with a few skins users can choose from. Different skins offer different navigation schemes: Left menu skin - although this skin has a quick access page linking to the most frequently used pages, the principal navigation is through the left side menu.

No menu - pages are accessible from clicking navigation icons on the home page. EXPressia - pages are accessible from the horisontal javascript navigation bar AND

icons on the home page. Each of the skins has a text based variation where navigation icons are replaced with text links.

As administrator, you can configure interface settings, including images and icons (on page 105), default skins and colors (on page 110), interface texts (on page 109), and notification e-mails (on page 116).

The administrator can also allow users to choose preferred skins and languages.

This document explains what you need to do in order to set up your hosting system

In this chapter:

Step1. Disable Global Resources ...................................................................... 28

Step 2. Set up a Domain Registrar .................................................................... 29

Step 3. Configure Mail Notification Addresses ................................................... 29

Step 4. Set up Payment Settings ....................................................................... 30

Step 5. Create Plans ......................................................................................... 31

Step 6. Create Billing Periods ............................................................................ 31

Step 7. Configure Support Center ..................................................................... 32

Step 8. Configure Look and Feel ................................................................ ....... 32

C H A P T E R 4

Getting Started

with minimum required configuration, considering the following:  We presume that you have purchased Parallels H-Sphere license, installed

Parallels H-Sphere system, configured and tested it.

 A standard Parallels H-Sphere installation sets up a service dns zone (on page 88),

reseller CP alias, and an instant alias template (on page 90), creates a wwwuser account for hosting your corporate site (on page 98).

Follow the given instructions step by step to configure your control panel.

28 Getting Started

Step1. Disable Global Resources

Skip this step if you‟re not going to disable any resources, hosting platforms or logical servers.

You can globally disable resources, hosting platforms, CP designs, dedicated of virtual private servers, etc. if you don‟t offer them to your customers.

1 Go to Plans - > Globals in your Admin CP. 2 On the page that shows, uncheck the resources and/or hosting

platform you want to be entirely disabled in the system and submit changes. This will affect all your plans and those of resellers. However, only new sing-ups, but not your current accounts, are subject to such changes.

 To disable resources and platforms only for specific plans: 3 Go to Plans - > Manage menu and click to edit the existing plan via Plan

Edit Wizard.

4 Go through Plan Edit Wizard and submit it step by step without changing

prices.

Getting Started 29

Step 2. Set up a Domain Registrar

Domain registrars need to be added and configured to allow customers to register second level domains directly from their control panels.

1 Select Domain Registrar in the Settings menu. 2 Select a domain registrar in the Add New Registrar drop down box and

click Add.

3 Enter this domain registrar properties. Check with Domain Registrar

Manager (on page 149) for detailed instructions.

4 In the Set Active drop down box, select this domain registrar. 5 In the TLD drop down box, select the top level domain you would like

to associate with this registrar.

6 Click the Activate button. 7 Click Define Terms/Prices button for the new record that appeared.

Enter prices for each time period and click Submit Query.

Step 3. Configure Mail Notification Addresses

 To subscribe your staff to receive copies of user e-mail notifications:

1 Go to the Settings menu - > Notifications - > Notification Recipients. 2 On the page that appears add subscribers to mailing lists you choose.

30 Getting Started

Step 4. Set up Payment Settings

On this step you can configure Parallels H-Sphere to process credit cards, accept check payments and perform online web payments for the services you provide.

 To configure credit card processing through Merchant Gateway Manager (on page

173):

1 Go to the Settings menu ->Payment Settings -> CC Brands and add

necessary CC brands.

2 Go to the Settings menu ->Payment Settings -> Merchant Gateway and add

necessary merchant gateway from the drop down menu and click Add.

3 In the Set Active drop down box, select this merchant gateway. You can

have only one active merchant gateway at a time.

4 In the Payment Type drop down box, select the CC brand you would like

to process with this merchant gateway.

5 Click the Activate button.  To configure Web Payment Processor (on page 227), like PayPal or 2CheckOut:

1 Go to the Settings menu ->Payment Settings -> Merchant Gateway. 2 Select the payment system from the drop-down menu and click Edit: 3 Enter your account settings. Once you enter correct settings, the web

payment system will appear in the list as Active

 To configure Processing Check Payments (on page 462):

1 Go to the Settings menu ->Payment Settings -> Merchant Gateway. 2 Enable Accept Checks.

Getting Started 31

Step 5. Create Plans

Now that your control panel is configured, you can create hosting plans.

1 Go to Plans -> Create and click Select next to the plan to start the wizard. 2 Enter the name of the plan at the top of the page. 3 Select the resources (features) you would like to include in the plan.

Make sure to leave Service Domain unchecked.

4 In the last section of the wizard, make sure to enter Credit limit, e.g. 10

and click Next to proceed.

5 Enter prices and free units for each type of resource and click the

Create button at the bottom of the page.

6 Go to Plans -> Manage and turn this plan ON for signups.

Now your control panel is ready for signing up users (on page 463). Please read all documentation before using Parallels H-Sphere as a production system.

Step 6. Create Billing Periods

Each plan can have several billing periods with different price discounts for each. You can‟t delete billing periods, but you can change their duration. For instance, if you create a billing period for 1 year and you find out you don‟t need it, you can change it to 3 months.

 To create a billing period for a plan:

1 Go to Plans -> Manage and click Settings in the Advanced section. 2 Scroll down to the Payment Intervals and click Add. 3 Specify the duration of the billing period. For instance, to make it 3

months long, select MONTH and enter 3 in the Size box.

4 Optionally, enter discounts. For instance, if you want to cancel any

setup fee for this billing period, enter 100 in the Setup Discount field.

5 Click Submit. This will add the billing period to the list.

32 Getting Started

Step 7. Configure Support Center

Support Center is the web-based means of providing customer support.

 To configure your Support Center:

1 Go to Plans -> Create menu and choose Administrator Plan Wizard. 2 Enter TechSupport Admin as the name of the plan, check to include

TroubleTicket Admin and Allow assignment of trouble tickets and submit.

3 Go to Plans -> Manage and turn this plan ON for signups. 4 Go to Signup menu, click to sign up for Tech Support Admin and create

Tech Support Admin account using the signup wizard.

5 Go to Settings - > Tech Support and configure your Support Center (on

page 504). It is required to collect customers‟ e-mails and convert them into trouble tickets.

Step 8. Configure Look and Feel

Go to Settings -> Look and Feel menu and enter information to all necessary sections. These settings will affect all your customers‟ control panels.

 Corporate Logos (on page 105): enter Banner HTML Code for the banner to show up

in your users CPs and the location and sizes of the logos. Click the help [ ? ] icon for details.

 Company Info (on page 125): enter the company info that will show in customer e-

mail notifications and the address will be used by customers to send checks.

 Default language (on page 113): choose CP interface language. It can be

overridden by individual customers.

 Regional options (on page 103): enter preferred currency symbol.The language and

the regional settings will affect all your customers‟ control panels.

 Default CP design (on page 110): set designs to be available by users and the

default design for Users CPs.

This chapter provides you with the instructions on how you can configure physical and

In this chapter:

Physical Servers................................................................................................ 34

Logical Servers ................................................................................................. 37

Adding IPs ......................................................................................................... 46

DNS Servers ..................................................................................................... 50

Mail Server Settings .......................................................................................... 51

SPF and SRS .................................................................................................... 52

AntiSpam and AntiVirus ..................................................................................... 54

System SMTP Relays........................................................................................ 56

Advanced Web Server Settings ................................................................ ......... 57

Server Groups ................................................................................................... 68

Load Balanced Server Clusters ......................................................................... 71

Platform Change ............................................................................................... 73

Updating Physical Boxes From CP Interface ..................................................... 76

Physical Server Installation/Update Profiles ...................................................... 77

Resource Prerequisites ..................................................................................... 81

System Service Management ............................................................................ 85

C H A P T E R 5

Server Configuration

logical servers in Parallels H-Sphere.

