I am having trouble finding the money to pay for my server, so I am thinking about hosting other peoples sites. I would probably host less than six small bandwidth accounts for some friends.

Technically what do I need to do setup the accounts? Do I just need to add a new <virtualhost...> in the httpd.conf file and create the appropriate folders? Is it practical to do this without a control panel? Note than I am using Linux with Apache.

I will also need an inexpensive utility to track bandwidth usage. Any suggestions?

Is pay-pal a good way to collect monthly bills? Are they better, inexpensive billing programs?

I am going to include some information on PayPal subscriptions because you mentioned it.

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_help-ext&eloc=0&loc=311

It can be done without a control panel but it is a pain at Elite Hosts we wrote our own control panel to give us more flexibility. Basically, you need to add entries to httpd.conf, add user/groups, create the dirs, manage dns information and records and edit the local-host-names and virtusertable and aliases files (where applicable) for email settings and you may need an ftp entry depending on your software... then reboot all those services to make changes take effect (not to mention quotas or logging or mysql or anything like that)... a control panel saves time but is not REQUIRED if you are not signing up a ton of people per day... it is a big workload

Paypal is an ok solution, you must have the customers goto a paypal page on the paypal site to pay (and it leaves your site ) and not everyone has a paypal account and it sort-of (not always) looks unprofessional if thats your only payment method. A merchant account for about $50 a month and no contract (www.goemerchant.com) brings alot of reliability and backing to your business if you can take credit cards from your order form and have your hosting company name appear on it.

Just my $.02, if you want to discuss further you can email me.

I expect to make about $100/month through the six accounts. Adding a control panel to my package will cost me $60/month and severely cut into profits. I wish to avoid a control if possible.

I am still unsure of how to setup the accounts without the control panel. Is there an online guide that explains this in more detail? If not could you spell out exactly what needs to be changed?

There is no simple manual for it :) everyone requires different prefs and features... there are plenty of docs on linux for adding user accounts, and docs for sendmail adding email accounts, and same for mysql and httpd entries....... I dont think there is 1 guide for it...

Originally posted by NVB
Adding a control panel to my package will cost me $60/month and severely cut into profits. No, there is also freeware software.

try web cp (http://webcp.can-host.com/).

It is still under construction, but the main features are allready included