How do reseller accounts work?

[Gman243]

I'm just a bit confused. I know the general function and everything...or maybe I don't. What I get is the cpanel and everything (whm) where I make packages, set prices on my site, someone buys from me, I give them the package I made with WHM and it takes that amount of space and bandwidth away from what I pay for my reseller account. If you understood that, great!
What i'm confused about is domains.

~ How do they work? ~

o How would I offer domain names on my website...or can I?
o What are name servers?
o What address is the persons website at when I give them the package?
o Do I need a seperate IP for each one?
o Do my clients have to have a domain before I give them an account and how would I transfer one?

These are just general questions before I actually purchase a reseller account. I want to know how to do something before I pay for it.

[teammobot]

Originally posted by Gman243
I'm just a bit confused. I know the general function and everything...or maybe I don't. What I get is the cpanel and everything (whm) where I make packages, set prices on my site, someone buys from me, I give them the package I made with WHM and it takes that amount of space and bandwidth away from what I pay for my reseller account. If you understood that, great!
What i'm confused about is domains.

~ How do they work? ~

o How would I offer domain names on my website...or can I?
o What are name servers?
o What address is the persons website at when I give them the package?
o Do I need a seperate IP for each one?
o Do my clients have to have a domain before I give them an account and how would I transfer one?

These are just general questions before I actually purchase a reseller account. I want to know how to do something before I pay for it.

You can offer domain registration on your own if you want to. You can resell domains. A good place to check would be Enom.

Nameservers are a way to point your domain to a server. An example NS would be like NS1.YOURDOMAIN.COM, NS2.YOURDOMAIN.COM. You can register your own if your host gives you your own IPs.

You need your own IPs if you want to have your own nameservers.

Your clients don't need a domain when they sign up. Usually they can register it later from another registrar.

Hope this helps,

Nick

The client tells you what domain he wants his site at. If you give your clients an IP they can just visit their site VIA the IP.

[jasonl813]

o How would I offer domain names on my website...or can I?

There are companies out there that will sell you domain name reseller accounts like enom.com, but I would not really suggest going that route unless you are going to have a lot of people signing up for domain names. In general for a reseller it is probably not economical to purchase a domain reseller account as you will be likely to lose money on your investment.

o What are name servers?

Name servers basically tell your web browser where to go to find the web site.

o What address is the persons website at when I give them the package?

I'm not sure I understand your question. When you create an account it will ask you for their domain name. Once they update their name servers for that domain to point to your servers name servers at the place they registered their domain name then they will be able to access the site 12-72 hours after they saved their nameserver names at their domain registrar.

o Do I need a seperate IP for each one?

No. In fact IPs need to be justified before they can be assigned to a site. You can have a hundred plus sites on one IP. The technical part you don't need to understand since the server takes care of routing people to the correct web site once a request comes into the server.

o Do my clients have to have a domain before I give them an account and how would I transfer one?

They don't necessarily need a domain. For example if someone doesn't have a domain on my service I assign them a sub-domain off my account (<name>.lee-kelly-hosting.com). If they get a domain name you can switch them over to the domain name or 'park' the domain on top so they can continue to use both addresses. Under most circumstances you would just create a new account and they would set their nameservers at the domain registrar to point to your servers nameservers and then upload their site up to your server.