CartikaHosting H-Sphere Reseller Startup Guide

Welcome to CartikaHosting! This guide will take you step-by-step to help you set up your H-Sphere Reseller account. If at any point you have questions, please feel free to send an e-mail to support@cartikahosting.com and we’ll be glad to assist you.

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Overview – H-Sphere is a scalable multiserver web hosting control panel that provides complete hosting automation for Linux, FreeBSD & Win2000/2003 platforms, is easy to use, and has extensive user interface, billing solution, brandable resellers, and integrated trouble ticket system.

Step 1 – Setting Up Reseller Admin User

Once you have received your welcome e-mail from our billing department you can start using your account. However, in order to start using your account – you need to establish a username and password that will be used to interface with your end-user accounts (customers).

Once you log in at https://cp.cartikahosting.com:8443 for the first time, you will be presented with a screen that asks you for a username/password/comment (this is optional) and an e-mail address. This username cannot be the same as your reseller account username that you selected during the account signup/creation process and cannot be currently in use anywhere on the system. This username also cannot be changed at any point.

Before you log in from this screen into your actual reseller account, take some time and review the various options in this initial administrator control panel. This control panel is the interaction between your company and us. Your invoices, your billing profile, your usage, etc can be found here. Once you log into the next control panel from here, you will be leaving the interface between CartikaHosting and your company and entering your mater reseller control panel (ie the interface between you and your customers)

Step 2 – Setting Up Company Information

Again, this is fairly straight forward – you just fill in the requested information (see below for example):

And then click “Save”.

Step 2 – Creating a DNS Zone

Now that you have set up your Company Information (this will be used in all communications to your customers from H-Sphere) you need to tell H-Sphere what service domain you want to use. This can be accomplished by clicking on E.Manager in the drop down menu and then selecting DNS Manager (See below):

Once you are in DNS Manager – click on Add DNS Zone and fill in the information required. If you wish to allow 3^rd level domain hosting (ie something.yourservicedomain.com, check this box) then click on Submit (see below):

Once you click on Submit, you will be presented with a few options, click on the hammer and paper icon (marked below):

This will bring you to a screen where you can add your Instant Alias tags (this can be arbitrary, u is the default/recommended):

Clicking on “Add Instant Alias” brings up the following screen:

Step 3 – Setting Up Server Aliases

Click on E.Manager from the Drop Down Menu and select Server Aliases (See below).

Now, once in that screen – you just need to click on the Submit buttons (changing any servernames as appropriate/desired). We will just choose the defaults for the purpose of this guide:

Step 4 – Configure Mail Settings

Here we set up the mail settings to subscribe your staff (and yourself) to receive notifications of new signups, new trouble tickets, unpaid invoices/failed CC charges, etc.

If you click on Settings and then go to E-Mail Notifications, you will be presented with a screen like below:

If you click on any of the Notification Recipient links, you will see a screen like this:

Click on the Paper/Arrow Icon, you will see a screen like this:

Fill out the information that is requested and hit Add. You will need to repeat this for every user and category you would like your staff to receive notifications for:

Step 5 – Setting A Merchant Gateway

(Note: If you are not going to process credit card payments, you may skip this step).

 Select Merchant Gateway in the Settings menu.

· Select a merchant gateway in the Add New Gateway drop down box and click Add.

· Enter this merchant gateway properties.

· In the Set Active drop down box, select this merchant gateway.

· In the Payment Type drop down box, select the credit card brand you would like to process with this merchant gateway.

· Click the Activate button.

Step 6 – Configure Support Center

Select Plan Creation Wizards in the INFO menu.
On the page that appears, select Administrator Plan Wizard.
On the next page, enter TechSupport Admin as the name of the plan, check the last two boxes, TroubleTicket Admin and Allow assignment of trouble tickets. Click Submit.
Select Signup menu and select Tech Support Admin.
Proceed with the wizard to create a Tech Support Admin account.
Select Tech Support from the Settings menu. Trouble Ticket form will appear.
Enter the properties of your support e-mail account. They are required for the control panel to collect customers' e-mails and convert them into trouble tickets.
Click the Save button.

Step 7 – Configure Language, Currency, and Regional Settings

Select Default language in the Look And Feel menu.
On the page that appears, select the language and click Submit. This language can be overridden by individual customers.
Select Regional options in the Look And Feel menu.
On the page that appears, enter preferred currency symbol (Note: all other regional settings are still under development). These settings can't be overridden by your customers.

Step 8 – Set Your Corporate Logos

 Select Corporate Logo in the Look and Feel menu.

 On the page that appears, enter Banner HTML Code for the banner to show up in the control panels of your customers.

 Enter the location and sizes of the logos. Click the information [ i ] icon for details.

 Click Save.

Step 9 -- Create a System Plan and Account For Your Corporate Domain
This step is required to host your corporate promotion site with your hosting system.

1. Go to Plan Creation Wizard under the Info menu in your reseller administrator CP.

2. Select a Plan Creation Wizard (either Windows or Linux)

3. Configure the plan as you wish

a. IMPORTANT: Your Service Domain plan must have the Service Domain option checked otherwise your plan signup will be unsuccessful.

4. Go to Info >> Plans and then enable the plan that you have just created by clicking the “Off” button into the “On” state.

5. Click on the Magnifying Glass to Signup for the plan

6. Go to Signup >> Moderate and click on the account name that you just registered for and click Create. This will create the account on our systems with your service domain. You may also host other domains within this same account as well.

Step 10 -- Create Hosting Plans

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

Select Plan Creation Wizards in the INFO menu.
On the page that appears, click Select under the plan type you would like to create. The wizard will start.
Enter the name of the plan at the top of the page.
Select the resources (features) you would like to include in the plan. Make sure to leave Service Domain unchecked.
In the last section of the wizard, make sure to enter Credit limit, e.g. 10.
Click Next to proceed to the next step.
Enter prices and free units for each type of resource. No price equals zero price.
Click the Create button at the bottom of the page.
Your new plan appears in the list of plans. Turn it on.

Step 11 -- 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:

Select Plans in the INFO menu.
In the list of plans that appears, click the settings link for the selected plan.
Scroll the next page down to the Payment Intervals sign.
Click the Add icon.
Specify the duration of the billing period. For instance, to make it 3 months long, select MONTH and enter 3 in the Size box.
Enter discounts. For instance, if you want to cancel any setup fee for this billing period, enter 100 in the Setup Discount field.
Click Submit. This will add the billing period to the list.
Use the navigation menu to go elsewhere in the control panel.

Final Step -- Change your temporary CP alias to your own regular CP URL

After the system configuration has been complete, the reseller control panel can be accessed by the instant reseller CP domain alias.

To change your temporary CP alias to your own regular CP URL, do the following:

Go to your reseller control panel. (This is the browser window where you clicked the Login icon)
Select Change URL in the INFO menu.
Select the protocol - http for regular or https for SSL secured.
Enter the domain name with cp at the beginning. (e.g.: cp.example.com). The domain name must be the one you entered when you signed up for your reseller account. As a result, the URL of the control panel will be similar to http://cp.example.com:8080.
Leave the the port number as it is. (8080)

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Questions? Comments? We want to hear them! E-Mail support@cartikahosting.com with all of your comments. We value your feedback.

Thanks again, and Welcome to CartikaHosting!