34 Server Configuration

Physical Servers

In this section:

Adding Physical Servers ................................................................................... 35

Physical Server Controls ................................................................................... 36

Deleting a Physical Server ................................................................................ 37

Physical servers (also referred to as boxes) are represented by physically or virtually separate computers with their own operating systems (Linux, FreeBSD Unix, or Windows). Physical servers can be emulated with VPS, VMWare or other software packages.

Separate physical servers are required for:

 Windows web hosting  MS SQL user database hosting  Windows real media hosting  PostgresSQL user database hosting  VPS hosting

Server Configuration 35

Adding Physical Servers

Important: note that this document provides instructions on how to add physical servers via the control panel. It is just a step in the procedure of adding servers and services to the Parallels H-Sphere cluster. You can read about this in a separate guide.

 To add a new physical server to Parallels H-Sphere:

1 In your admin control panel, go to E. Manager -> Servers -> Add P.Server. 2 Click Add Physical Server at the bottom of the page that appears. 3 Enter the name of the physical server, its IP and associated net mask:

Specify Login and Password parameters:  For Windows servers, these are login (hsadmin by default) and password

chosen when installing the Winbox.  For Unix servers, enter login: root and root password for this server. Don‟t enter IP2 and Mask2, they are not implemented for Linux and for Windows.

4 Click Submit. 5 Add server groups (on page 68) (types) of logical servers to be placed

on this physical server. For example, if you add only web servers and mail servers groups, you won‟t be able to add any DNS servers to this physical server.

6 Go to E.Manager -> Servers -> P.Servers to see the newly added server in

the list of all physical servers in the system.

To finish adding this physical server to Parallels H-Sphere, add to it also logical servers (on page 37) (services that you plan to place on it). Further steps are described in a separate guide on Adding servers and services to Parallels H-Sphere.

36 Server Configuration

Physical Server Controls

To see all physical servers in your Parallels H-Sphere cluster, go to E. Manager -> Servers -> P.Servers:

From this page you can:  - choose Apache version (on page 57) for all Unix boxes and configure settings

for Unix web boxes (on page 57)

 ! means that this physical server hasn‟t been physically added to the system  - view system information for this server

You can disable monitoring information for this server to preserve resources of the system. To do this, click the physical server title on the page E. Manager -> Servers -> P.Servers. Scroll down and click the button against Enable server info monitoring:

When this service is enabled, you can also view, from the System Information page, which packages and services are installed on the system and perform system service management (on page 85).

See also: Load balanced server clusters (on page 71)

Updating physical boxes from the CP interface (on page 76) Physical server installation/update profiles (on page 77)

Server Configuration 37

Deleting a Physical Server

In this section:

Adding Logical Servers...................................................................................... 38

Enabling User Signup on Logical Servers.......................................................... 40

Removing Logical Servers ................................................................................. 41

Setting Logical Server Additional Options .......................................................... 41

A physical server can be deleted only if it‟s free of logical servers.

 To delete a physical server:

1 Go to E.Manager -> Servers -> P.Servers. 2 Click the name of the physical server you‟ve decided to delete. 3 In the Used by section, find the Delete icon. It appears only if the server

isn‟t used by any services:

Logical Servers

By logical servers we mean the software that runs on physical servers and processes client requests.

38 Server Configuration

Adding Logical Servers

Important: for correct system performance, we don‟t recommend that you have more than one logical server of the same type (web, mail, dns etc.) per each physical box. As an exception, two logical dns servers are permissible under one- server installation. As soon as the second box is added to the system, one of the name servers should be moved to that box.

Before you begin adding a logical server to Parallels H-Sphere, make sure to have the physical server added to Parallels H-Sphere configuration.

 To add a new logical server to Parallels H-Sphere:

1 Go to your admin control panel. 2 Go to E.Manager -> Servers -> Add L.Server. 3 On the page that appears, enter the properties of the logical server:

Server Configuration 39

 Name: The domain name of the logical server;  Group: The group of logical servers you are adding this server to.  Type: The type of the server.  Physical Server: The box where the logical server is installed. If nothing is

available in the dropdown box, add this server group to the physical server (on

page 68) first.

 Description: The note that will help you identify this server among others.  File Server: redundant parameter, not in use any longer.  File Path: redundant parameter, not in use any longer.

4 Click Submit to create a logical server. You will proceed to the page

where you can configure other parameters for this logical server:

a Enable user signup (on page 37) on this server b Automatically generate custom DNS records (on page 94) by clicking Generate in

front of Generate custom DNS records for this logical server

c Add IP range (on page 46) available for hosting on this server d Configure additional options (on page 37) specific to this logical server type

(Web, mail, DNS, Windows, ...)

5 Add DNS records (on page 94) for this logical server. 6 If you are adding a web server, select Shared SSL Manager in the

E.Manager menu, click the Edit icon next to the domain name and enter the certificate key and certificate file in the Install completely new certificate key and file pair boxes. Then click the Upload button. This will update the shared SSL certificate installation on all servers, including the newly installed one.

7 For each type of logical servers, configure specific additional options

(on page 37).

40 Server Configuration

Enabling User Signup on Logical Servers

By default, customer signup is disabled on new logical servers. Sometimes you may want to keep it disabled to provide dedicated servers to individual customers or to prevent them from getting overloaded. In most cases, however, you would need to turn it on.

 To enable user signup:

1 Go to E.Manager -> Servers -> L.Servers. 2 You will be taken to the list of all logical servers in the system. Click

the server you would like to edit:

3 On the page that appears, turn on the Available for signup option.

Server Configuration 41

Removing Logical Servers

 To remove a logical server:

1 Make sure no accounts, mail domains, web sites or other resources

are run on it.

2 Delete all the IPs designated to it (E.Manager -> L.Servers -> „selected

logical server‟ page)

3 Click the Delete icon which will then appear in the Usage field

Setting Logical Server Additional Options

Once a logical server is added, you can set additional options for it. To set additional options, click the logical server name in the list of all logical servers and scroll down to the bottom of the page.

Web server additional options

42 Server Configuration

You can set the following for the webserver:  Miva Merchant version: this option allows setting correct extensions prior to

installation: .mv for v. 4.12 and older and .mvc for v.4.14 and later.

 Unix user home directory: enter home directory if necessary.  Webshell (File Manager): this option allows choosing between Webshell4 and

Webshell5 (CGI Mode)

 Prohibit users from switching to dedicated IP: disables switching to dedicated IP for all

users

 Choose External Horde DB Server: set MySQL logical server for Horde Webmail

Frontend. If you set LOCAL, Parallels H-Sphere will use the default server.

 Outgoing rsync connection IP address: Usually, rsync would connect from the Web

server‟s shared IP, but for non-default rsync allow host parameters you can set the outgoing rsync connection IP(s) (delimited with comma) in the logical server options.

Make sure to click Set to apply changes.

Windows server additional options

Server Configuration 43

You can set the following parameters for the Windows server:

 FTP Server Type: you can choose between IIS and FTP  Miva Merchant version: this option allows setting correct extensions prior to

installation: .mv for v. 4.12 and older and .mvc for v.4.14 and later.

 Maximum number of worker processes by Shared Application Pool: once you set the

restriction, users won‟t be able to exceed it in their User CP.

 Maximum number of worker processes by Dedicated Application Pool: once you set the

restriction, users won‟t be able to exceed it in their User CP.

 Prohibit users from switching to dedicated IP: disables switching to dedicated IP for all

users, if necessary

DNS server additional options

Additional options in DNS logical server allow assigning master and slave roles to DNS logical servers and limiting resellers to particular DNS logical servers.

