Reseller Account - Manage subdomains w/ separate Account

[chiwawah]

Hi,

I am interested in hostgator's reseller account. I hope to host a web application for my customer using the reseller hosting program.

I do not want my customer has access to the source code directory, but my customer can add/change/delete email accounts. I chat with Hostgator before, and asked if I can disable the features like File Manager/ phpMyadmin in the Package Manager in whm, and leave only mail account manager in cPanel, and the answer was negative.

During the chatting session we explored the possibility to manage different subdomain with different cPanel account. In that way I can host my application to, says, app.domain.com under one cPanel account that my customer cannot access, and create another cPanel account so that my customer can manage their email accounts based on mail.domain .com, and even add their webpages under www.domain.com.

The colleage from Hostgator told me it is possible to do so, and the drawback is I have to manage a more complicate domain zone file.

I studied the whm demo in hostgator's website, however, it seems there is no such interface that I can fine tune the zone files. Is it really possible to separate subdomains under different cPanel account? If yes, can someone give me a rough idea how can I create such account with whm.

Many thanks for the help in adavnce. :>

[regentronique]

From what i understand from your post, you want to manage accounts but let your customers manage their mailboxes.

This could be done by using the "xmail" theme that would only give access to the mail functions in cPanel, and you managing the default application on their website...

[chiwawah]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. I have the follow question about the xmail theme:

Can I do something like that:
I'll add the necessary ftp accounts to specific directories, setup the subdomains in advance in the normal cPanel interface. Then I'll apply the xmail theme so that my customer can only access the mail related setup like add-change/delete mail account in the cPanel interface. As I'll not disclose the ftp account to my customer I can use the ftp account to update the code in the website while my customer cannot access any ftp/ or file manager related stuff in the cPanel.

If the above mentioned works, can a skillful enough customer change the xmail cPanel theme to other themes so as to gain access right that I don't want them to get?

Actually I cannot find anywhere in the Hostgator's whm demo site that I can specify the xmail cPanel theme. Can you tell me a rough idea where in whm interface I can apply the theme?

It seems the cPanel theme are compose of some PHP/ Perl related code. Can I modify an existing theme and create a tailored theme that suit my particular purpose? If not, can you advise the name of the cPanel theme that I can choose from the Hostgator whm interface so that I may find in the web how the theme looks like based on the theme name.

Thanks for yr assistance.

[regentronique]

Originally Posted by chiwawah

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. I have the follow question about the xmail theme:

Can I do something like that:
I'll add the necessary ftp accounts to specific directories, setup the subdomains in advance in the normal cPanel interface. Then I'll apply the xmail theme so that my customer can only access the mail related setup like add-change/delete mail account in the cPanel interface. As I'll not disclose the ftp account to my customer I can use the ftp account to update the code in the website while my customer cannot access any ftp/ or file manager related stuff in the cPanel.

"From what i know, yes."

If the above mentioned works, can a skillful enough customer change the xmail cPanel theme to other themes so as to gain access right that I don't want them to get?

"no."

Actually I cannot find anywhere in the Hostgator's whm demo site that I can specify the xmail cPanel theme. Can you tell me a rough idea where in whm interface I can apply the theme?

"In the package creation/edition"

It seems the cPanel theme are compose of some PHP/ Perl related code. Can I modify an existing theme and create a tailored theme that suit my particular purpose? If not, can you advise the name of the cPanel theme that I can choose from the Hostgator whm interface so that I may find in the web how the theme looks like based on the theme name.

"No, you cant change or upload a theme. The theme name is: xmail"

Thanks for yr assistance.

It was a pleasure!

[chiwawah]

Dear Regentronique,

Thanks so much for your kind assistance and quick answer.

Regarding the last question, did you mean there is only 2 themes available - a normal theme include all cpanel function, and a xmail theme that include mail related cpanel function? Or actually there are more themes that I can choose from?

[gtgeorge]

Please be aware that with the xmail theme users still would have ftp access with the xmail/cpanel user name and password and ftp program. There are many discussions concerning this in the cpanel.net forums.

[regentronique]

Originally Posted by chiwawah

Dear Regentronique,

Thanks so much for your kind assistance and quick answer.

Regarding the last question, did you mean there is only 2 themes available - a normal theme include all cpanel function, and a xmail theme that include mail related cpanel function? Or actually there are more themes that I can choose from?

No, there are over a dozen of theme available. Only two of them for just mailboxes.

Originally Posted by gtgeorge

Please be aware that with the xmail theme users still would have ftp access with the xmail/cpanel user name and password and ftp program. There are many discussions concerning this in the cpanel.net forums.

This is right. A wise person could access with a FTP client application to modify the source code.