Okay i got myself a reseller hosting package from a friend... it has a cpanel which i know how to use but there is another option which is WHM... i know u have to make packages and stuff and manage it there. I m totally lost, what should i do next? Do i have to set up some kind of WHM Script on the main site? If so what will i do of the cPanel WHM option? Any one help me understand the basics... and recommend WHM Scripts/CMSs... I was thinking abt WHMCS but its paid:(

WHM is Web Host Manager. Its for creating packages, new cPanel accounts, etc. WHMCS is completely unrelated, as its billing software for your site.

so i still have to make accounts manually? and what about the domains? how do other reseller hosts manage it? could ya tell me?

Greetings,
Applications such as WHMCS allow you to automatically create domains and hosting accounts once your customer pays for the service. It is a paid application (and worth every penny IMHO).

I would talk to your friend before going further to see if he can walk you through. My concern is that if you have a potential customer that contacts you, will you be able to assist?

Hello, first explore all the features of WHM, make sure that you become familiar with what it can do and how you make it to do that.

Second part is, you need a billing and client management software that can take orders for you, that can process payments and that can create cPanel accounts for you within WHM once the signup/payment process has been done by the client and order approved by you.

As of now WHMCS (http://www.whmcs.com) is one of the best billing and client management app, but you can also use AccountLabPlus (http://sourceforge.net/projects/accountlabplus/) as it is quite good and is free too.

thanks Vinayak... yeah i can give support but when you say WHMCS can do stuff automatically how does it mange domain registrations?

thanks Vinayak... yeah i can give support but when you say WHMCS can do stuff automatically how does it mange domain registrations?

WHMCS can handle most of your account creations, client management etc. In regards to domain registration, you need a domain reseller account which you can find just by Googling 'domain reseller' or you can try www.godaddy.com.

Once you have established a domain reseller account, WHMCS can connect via API to the registrar in which it can provision domain names upon payment has been approved.

WHMCS than utilizes WHM (cPanel) to provision the hosting account according to your instructions which you setup in WHMCS. The end-user can then use WHMCS to manage their account via the client login. Other than that, they can just use cPanel to provision their own email addresses, sub-domains etc.

Hope this helps - PM me if you need any help.

Both WHMCS (http://www.whmcs.com) and AccountLabPlus (http://www.netenberg.com/accountlabplus.php) can do account setup and domain registration automatically, both also give you helpdesk features, ALP is free and good but WHMCS has more features and is much better. None of them integrates with godaddy/wildwestdomains out of the box, both works well with Enom, ResellerClub and many other registrars.

Sorry! GoDaddy was just the first to pop into my mind when I was typing up the post, I really should have checked that first!

As Vinayak Sharma said, eNom and ResellerClub intergrate into WHMCS with no issues at all as the module is pre-installed - all you have to do is enter in your registrars account information in WHMCS.

WHM is for managing the server and the services on it; I.E Apache,MySql, etc. Most of the configurations needed are already in WHM, WHM offers you a graphical way of managing the server.

CPanel provides your customers a way to manage their accounts; So these are the hosting accounts you are providing to the customers.

WHMCS is a billing system that allows you to automate a lot of stuff. The most useful feature is when the payment for an account is made, WHMCS creates the account on the server automatically for you.

Explore WHM tutorials, WHMCS demo, you can find it in their site, by going through these you'll get a general idea of how it works.