For detailed information, read about DNS Servers (on page 50).

Mail server additional options

Additional options in mailserver allow to choose:

 Mail server role at the system level  External Spamassassin DB Server If you set LOCAL, Parallels H-Sphere will use

default server.

 Unix Hosting server for Horde If you set LOCAL, Parallels H-Sphere will use default

server.

REMOVING MAIL RELAYS ON A CHOSEN MAIL SERVER If your mail server has none of mail domains, you can remove all its mail relays in one click on the Mail Servers Settings page. Firstly, make sure the CleanMailRelaysForMailServer cron is enabled in Background Job Manager

44 Server Configuration

Once you removed all mail relays, you can remove the corresponding logical server.

MySQL server additional options

You can set the following for the MySQL server:  Unix Hosting server for PHPMyAdmin that will host your users‟ built-in phpMyAdmin

control panel. If you set LOCAL, Parallels H-Sphere will use default server.

 Remote Access To MySQL Server

PostgreSQL server additional options

 Unix Hosting server for PHPPgAdmin that will host your users‟ built-in phpPgAdmin

control panel. If you set LOCAL, Parallels H-Sphere will use local server.

VPS server additional options:

Additional VPS server options allow to choose between FreeVPS and OpenVZ solutions. See also Changing Parallels H-Sphere VPS Solution in Sysadmin guide.

Server Configuration 45

Load Balancer File Server (Filer) Settings

Once the physical server for this logical server (master server only!) is configured in the load balanced server cluster, the following Load Balancer File Server Settings should be set in Logical Server options:

 File Server Type: file storage OS type, like UNIX for generic Linux NFS;  File Server: file storage volume location, like 10.9.8.7:/vol/vol0;  File Path: (optional) file storage path to Parallels H-Sphere directory, like

/vol/vol0/hsphere.

 File server Volume ID: file storage volume ID, like vol0. See Installation of Load Balanced Web/Mail Clusters in Parallels H-Sphere in Sysadmin

Guide for explanations.

46 Server Configuration

Adding IPs

 To add IPs to a logical server:

1 Go to E.Manager -> Servers -> L.Servers. 2 Select the logical server from the list:

Server Configuration 47

3 On the page that appears, enter the IP(s):

48 Server Configuration

 From: enter the first IP of the range of dedicated IPs. If you are adding only one

IP, enter it here.

 To: enter the last IP of the range of dedicated IPs.  Mask: enter the netmask—you should have received it from your Internet Service

Provider. When adding a pool of IPs on FreeBSD servers, add the first IP

separately with the real mask, then add the other IPs as a pool with the mask

255.255.255.255.

 Type: select the type of IP you are adding to the system:

Server Configuration 49

 Dedicated IP - the IP will be dedicated only to one site/service. This means that

Dedicated IP should be unique and cannot be used anywhere else. Choose it

only for Web and Windows servers.  Shared IP - the IP will be used by multiple Web sites under Unix and Windows via

typical Virtual hosting. Choose it only for Web and Windows servers. Make sure

to add shared IPs one by one, NOT as a range of IPs.

Important: We recommend having at least one shared IP (“default” one with

default Shared IP tag 2) on every Web/Windows server. This is in particular

essential for creation of reseller DNS aliases.  Service IP - choose it for logical servers other than Web and Windows. Don‟t

choose it for Web and Windows servers!

Note:

1. For every logical server other than Web/Windows exactly one service IP must be set!

2. If you add a service IP to a logical server in the «Control Panel» or «MRTG» group, make sure it is the IP of the physical server. Mind also, that service IP doesn't automatically bind to a physical server. Instead you have to put it up manually or use physical server's primary IP.

 DNS Reseller IP - choose it only for resellers‟ name server aliases.  System Management IP - reserved for future use. Don‟t select it.  Outgoing IP - configure separate IP for sending outgoing mail. If this value is

specified, all your mail is sent from the specified IP, not from your actual mail

server IP. Use this control when your mail server IP is added to a spam blacklist,

and mail from your domain is rejected. Important: You can have only one

Outgoing IP per mail server.  Bouncing IP - configure separate IP for sending bounced mail. It allows isolating

bounced message on a different IP address and block them without blocking

other mail. Important: You can have only one Bouncing IP per mail server.  Shared IP Tag: a digital “mark” that helps to separate sites on one logical server. It

allows you to allocate a separate shared IP address to a group of sites of, say,

explicit nature. This may become necessary, because many corporate firewalls

filter sites based on their IP address, not domain name. Note: Make sure to

have one shared IP tag used by one shared IP within one logical server. IMPORTANT:

1. Make sure the same dedicated or shared IP is not used by more than 1 server.

2. When added to the logical Web server, dedicated IPs are not registered in ipconfig. They are only added when new accounts are created.

4 Added IPs will show up under IPs in the Logical Server section.

Once added, IPs can be painlessly changed only when no Websites are running on the system. Changing IPs on production servers implies an IP migration.

50 Server Configuration

DNS Servers

How Do I Put Several DNS Servers On One Box?

You can have more than one DNS servers on one box. However, if you‟d like to put your DNS servers on more than one box, you need to put each of them on a separate box.

To configure multiple DNS servers on one physical box, see Single DNS Confiruration in Sysadmin Guide.

How do I assign master and slave roles to DNS logical servers?

1 Go to E.Manager -> Servers -> L.Servers. 2 Click DNS logical server name. You‟ll be taken to its configuration

page. At the bottom of the page you‟ll see the Additional options form:

Server Configuration 51

3 From the DNS role drop-down box choose either master or slave1 or

slave2.

4 Repeat steps 1-3 for the rest of your DNS logical servers.

If DNS logical servers are not assigned any roles or more than one DNS logical servers are assigned the same role (e.g. two master or two slave1 servers), Parallels H-Sphere will randomly assign “master” to one of them and address another one as “slave”. In this case it‟s quite likely that the same DNS logical server will have different roles for different DNS zones.

How do I limit resellers to particular DNS logical servers?

1 Go to E.Manager -> Servers -> L.Servers. 2 Click DNS logical server name. You‟ll be taken to its configuration

page. At the bottom of the page you‟ll see the Additional options form:

3 From the Used by drop-down box choose:

 all accounts to allow both regular and reseller customer accounts to use this DNS

logical server;

 resellers only to allow only reseller end customer accounts to use this DNS logical

server;

 master admin only to allow only your regular customer accounts to use this DNS

logical server.

Important: if all DNS logical servers are used by the same group, signups from under the other group will fail.

Mail Server Settings

Parallels H-Sphere incorporates the following mail server functionality configured from CP web interface:

 Qmail controls - configuring general and antispam Qmail controls (Sysadmin

Guide).

 SpamAssassin - configuring mail server SpamAssasin parameters.  SPF and SRS - configuring SPF and SRS on server level.  Blocking IP - fighting spam or ignoring unwanted emails by denying relay to specific

IP.

 Adding Qmail Settings To IP/Subnet - adding mail relay and other Qmail settings to

a chosen IP/subnet.

52 Server Configuration

SPF and SRS

In this section:

Enabling SPF and SRS ..................................................................................... 52

Configuring SPF and SRS ................................................................................. 53

 SPF or Sender Policy Framework figthts e-mail forgery in SMTP transaction. It

prevents unauthorized people from forging email addresses. When users enable SPF, a DNS TXT record is created for DNS zone hosting this domain. It defines what IP‟s can be used to send mail from this domain. On receiving e-mail from user‟s domain, recipient, providing SPF is enabled on their side, can check if it indeed was sent from the IP listed in this DNS record.

