So you have just received an email from Altaire welcoming you in and giving you a long list of things to read, once you have read all the email here is a quick (ish) and simple guide for getting you up and running and hosting lots of new customers!
So the first thing you do is login to your account (known as the Top Level Account) this account is used for dealing with us in Altaire for support and also where all your contact information is held. You login to this account by going to https://cp.altaire.co.uk and entering the username and password as specified in the email
We now see a screen similar to the one below: |
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If you click on the login button  to the right of Enter Admin Section you will then open up your Admin screen (unsurprisingly!!) |
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As you can see the Reseller Admin Account looks very similar to the Top Level Account, a few extra menu items but basically the same.
The first thing you will notice is that you are required to add your details again (the red writing), this is for your customers benefit and needs to be the details that they will be using to contact you.
To add these details follow the instructions: |
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| And fill in your Company details and then press Save: |
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Now we are starting to get on to the really important stuff (and what people tend to find as the most difficult!) Bare with us, you only have to do it the once and its not really that bad!
We are now going to start setting up your branded servers and custom DNS, this basically removes all references of Altaire from the equation and once completed and your hosting domain has been added your customers will only see your name servers!
The first thing we are going to do is add a DNS Zone to do this go to the E. Manager menu then click on DNS Manager: |
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| And then on the loaded page click on the Add DNS Zone link: |
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In the screen that loads you need to add the following information:
In the Name field add your hosting domain (company domain) without www
In the Admin email field add the admin email address using a "." instead of "@" so for example admin.myhostingdomain.com
In the Allow third domain level domain hosting click the check box if you want to allow your customers to have a tld under your own domain (recommended) for example: customer.myhostingdomain.com.
In the Allow creating emails under Service Zone click the check box if you wish to allow email to your service domain (recommended).
Leave Master server and Slave 1 server as they are.
Click Submit |
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On the loaded page click on the edit icon  and in the following screen click on the Add instant alias link: |
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This section will enable your customers who are transferring a domain or buying a new domain to have instant access to there Control Panel and also let them test the domain before DNS has updated.
Click on the Submit button |
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| Now go back to the E. Manager menu and this time click on the Server Aliases link: |
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| On the page that loads there are 2 submit buttons, these alias all our reseller servers to your hosting servers names and creates the DNS Server Aliases click on both the submit buttons in turn (don't worry if some of the servers don't create, these are servers that have been retired from the system), it is advisable to check back to this page regularly and submit as we are always adding new servers to the system. |
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| So that is now all the DNS set-up and ready to go! Now all we need to do is create a System Plan, this is what we sign-up your hosting domain to and where you upload your wonderful new hosting site! To do this go to the Info menu then click on Plan creation wizards |
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For the System Plan you need to use either the Unix plan wizard or the Windows plan wizard depending on your preference, for this example we will be using the Unix plan wizard, there are some differences between each but only very minor things!
To start the wizard click on the relevant select icon  . |
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| Once the wizard has started you will see the following screen: |
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The first thing we need to do is give this plan a name, as this plan is only going to be for your main site account (and any personal domains you want host yourself or any customers domains that you manage completely) it is probably a good idea to name it System Plan.
The resources you add for this plan are really up to you, each have a description of what they are which you can get by clicking the help icon  , the only things that you need to remember is to make sure you check the box for are Service Domain which allows you to add your hosting domain and also Without billing as you don't want to charge yourself!
We wouldn't reccomend adding everything as there are some things that you don't need and if you suddenly do find that you need something six months down the line, don't worry, you can make changes to plans at any time and they update every user signed up to it!
Once you are happy with your selections click the Next button. |
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In the next screen you get a list of Quotas and sizes for the resources, we would reccomend the following:
Summary traffic: 10GB
Disk space Quota: 1,000MB
Summary Disk Usage: 1,000MB
Mailbox quota 100MB (this is for each mail user not for the whole plan!)
but you can obviously set them to whatever you wish, If you have added databases to this plan then for the quota start at 100MB you can always change it later.
Once you are happy with your selections click CREATE System Plan |
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Which will take you to a page something like this: |
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We are on the home stretch now, just a few things remaining to be done and then you will be ready to start hosting!
Then next thing to do is to sign-up for the plan we have just created, to do this you need to switch the plan we have just created on for sign-up by clicking the  icon, once you have done this you will see a magnifying glass icon  next to the System Plan link, if you click on this you will then be taken through the sign-up process (this is the same process as when you originally signed up for Altaire, this time however you are signing up to your own company!). |
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| If you go through the sign-up process filling in all the relevant details (this is the last time we promise!), pick a new user name for this account (this account is know as the End User account) when you get to the Domain page: |
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| Select the option -
Register a service domain -
Choose this option to host the promotional website of your hosting company. then click next, on the next screen |
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| You should see in the dropdown box the domain we set-up earlier when we created a DNS Zone. Make sure that it is the correct domain then continue through the sign-up process, once completed you will be automatically logged in to the new account: |
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As you can see from the above picture all the screens are very similar in appearance which makes the whole system very easy to use.
From this login you are able to create all your email addresses and upload your website (either by the FTP Manager or by using your own FTP package using the details in the FTP Manager screen).
The only thing left to do now is to go back to your Reseller account and switch off the System Plan for sign-up, this plan is only used to sign-up your hosted domain. For customer sign-ups you will need to create other plans relevant to what you want to offer the customer, this is done in exactly the same way as earlier, you just don't allow a service domain in the plan and switch on the billing!
To switch off the plan for sign-up go into the Plans section and click on the on icon  on the System Plan line. |
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That's it! You will never need to do most of that again! Just create a plan or two for your customers to sign-up too (if you want them to have there own Control Panel) or if you are managing the domains completely for the customers add the domains to your End User account and away you go!
If you do encounter any problems then please feel free to contact our support team who will be more than happy to help. |
