I am a simple hosting provider to a select (small) group of my web site customers. No ecommerce...just hosting straight forward informational type (passive) websites.

Why do I need dedicated ip addresses? What are the uses?

I am purchasing a plan with 2, and the hosting company does not seem to know how to make them availble to me in WHM/cPanel. Since I am so illinformed, I need to know their value to me and my situation..

If the company doesn't know how to make them available to you, then maybe you should be looking elsewhere?

Anyway, the IP's allow you to create your own customer nameservers so you don't need to use the ones provided by the host.

Either SSL or custom nameservers. Both are not exactly necessary for you to start your web hosting operations though.

Thanks for replies - After thinking about this, here is what I think I want to do...

1) Use 1 dedicated ip for the entire WHM to assign to each domain I setup (using a "no-ip" package). (Yes, each of my hosted domains share this ip among themselves)

2) Have the second dedicated ip available to assign to a special domain I host by using a "dedicated-ip" package. I know that I can use this package once...unless I purchase more dedicated ip's from my provider...

Will/should this be a workable situation??

Hello,
If your host does not know how to allocate Dedicated IP Addresses, Then I would strongly advise you to move on. This is a very introductory step to using cPanel/WHM.

Thanks for replies - After thinking about this, here is what I think I want to do...

1) Use 1 dedicated ip for the entire WHM to assign to each domain I setup (using a "no-ip" package). (Yes, each of my hosted domains share this ip among themselves)

2) Have the second dedicated ip available to assign to a special domain I host by using a "dedicated-ip" package. I know that I can use this package once...unless I purchase more dedicated ip's from my provider...

Will/should this be a workable situation??

If your hosting plan includes 2 Dedicated IP Addresses, these can be used for custom nameservers. Custom nameservers are "ns1.yourdomain.com" and "ns2.yourdomain.com" instead of "ns1.yourhostingprovider.com" and "ns2.yourhostingprovider.com". So your clients do not see your hosting provider's name at all. If you want to access your web site by an IP and/or want to install a SSL when you will need one more IP.

Yes as stated above those are main reasons for dedicated ips, and as you said you wish to make one ip as your main shared ip, that's comon to do for shared reseller hosting, so thatwould be just fine, now as for your provider not exactly knowing how to set them up for you, well that seems like a bit of lack of common knowledge for web hosting buisness, so id be careful on how much you rely on this provider, or maybe look for another, Regardless best of luck :)

You would need a dedicated IP address if you need services like private SSL, private name servers or other services that can not run from a shared IP address. To have your own web site you do not usually need a dedicated IP address.

They probably will just allocate the IP addresses to you and it's your responsibility to add them to your server/whm. I would hope that they have the knowledge to add it, but maybe they just don't cover that as part of their support.

I personally like to keep all my websites on their own dedicated IP, while the rest of my customers are on a different IP.

Not to mention you need 2 for custom name servers, and another if you plan to install an SSL cert. Does anyone know if you can combine the SSL cert with one of your name server IPs?

Not to mention you need 2 for custom name servers, and another if you plan to install an SSL cert. Does anyone know if you can combine the SSL cert with one of your name server IPs?Yes, you can.

Strictly, you don't really need dedicated IP addresses for custom nameservers either - it's perfectly possible to use shared IPs for this.

Thanks for replies - After thinking about this, here is what I think I want to do...

1) Use 1 dedicated ip for the entire WHM to assign to each domain I setup (using a "no-ip" package). (Yes, each of my hosted domains share this ip among themselves)

2) Have the second dedicated ip available to assign to a special domain I host by using a "dedicated-ip" package. I know that I can use this package once...unless I purchase more dedicated ip's from my provider...

Will/should this be a workable situation??Yes, that's not a bad way at all to go about doing things either.

If your hosting plan includes 2 Dedicated IP Addresses, these can be used for custom nameservers. Custom nameservers are "ns1.yourdomain.com" and "ns2.yourdomain.com" instead of "ns1.yourhostingprovider.com" and "ns2.yourhostingprovider.com". So your clients do not see your hosting provider's name at all. If you want to access your web site by an IP and/or want to install a SSL when you will need one more IP.You don't need your own dedicated IPs - you can realistically use ANY IP that points to the server as private nameservers and I usually suggest that reseller clients use the same IPs that those not using private nameservers use but of course you don't have to :)

Very true, Michael. Most people are stuck in a pre-2004 mentality when it comes to IPs and private nameservers. Back in the day when you tried to register a nameserver with an IP used by another IP your registrar would return an error. But ARIN soon realised that within a few years ALL IPs would soon be gone so they changed the rules. Therefore you absolutely DON'T need dedicated IPs for nameservers. Anyone on a non-reseller plan could ping the nameservers provided by their host to get the IPs and register their own nameservers with the same IPs.

I agree there is no need for that but if you have no idea how to use those IPs just use them for the name servers OR perhaps one of your customers will need that and you will resell that for him

Dedicated Ip's i've seen mostly be used for ssl's. For your nameservers you don't need additional IP's.