 SRS or Sender Rewriting Scheme is a mechanism to rewrite sender addresses

when a mail is forwarded in such a way that mail forwarding continues to work in an SPF compliant world. When you add SRS, then srs qmail parameters will be included on all mail servers, also base64 secret key used in the SRS address cipher will be generated. You can include mailSRS cron in the Background Job Manager to regenerate secret key every month.

Enabling SPF and SRS

 SPF is included in plans as a regular resources with plan edit wizards.  SRS is enabled for the whole system and doesn‟t require enbaling it in the plans.

To enable SRS, go to Mail Servers (the E.Manager -> Servers menu) and turn it ON, clicking the OFF button in the SRS entry:

Server Configuration 53

Configuring SPF and SRS

 To access SPF/SRS configuration form:

1 Select Mail Servers from the E.Manager -> Servers menu:

2 Click the Action icon in the Mail Server Settings section:

3 At the bottom of the page you will find SPF/SRS configuration form:

54 Server Configuration

For SPF/SRS configuration parameters see details in Configuring SPF/SRS

In this section:

Enabling AntiSpam and AntiVirus in Control Panel ............................................ 54

Configuring AntiSpam and AntiVirus Default Settings ........................................ 55

parameters in Sysadmin Guide

AntiSpam and AntiVirus

Parallels H-Sphere incorporates SpamAssassin and ClamAV filters into its mail servers. They have been added to Parallels H-Sphere as the Antispam and Antivirus resources globally enabled in the system, and can be configured in Control Panel both at the server level (on page 51), and for individual plans, accounts, domains and mailboxes.

Enabling AntiSpam and AntiVirus in Control Panel

 To enable AntiSpam and AntiVirus in Control Panel:

1 GL OBA L S E TTIN GS: In Info -> Global Resources, check AntiSpam and AntiVirus

and click Submit Query.

2 PL ANS : In Info -> Plans select the plans where you would like to enable

spam and virus protection. On the first page of the wizard, enable Antispam and Antivirus. Optionally, set prices for these resources on the subsequent steps.

3 Accounts, domains and mailboxes: managing Antispam and Antivirus on this

level is managed via User CP.

Server Configuration 55

Configuring AntiSpam and AntiVirus Default Settings

You can set default AntiSpam and AntiVirus settings for new mail domain. They will be applied to all new mail domains. Later each user can change it via user CP.

 To set defaults in your Admin CP: 1 Go to Settings menu - > AntiSpam and AntiVirus Defaults:

 Choose Spam and Virus processing manipulation  Set MaxScore level: this value cannot be chosen with Spam processing Remove

value simultaneously

2 Click Submit

56 Server Configuration

System SMTP Relays

There are two system SMTP relays you can choose for each individual mail server POP before SMTP and SMTP AUTH.

In POP before SMTP, the relay system collects IP addresses of users who successfully authenticate themselves with a POP server, and then permits SMTP relaying from that IP address for a short period of time.

If clients do not have known IP addresses, relays use SMTP AUTH, an SMTP based protocol, in which the client must send a name and password in addition to the normal SMTP envelope information. Obviously this requires a special client, which has been configured to use this protocol.

 To specify the protocol for a specific server:

1 Go to E.Manager -> Servers -> Mail Servers. 2 At the top of the page that appears, click the Action icon next to the

mail server.

3 At the very bottom of the page select the protocol and click Submit.

Server Configuration 57

Advanced Web Server Settings

In this section:

Apache Version ................................................................................................. 57

Apache Modules................................................................................................ 58

Using Gotroot.com Modsecurity™ Rules With H-Sphere…………………………60

PHP Modes ....................................................................................................... 64

PHP Plugins ...................................................................................................... 67

Parallels H-Sphere 3.1 branch adds support of Apache 2.2 and adds more flexibility in configuring the web service for Unix boxes, while many options are available right from

the administrator interface. These settings are available under icon near the server on E. Manager -> Servers -> P.Servers page. After you‟re done with the settings, don‟t forget to click Submit.

Apache Version

 To choose Apache version for your physical Unix box:

1 Go to E. Manager -> Servers -> P.Servers and click the (Server options)

icon.

2 On the page that appears choose Apache versions:

1 corresponds to Apache 1.3.x, 2 to Apache 2.2.x. If you enable Apache 2.2.x, choose also MPMs (Multi-Processing Modules): prefork or worker.

3 Click Submit.

58 Server Configuration

Apache Modules

Some Apache modules like apache_ssl consume much of the system resources, some are obsolete like apache_throttle and apache_frontpage. You can toggle them from the interface for each Apache version. By default, only apache_ssl of the following is enabled, the rest are disabled:

Server Configuration 59

 apache_ssl - this module provides strong cryptography for the Apache 1.x webserver

via the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL v2/v3) and Transport Layer Security (TLS v1) protocols by the help of the Open Source SSL/TLS toolkit OpenSSL.

 apache_fastcgi - this module provides support for the FastCGI protocol. FastCGI is a

language independent, scalable, open extension to CGI that provides high performance and persistence without the limitations of server specific APIs.

 apache_scgi - the SCGI protocol is a replacement for the Common Gateway

Interface (CGI) protocol. It is a standard for applications to interface with HTTP servers. It is similar to FastCGI but is designed to be easier to implement.

 apache_throttle - limit the bandwidth usage and server load of virtual hosts,

directories, locations, or users according to selected policies.

 apache_frontpage - this module adds front page support.  apache_status - this module allows a server administrator to find out how well their

server is performing. A HTML page is presented that gives the current server statistics in an easily readable form. If required this page can be made to automatically refresh (given a compatible browser). Another page gives a simple machine-readable list of the current server state.

 apache_security - open source Intrusion Detection and Prevention module for Web

applications.

 apache_cache - enables memory caching scheme with most common set of related

parameters. If you want to change them, or use disk caching scheme, or combination of the two, prepare a custom template for corresponding include file.

When enabling apache_security, set also Apache mod_security options:

60 Server Configuration

 asecurity_rules - Web Application protection. Config file: rules.conf. Default: 0

(disabled).

 asecurity_jitp - Just in Time Patches for Vulnerable Applications. Config file: jitp.conf.

Default: 0 (disabled).

 asecurity_useragents - Bad UserAgents blocking. Config file: useragents.conf.

Default: 0 (disabled).

 asecurity_blacklist - Comment spam blacklist. Config file: blacklist.conf. Default: 0

(disabled).

 asecurity_blacklist2 - Compromised/Hacker boxes blacklist. Config file:

blacklist2.conf. Default: 0 (disabled).

 asecurity_apache2-rules - Additional Apache 2.x rules. Effective for apache 2.2 only.

Config file: apache2-rules.conf. Default: 0 (disabled).

 asecurity_rootkits - Known rootkits/worms. Config file: rootkits.conf. Default: 0

(disabled).

 asecurity_exclude - Rule Exclusions. Config file: exclude.conf. Default: 0 (disabled).  asecurity_recons - “Google Hacks” signatures. Config file: recons.conf. Default: 0

(disabled).

Using Gotroot.com Modsecurity™ Rules With H-Sphere

Parallels H-Sphere provides a tool for loading Gotroot.com Modsecurity rules included into hsphere-apache-shared-h3.1 package.

At the moment, the following Gotroot rules are supported (the list may differ for Apache

1.x and 2.x, modsecurity 1.9 and 2.0-2.1 versions):

 apache2-rules  badips  blacklist2  blacklist  exclude  jitp  proxy  recons  rootkits  rules  useragents

You can download Gotroot rules from http://www.gotroot.com/tiki-

index.php?page=mod_security+rules

 To be able to use Gotroot rules in Parallels H-Sphere, follow steps below:

Step 1. Download necessary Gotroot rules archives and place them into the corresponding directories in your web box(es).

Server Configuration 61

Apache 1.x: the rules are available for modsec 1.9 only.

1 Enter a temporary directory 2 Download archived Gotroot rules:

# wget http://www.gotroot.com/downloads/ftp/mod_security/apache1/apac he1-gotrootrules-latest.tar.gz

3 Untar it into the temporary directory

# tar zxf apache1-gotrootrules-latest.tar.gz

4 Copy the configuration *.conf files to the

/hsphere/pkg/config/httpd/gotrootrules directory:

# cp -f ./apache1/*.conf /hsphere/pkg/config/httpd/gotrootrules/

Apache 2.x: it is required to download the rules for both modsec 1.9 and 2.0-2.1 versions.

modsec 1.9:

5 Enter a temporary directory 6 Download archived Gotroot rules:

# wget http://www.gotroot.com/downloads/ftp/mod_security/apache2/apache2gotrootrules-latest.tar.gz

7 Untar it into the temporary directory:

# tar zxf apache2-gotrootrules-latest.tar.gz

8 Copy the configuration *.conf files to the

/hsphere/pkg/config/httpd2/gotrootrules directory:

# cp -f ./apache2/*.conf /hsphere/pkg/config/httpd2/gotrootrules/

modsec 2.0-2.1

9 Enter a temporary directory 10 Download archived Gotroot rules:

# wget http://www.gotroot.com/downloads/ftp/mod_security/2.0/apache2/apache2gotrootrules-modsec2.0-latest.tar.gz

11 Untar it into the /hsphere/pkg/config/httpd2/gotrootrules2 directory:

# tar zxf apache2-gotrootrules-modsec2.0-latest.tar.gz -C /hsphere/pkg/config/httpd2/gotrootrules2

Step 2. run apache-load-gotrootrules.sh tool to load Gotroot rules into H-Sphere from configuration files:

# /hsphere/shared/scripts/apache-load-gotrootrules.sh -h

 h|--help option will show usage details: usage: apache-load-gotrootrules.sh [-f|--force] [<rule> <rule2> <ruleN>] [-h|--help]

 f|--force : process rules from gotrootrules configuration files „*.conf‟ by force even

if they were already loaded („*.conf.tmpl‟ exists).

62 Server Configuration

<rule*> : process rules from file ‘<rule*>.conf’ only. Space separated list allowing to process more then one gotrootrule configuration file.

 h|--help : print this help messagee.

Following gotrootrules are supported:

apache2-rules badips blacklist2 blacklist exclude jitp proxy recons rootkits rules useragents

Examples:

# apache-load-gotrootrules.sh—force jitp Process rules from „jitp.conf‟ even if „jitp.conf.tmpl‟ already exists

# apache-load-gotrootrules.sh

That will process only rules from new configuration files (if ‘*.conf’ exista and ‘*.conf.tmpl’ - not).

Step 3. enable Apache mod_security options in Admin CP:

Server Configuration 63

asecurity_rules - Web Application protection. Config file: rules.conf. Default: 0 (disabled).

asecurity_jitp - Just in Time Patches for Vulnerable Applications. Config file: jitp.conf. Default: 0 (disabled).

asecurity_useragents - Bad UserAgents blocking. Config file: useragents.conf. Default: 0 (disabled).

asecurity_blacklist - Comment spam blacklist. Config file: blacklist.conf. Default: 0 (disabled).

asecurity_blacklist2 - Compromised/Hacker boxes blacklist. Config file: blacklist2.conf. Default: 0 (disabled).

asecurity_apache2-rules - Additional Apache 2.x rules. Effective for apache 2.2 only. Config file: apache2-rules.conf. Default: 0 (disabled).

asecurity_rootkits - Known rootkits/worms. Config file: rootkits.conf. Default: 0 (disabled).

asecurity_exclude - Rule Exclusions. Config file: exclude.conf. Default: 0 (disabled). asecurity_recons - “Google Hacks” signatures. Config file: recons.conf. Default: 0

(disabled).

64 Server Configuration

PHP Modes

For each available Apache version you can choose from libphp (default), cgi, or fastcgi:  libphp - PHP runs as an Apache module. The advantage is that PHP is always in

memory use which results in a higher speed capability and lower server load.

 cgi - PHP runs as a CGI script in a separate process which starts with each request

and completes its work upon the script execution. This provides a simpler and more secure PHP work, but draws excessive memory usage and higher memory load.

 fastcgi - PHP also runs as a CGI script, but under a single process which does not

stop when the script is executed. This allows to minimize server load while running PHP in CGI mode.

To configure advanced PHP mode settings in admin CP, go to E.Manager->Servers- >P.Servers and click on the Settings icon for a physical server. You will see the following interface:

Server Configuration 65

This form allows you to choose which PHP 4 and PHP 5 libphp/cgi/fastcgi modes will be available for end users whose domains are hosted on this physical server, and to set the default mode for each PHP version.

The fastcgi and cgi modes can be enabled for both PHP 4 and PHP 5, but the libphp mode only for one of the PHP versions. Modes checked as Enabled will be available for end users to choose from in the Advanced PHP configuration interface in Web Options. When users switch PHP version in the “simplified” PHP configuration interface, they switch between the default modes of PHP versions (the Default column in the form choose one default mode per PHP version). After that, selected modes will be available for users to choose from for each domain.

If you have enabled fastcgi mode, you can configure its VirtualHost options in the form below:

66 Server Configuration

 fcgi_idle-timeout - the number of seconds of FastCGI application inactivity allowed

before the request is aborted and the event is logged (at the error LogLevel). The inactivity timer applies only as long as a connection is pending with the FastCGI application. If a request is queued to an application, but the application doesn‟t respond (by writing and flushing) within this period, the request will be aborted. If communication is complete with the application but incomplete with the client (the response is buffered), the timeout does not apply.

 fcgi_killInterval - determines how often the dynamic application instance killing policy

is implemented within the process manager. Smaller numbers result in a more aggressive policy, larger numbers a less aggressive policy.

 fcgi_minProcesses - minimum total number of dynamic FastCGI application instances

allowed to run at any one time without being killed off by the process manager (due to lack of demand).

 fcgi_maxClassProcesses - maximum number of dynamic FastCGI application

instances allowed to run for any one FastCGI application. It must be less or equal to maxProcesses (this condition is not programmably enforced).

 fcgi_maxProcesses - maximum total number of dynamic FastCGI application

instances allowed to run at any one time. It must be greater or equal to maxClassProcesses (this condition is not programmably enforced).

 fcgi_restart - causes the process manager to restart dynamic applications upon

failure (similar to static applications).

 fcgi_multiThreshold - an integer between 0 and 100 used to determine whether any

one instance of a FastCGI application should be terminated. If the application has more than one instance currently running, this attribute will be used to decide whether one of them should be terminated. If only one instance remains, singleThreshold is used instead.

 fcgi_singleThreshold - An integer between 0 and 100 used to determine whether the

last instance of a FastCGI application can be terminated. If the process manager computed load factor for the application is lower than the specified threshold, the last instance is terminated. In order to make your executables run in the “idle” mode for the long time, you would specify a value closer to 1, however if memory or CPU time is of primary concern, a value closer to 100 would be more applicable. Setting it to 0 will prevent the last instance of an application from being terminated; this is the default value, changing it is not recommended (especially if -appConnTimeout is set).

 fcgi_updateInterval - determines how often statistical analysis is performed to

determine the fate of dynamic FastCGI applications.

Server Configuration 67

PHP Plugins

In this form you can disable unwanted PHP plugins (PHP extensions as DSO modules):

68 Server Configuration

phpext_dbx, phpext_domxml, phpext_filepro, phpext_mcal,

Consider another example: Let‟s say you‟ve got:

 p.server1 with the following groups on it: Control Panel, Mail, Web, Name and  p.server2 with Mail, Real and MySQL server groups.

In this case logical servers:  cp.net, web.net, name.net can be set up only on ph_server_1 and real.net with mysql.net - on

ph_server_2;

 while mail.net can be set up to any of them. You can also have two logical servers carrying out mail service (e.g.: mail1.net and mail2.net) set

up on different or the same physical server. Several different web, name, etc., logical servers can be put on one physical server, too. The only requirement is that it has the appropriate server group.

phpext_xslt are implemented only for PHP 4, while phpext_soap and phpext_mysqli - for PHP 5.

To obtain help on a plugin, click the button with ? near its title.

Server Groups

Logical servers are grouped by functionality and purpose. For instance, you can have a group of name servers, a group of „priority‟ web servers, a group of „basic‟ web servers etc. Logical server groups allow you to control the distribution of user data across servers.

Example: You have several customers on a priority hosting plan and you want to keep their sites on a separate box. To achieve this, you need to create a separate „priority web‟ server group and add it to this box.

You can add one server group to many physical servers. For instance, if you add the „priority web‟ server group to p.server1, p.server2, and p.server3, your priority plan customers will be randomly distributed across these three physical servers.

A physical server may have one or many server groups. For instance, you can add the „priority web‟ server group to p.server1 and p.server2, whereas all other server groups can be added to p.server3.

Note: You can‟t add a logical server to a physical server if it doesn‟t have the respective server group.

To see the server groups available in your system, go to E.Manager-> Servers -> Server

Groups:

Server Configuration 69

70 Server Configuration

How Do I Create a Server Group?

1 Go to E.Manager -> Servers -> Server Groups. 2 At the bottom of the page that appears, enter the name of the server

group and select its type.

3 Click Add.

How Do I Add a Group to a Physical Server?

1 Go to E.Manager-> Servers -> P.Servers. 2 Click the name of the physical server. 3 At the bottom of the page that appears, select a server group and

click Add.

4 Now you can create logical servers in this server group.

How do I delete a server group?

You can delete only custom server groups by clicking the Delete icon next to them.

Server Configuration 71

Load Balanced Server Clusters

Parallels H-Sphere interface allows you to set master-slave relations between servers in Web and mail clusters. Please refer to the complete procedure of installation and configuration of load balanced cluster servers in Parallels H-Sphere Sysadmin Guide.

 To structure Parallels H-Sphere physical servers in a load balanced cluster:

1 Add physical servers to Parallels H-Sphere. (on page 34) 2 Create server groups on these servers (on page 68), depending on

their functionality. Servers that belong to the same cluster must have the same server group created on them.

3 Create master servers:

1. In the E. Manager -> Servers menu choose P. Servers.

2. On the page which lists physical servers click the needed server name. Turn

Load Balance Server on:

72 Server Configuration

3. On the Load Balanced Server page chose No master and click change.

4. Add web or mail logical server group to each created physical server.

4 Create slave servers. Enable Load Balanced Server for the rest of the

servers choosing a master server for them:

5 As the result, on the Physical Servers page you should have load

balanced clusters visualized with master and slave servers clearly distinguished:

Important: Logical servers can‟t be created on slave servers. Any number of slave servers can be created for master mail and load balanced web servers.

Server Configuration 73

Platform Change

Parallels H-Sphere integrates a hostingPlatformChanger system package that enables users to change platform from Windows to Unix OS and vice versa.

WARNING: Currently, hostingPlatformChanger system package is a beta version !

The platform change process with the help of hostingPlatformChanger package involves:

 Hosting plan change  Domains IP change  Deletion of incompatible resources (currently, all resources listed on the Web Options

page)

 Manual transfer of a user‟s content

 To enable users to change the platform, perform:

Step 1. Install the hostingPlatformChanger system package:

 Log into your CP server as To log in as the cpanel user:

1 Log in as root first:

$ su -l

2 Log in as the cpanel user:

1. # su -l cpanel

2. Download (http://download.hsphere.parallels.com/downloads/index.html#platform_changer ) the latest hostingPlatformChanger package.

3. Install the package. See Sysadmin Guide for detailed instructions on package installation.

Step 2. Define the plans for which platform change is allowed:

1. Go to Plans->Platform Change Groups and click on the Edit icon next to the target platform.

74 Server Configuration

2. On the page that appears, choose the plans that you are going to allow your users to switch to. For this, check boxes near the plans in the Add plans to a group column and Submit the request.

Step 3. After users have requsted platform change from their User CP, you have to approve the process and choose the target server:

1. Go to E.Manager->Platform Change Processes and find the process to be approved

2. Click on the Approve icon in the Controls column

3. On the page you will be taken to, check with the details of the process, choose the target box, and approve the process by clicking Submit button

Server Configuration 75

Step 4. Launch the process manually or the process will be handled by a special cron. To launch manually use the icon in the Controls column of the page you will be taken to.

You can find the PlatformChange cron details from the Background Job Manager (on page 129) page:

In general, platform change process takes the following stages:

1. Check if resources to be re-created physically can be created on selected logical server

2. Physical creation of resources

3. Incompatible resources deletion

4. Plan switch

5. Domains IP and DNS change

6. DNS propagation. In 24hr the content and resources will be removed from the old server. On this stage, the process can be suspended/resumed if DNS propagation within 24hr is not acceptable. To suspend, go to E.Manager->Platform Change Processes and use a respective icon in the Controls column.

7. To resume, go to E.Manager->Platform Change Processes and use a respective icon in the Controls column.

8. Old content on the source server deletion

When the procedure goes fine, the necessary resources are recreated, incompatible resources removed, DNS and IP changed. If something goes wrong, the process is rolled back and a trouble ticket created. You can view the TT from the E.Manager-

>Platform Change Processes page.

76 Server Configuration

Updating Physical Boxes From CP Interface

In Parallels H-Sphere one can perform Parallels H-Sphere software installation and update on multiple boxes (except for the CP core and Parallels H-Sphere Windows core services) from the administrative control panel:

 Parallels H-Sphere update to the latest version or update of particular services on

selected boxes

 Adding Parallels H-Sphere servers and services: physical installation of Parallels

H-Sphere software into the new boxes previously added in admin CP as Parallels

H-Sphere physical (on page 34) and logical (on page 37) servers Installation and update from admin CP is performed under certain conditions:  Before you run Update Wizard to update the whole cluster to a required Parallels

H-Sphere version, you need first to update Parallels H-Sphere CP core (and

Parallels H-Sphere Winbox core for Windows servers) by downloading and running

Parallels H-Sphere update script with the cpupdate option (HSCore package for

Windows servers) for this version.  Update of particular packages and services on each box is according to physical

server profiles (on page 77) - sets of update rules assigned to a group of physical

servers.

Procedure

 To update or install Parallels H-Sphere on selected physical servers:

1 Go to E.Manager -> Update -> Update Boxes:

Server Configuration 77

2 Check the servers you need to update/install. 3 If necessary, you can get info about the box by checking boxes and

clicking the Fetch Boxes Info button. 4 Click Start Update.

Update process indicator legend:

 Yellow: ready for update  Blue: update is running  Green: update successfully finished  Red: update finished with error. If update fails, you will see an error message with

details.

Physical Server Installation/Update Profiles

Parallels H-Sphere allows creating server update profiles to update/install packages on physical boxes according to the rules set by admin. For this, Parallels H-Sphere uses a so- called server update profile. By default, Parallels H-Sphere includes the „DEFAULT‟ profile which can‟t be removed or changed. If not set otherwise, the box is updated according to this DEFAULT profile.

However, you can create your own update profiles and assign them to specific boxes. In this case, the system will update the server according to the profile it‟s assigned to.

 To create a profile:

1 Go to E.Manager -> Update -> Physical server profiles 2 Choose the box (Unix/Windows) and click the Add button:

78 Server Configuration

3 Name and configure your profile in the form that appears:

 Adding Unix profile:

Server Configuration 79

 Adding Windows profile:

80 Server Configuration

Where:

- Update only pointed logical server groups. You can choose between three hosting

modes: Windows hosting only, MsSQL hosting only, or both Windows and MsSQL

hosting modes

- Source URL for packages download redefinition is the link to an alternative server with

MSI packages. If not set, default MSI location is

http://www.psoft.net/shiv/HS/WINDOWS/

- Location of user home directory. If it is not set there, Parallels H-Sphere Winbox

installer will automatically create it on NTFS partition with the largest free space.

- MAC address of network interface to host dedicated IP‟s, etc. If not set there, Parallels

H-Sphere Winbox installer will automatically choose an address based on the free

IPs of a physical server.

- Name of MSSQL server instance. Give a name to a MsSQL server instance if you want

it to differ from a default one generated from a NetBIOS name of a specific server

4 Click Save to apply. Profile will appear in the list of existing profiles. 5 Click the Assign Profiles to Physical Servers link

You can assign only one profile to a server. But one and the same profile can be assigned by several servers.

6 Click Apply.  If you want to reassign a profile:

1 Go to E.Manager -> Servers -> P. Servers 2 Click the physical server name you want to reassign a profile to 3 Click the Edit icon in the Physical Server Profile field 4 Reassign the profile

From now on, every time you update this physical box from CP interface, it will

update according to the profile.

Server Configuration 81

Resource Prerequisites

Resource Prerequisites implies the following:

1 Some resources can be enabled/disabled for selected logical server

groups despite their availability on physical boxes.

Resources like:

 SSL, Throttle, Frontpage and RubyOnRail for Unix web boxes

 PHP, Urchin, Miva, Miva Empresa and ColdFusion for Windows web boxes

 VPS templates and VPS context RSS limit for VPS boxes

can be enabled or disabled on the level of logical server groups, no matter if they

are installed on physical servers or not.

1. Go E. Manager -> Servers -> Server Groups and click Edit for web server, win server or vps server group:

2. Enable/disable services for plans under this logical server group: for web servers group:

82 Server Configuration

for win servers group:

for virtual servers group:

Server Configuration 83

3. Click Submit. Users who sign up to plans hosted on such server groups will have these resources enabled or disabled.

2 Periodical availability checks for resources with prerequisites.

A special CP cron periodically polls physical servers to check whether resources with prerequisites are installed on physical boxes. If some of them are not available, the ! mark appears near the corresponding logical server name. Go E. Manager -> Servers -> L.Servers and hover mouse over ! to see which resources are not installed physically:

Also, it is possible to see which resources with prerequisites are installed on physical boxes via the Physical Servers menu in administrator interface:

1. Go E. Manager -> Servers -> P.Servers

2. Click the magnifier icon near a physical server:

84 Server Configuration

3. On the page that appears click Installed Services.

Note: For Unix boxes, you will get a page with installed resources with

prerequisites only. For Windows boxes, the page will show all installed resources.

3 Enabling/disabling of resources automatically affects end users,

without a need of editing respective plans.

You can enable resources with prerequisites when creating or editing a plan, no matter if these resources are installed or not installed on physical boxes. If a service is absent on physical box, users will see a red exclamation mark in their control panels near the service. If they hover mouse over the mark, a note like this appears:

Then, after you installed missing services later, you don‟t need to go back to Plan Wizard to enable them in the plan. If they were already enabled in the server group configuration, users will automatically obtain them in their control panels.

In plan edit wizards, resources which were disabled in server group configuration have a note like this:

You can choose a different logical server group with a different set of prerequisites right in plan edit wizards. To do this:

1. Enter a plan edit wizard, scroll to the Web services section and click the control in blue oval in the Logical Server Group field:

For Virtual Private Server plans, find the Logical Server Group field right below the plan title:

2. Choose another group and click Apply. Parallels H-Sphere will update this wizard page with the status of resources with prerequisites for the chosen group.

Server Configuration 85

System Service Management

System Service Management is a utility that allows managing Parallels H-Sphere system services from the Admin CP interface.

 To manipulate system services via Parallels H-Sphere interface:

1 Go to E.Manager -> Servers -> P.Servers 2 Click the lens icon next to the chosen physical server to get to the

System Information page.

3 Scroll down and click the System Service Management link.

86 Server Configuration

You see the list of all processes involved with this server split by groups; dns, mail, web, mysql, cp.

 Type of the service: supervise - service is managed by supervising process;

standalone - service is independent

 Running time: shows how log the service has been running, in seconds

4 Select necessary services and the action to start, restart, stop

processes.

5 Click the Apply button.

Note: You can‟t manipulate httpdcp service for consistency reasons.

This chapter discusses the configuration steps required for your DNS.

In this chapter:

DNS Manager ................................................................................................... 88

Adding DNS Zones ............................................................................................ 88

Instant Alias Templates ..................................................................................... 90

DNS Records ................................................................................................ .... 94

Hosting Your Corporate Site .............................................................................. 98

Adding Domains for Third Level Hosting ........................................................... 101

Providing Mail Under Service Domain for Third-Level Hosting ........................... 101

C H A P T E R 6

DNS and Hosting

88 DNS and Hosting

DNS Manager

DNS Manager in the Admin panel is used to create and manage:  service DNS zones (on page 88) - to host your corporate site and provide third level

domain hosting.

 instant alias templates (on page 90) - to provide immediate access to users‟ newly

registered domains until their domain‟s DNS hasn‟t been propagated.

 DNS records (on page 94) - to manage servers external to Parallels H-Sphere with

Parallels H-Sphere DNS.

It‟s not intended to work with your user domains‟ dns.

Adding DNS Zones

You must have at least one DNS zone in your system. Before you start adding a DNS zone, make sure to have added the DNS servers with Service IPs.

 To add a DNS zone:

1 Select DNS Manager in the E.Manager menu:

2 Click the Add DNS Zone link:

DNS and Hosting 89

3 Enter zone name and zone administrator e-mail and choose whether

to allow third level domain hosting in this zone:

 Name: the name of the DNS zone you are going to create. If this domain name is

not yet registered, don‟t forget to register it with a domain registration company.

 Admin e-mail: the e-mail address of this DNS zone administrator.  Allow third level domain hosting: allow the creation of lower level domains in this

DNS zone.

 Master/slave server: available only for service DNS zones - allows you to choose

and appoint a master and a slave server. The information is backed up every hour.

4 After you submit the form, the new zone appears in the DNS Manager

table:

90 DNS and Hosting

5 Click the EDIT icon to go to the DNS zone management page. Here

In this section:

Adding Instant Alias Templates ......................................................................... 91

Editing Instant Alias Templates ......................................................................... 93

you can add instant alias templates (on page 90), custom DNS records (on page 94) and Reseller CP alias (on page 365) to your DNS zone:

Instant Alias Templates

Instant Alias Templates are used to generate Instant Aliases, temporary addresses

providing immediate access to users‟ domains from the Internet. They are usually helpful when the DNS servers worldwide are being refreshed and the site is temporarily unavailable at the regular domain name.

Creating an instant alias template will automatically add one or more A-DNS records to your service zone. These records resolve all your logical servers.

DNS and Hosting 91

Adding Instant Alias Templates

 To add instant alias, do the following:

1 Select DNS Manager in the E.Manager menu.

2 Click the EDIT icon to go to the DNS zone management page. The

following page appears:

92 DNS and Hosting

3 To add an instant alias template, click the Add instant alias link. This will

open the following form to fill out:

 Prefix: instant alias prefix that will appear on the left to the domain part in user‟s

instant domain alias. Different prefixes should be set if you use different shared IP tags. Other than that, it is recommended to use one and the same prefix (e.g. u for all instant alias templates).

 Shared IP tag: a digital “mark” that helps separate sites within one plan on one

logical server. All sites located on the same logical host under the same plan are usually assigned to the same shared IP. This feature allows to give a different shared IP to a group of sites of, say, explicit nature. This may become necessary as many corporate firewalls filter sites based on their IP, not the domain name.

Normally, you are expected to have devoted one IP address for each shared IP tag. To use a shared IP tag, you need to have it defined for every logical host. Go to the LServers (on page 37) section for instructions.

Numbers 10 to 99 are acceptable. The default value of 2 is assigned when the field is submitted being empty.

4 Click Submit. You will be taken back to the list of instant aliases with

the new instant alias template added to the list.

DNS and Hosting 93

Editing Instant Alias Templates

Once an Instant Alias is created, the system adds all necessary A DNS records to this DNS zone.

To view these DNS records, cilck the Edit button near the necessary Instant Aliases:

The upper part of the table lists the existing DNS A records in the selected DNS zone. To delete DNS records, click the Trash icon.

The lower part of the table appears only when the DNS zone does not contain A records for some logical servers. It lists these logical servers with their IP‟s.

To add a logical server to the DNS zone, click the Add button. You can add all these servers to the DNS zone by clicking the Add records to all listed logical servers link at the bottom of the table.

If the IP address with the specified shared IP tag doesn‟t exist on one or more logical servers, you will get the corresponding message on the instant alias properties page. If you see this message, add a shared IP with this shared IP tag to the listed logical servers. Go to the LServers (on page 37) section for instructions.

To delete Instant Alias Template, click the Trash icon next to the corresponding alias.

94 DNS and Hosting

DNS Records

Custom DNS records are required to manage non-HSphere servers with Parallels H-Sphere DNS zone or to configure new logical servers that are added manually.

Depending on the service, you can add:

 A records  MX records  CNAME records

 To add new custom DNS records:

1 In your admin control panel go to the E.Manager menu -> DNS Manager.

The following page shows:

2 Click the Edit icon near the chosen DNS zone. A page similar to this

will appear:

DNS and Hosting 95

3 At the bottom of the page that shows, select a DNS record from the

In this section:

Adding custom A records .................................................................................. 95

Adding custom MX records ................................ ............................................... 96

Adding custom CNAME records ........................................................................ 96

Re-generating System Custom DNS Records ................................................... 98

drop-down list and click the Go button.

4 On the form that shows enter all necessary data and click Submit to

save.

You can add one of the following types of DNS records:

 A records to map domain names and web server IP‟s.  MX records to map domain names and their mail server IP‟s.

5 CNAME records to map aliases with domain names.

Adding custom A records

The Address record (A record) gives you the IP address of a domain. That way, users that try to go to www.example.com will get to the right IP address.

To add a new DNS A record, you need to provide a set of parameters:

 Name: the string appended to the domain name to create a FQDN mapped to the

IP. For example, if your domain name is besthosting.com, entering cp will make the fully qualified domain name cp.besthosting.com.

 TTL (a Time To Live): seconds to elapse before the record is refreshed in the

provider‟s DNS cache.

 Data: the IP address that fully qualified domain name will be mapped to. You can

get this IP address with any ping utility.

96 DNS and Hosting

Adding custom MX records

A host name can have one or more Mail Exchange (MX) records. These records point to hosts that accept mail messages on behalf of the host. Adding MX records is similar to adding A records:

 Name: your local domain name. If you leave the Name field blank, all mail will be

redirected for the base zone.

 Data: the priority of the record and mail domain name (not the IP) mail will be

forwarded to. Note: The priority of the custom MX record defines whether your external servers will act as secondary or primary. For instance, if you set the priority of the custom MX record higher than 10 (e.g. 11), your external mail server will be used as secondary. If you set the priority of the custom MX record lower than 10 (e.g. 9), your external mail server will be used as primary. In the latter case, your mail will be sent to your external mail server until it goes down or becomes otherwise inaccessible. Then the default mail server will take over.

WARNING: Please pay attention to $ORIGIN when you add an MX record.

Adding custom CNAME records

The Canonical Name (CNAME) record allows a machine or host to be referenced by more than one name. A CNAME can be used to define an alias host name. You can also use aliases when a host changes its name.

If you have selected CNAME record, the following page appears:

DNS and Hosting 97

In the case of CNAME records, the values have the same format as in the A record with the exception of the Data field. In the Data field you have to enter the name of the server to which you are creating the alias record.

WARNING: Please pay attention to $ORIGIN when you add a CNAME record.

The DNS records you create appear on the zone management page:

You can‟t edit DNS records. To remove unnecessary records, click the Trash icon

98 DNS and Hosting

Re-generating System Custom DNS Records

When you add a logical server (on page 37), it is necessary to append system DNS records for it. You can automatically re-generate them.

Prior to re-generating system custom DNS records, make sure that:  the basis of the logical server domain name coincides with the registered system

DNS zones

 you have added Shared and Service IPs

 To re-generate system custom DNS records for all logical servers:

1 Go to E.Manager->Enterprise. 2 Click on the Re-generate all system custom DNS records link.

 To re-generate system custom DNS records for all logical servers assigned to a

particular physical server:

1 Go to P.Servers in the E.Manager menu. 2 You will be taken to the list of all physical servers in the system.

Select the server you would like to generate custom DNS records for.

3 On the page that appears press the Generate button in the Generate

custom DNS records for this physical server field.

 To re-generate system custom DNS records for a particular logical server:

1 Go to L.Servers in the E.Manager menu. 2 You will be taken to the list of all logical servers in the system. Select

the server you would like to generate custom DNS records for.

On the page that appears press the Generate button in the Generate custom dns records for

this logical server field.

Hosting Your Corporate Site

This document explains how to host your corporate (promotional) web-site at the service domain (the domain you are offering for third level hosing). For example, if you are offering third level domains at example.com, such as thirdlevel.example.com or userdomain.example.com, you need to have your corporate site available at www.example.com.

 To set up your corporate site:

Step 1. Make sure you have a service DNS zone

1 Select DNS Manager in the E.Manager menu. 2 If the DNS zone is not in the list, click Add DNS Zone.

DNS and Hosting 99

3 On the page that appears, enter the service domain name and other

values and click Submit.

Step 2. Create a service plan

You may already have a service plan in your system. It can also be called „System plan‟. If you don‟t, do the following:

1 Select Create in the Plans menu:

2 Click the Select icon for Unix plan wizard:

3 On the fist step of the Unix Plan Creation Wizard, set the plan name to

System or Service.

4 Check the Include boxes next to the resources you would like to use

with your site. Read more about plan resources in Creating And Editing Plans (Plan Wizards) (on page 242).

5 Make sure to check Service domain. 6 Scroll down to the the Settings section and set Billing Type to Without

billing.

7 Click the Next button to go to Step 2. 8 Complete the wizard.

100 DNS and Hosting

Step 3. Disallow signups from outside your admin account.

After you have created the system plan, you need to make sure that it is not used by your customers:

1 Select Manage in the Plans menu. 2 Click Access for the system plan. 3 Make sure only Admin is checked. 4 Select Manage in the Plans menu. 5 Enable the System plan by clicking the ON/OFF button.

Step 4. Create a service account

Now you can create an account for your service domain:

1 Select the Signup menu. 2 Click Select next to the recently created System plan. 3 Select service plan signup wizard. 4 Create service account using the wizard. When prompted the type of

the domain, select Service domain.

Parallels H-Sphere - 3.1 Administrator’s Guide

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual