Plans

Introduction to Plans

In H-Sphere a hosting plan determines the account type or, in other words, priveleges and hosting resources/services granted to an account owner. Plans are created and edited with plan wizards and can be divided into three main categories:

Reseller and User plans determine resource pricing if configured as pay plans.

User plans can differ by platform: Unix, Windows, Real Unix, Real Windows, etc.

You can also create Demo plans that demonstrate the capabilities of H-Sphere without having to use real resources.

Customers can change their hosting plans. You can configure which plans customers can upgrade from and to as suggested in Compatible Plans.

Creating And Editing Plans

Starting Plan Creation Wizards

In H-Sphere, plans are created with Plan Creation Wizards. To start a plan creation wizard:

1. Go to Plans->Create menu.
2. On the page that appears, choose the type of the plan.
   See below for explanations on each plan type.
3. Go through the wizard following the instructions below.
4. Newly created plans are disabled by default. Toggling the ON/OFF button in the Signup column next to the hosting plan, you allow or prohibit signups under this plan.

Starting Plan Edit Wizards

Plans are edited with Plan Edit Wizards. To start a plan edit wizard:

1. Go to Plans->Manage menu.
2. In the list of plans that appears, click the name of the plan you would like to edit.
3. Go through the wizard following the instructions below.

Simplified Plan Wizards

H-Sphere allows shortening the subsequent steps of Plan Wizards where you set the prices for the billing period. To remove the fields for the resources not to be charged for, uncheck the boxes for these resources. For this:

1. Go to Plans->Simplified Plan Wizards

   

2. Uncheck the boxes next to the resources or the group of resources you are not going to charge for:

   

3. Submit query

As a result, the Step 2 of Plan Creation Wizard and Steps 2 and 3 of Plan Edit Wizards will include the fields for the checked in Simplified plan wizards menu resources only:

Note: if you have already set the price for a resource or the resource has a free value (e.g. disk quota, traffic etc.), the records on it will be represented in the subsequent steps regardless of your settings in Simplified Plan Wizard.

A Typical Plan Wizard

Most plan wizards follow the same pattern and guide you through two or more steps:

• step 1:
  - including or excluding particular resources;
  - making them active by default;
  - configuring settings such as duration of the trial period, credit limit, money-back period, default type of IP, etc.
• subsequent steps:
  - setting custom prices for domain registration services in this specific plan;
  - setting free amounts and prices for each resource type for the default (1 month) and actual billing periods.
  * The number of subsequent steps depends on the actual billing periods for this plan.

Step 1. Selecting Resources and Configuring Plan Settings

On the first step, select which resources will be available and active in the plan.
Note that Plan Wizards display only those resources that are enabled globally in the system. Read about Global Resources for more info.

- Include: check the box to have the resource available for users subscribing for the plan. If you leave this box unchecked, users of this plan will be unable to take advantage of this resource. Checking Include alone doesn't activate this resource by default; in newly created accounts it will be off.
- Activated determines whether the resource should be enabled immediately at signup (checked) or activated later by the user (unchecked). If a pay resource has Activated unchecked, it won't be included in the signup bill, but users will be able to turn it on when necessary and will be charged for it at the moment of activation. But if a pay resource has Activated checked, it will be included in the signup bill, and will be charged for when users enable it in their control panel. If the activated resource has some pay child resources also activated in the plan wizard, they will be included in the signup bill and user will be charged for them at the moment of activating the parent resource.

Some of the plan's resources are integral to the system and cannot be excluded from the plan. They are not available on this page.

Note: If you exclude resources that are in use by some users, they'll remain functional but become inaccessible from the user control panel.

First, you enter Plan name for the plan you are creating. Later you can change the plan name in the Plan Settings.

Then, Step 1 allows you to configure the following hosting resources:

Summary Disk Usage: unchecking this box will stop the system from billing end users for disk usage. Domain: check this box to allow domain registration, domain transfer, and hostining existing domains via the user control panel. Host Existing Site: allows to host domains registered outside H-Sphere without transfering them into supported registrars. More on hosting existing domains Domain registration: allow users to create new standard domains through domain registration services supported in H-Sphere. Leave registrar prices as they are: Check this box to skip the second step of the wizard and use the default prices. To enter custom domain registration prices, don't check this box. Domain Transfer: allows users to transfer domains already registered outside H-Sphere with any registar to OpenSRS or Enom. Leave domain transfer prices as they are: Check this box to skip the second step of the wizard and use the default prices. To enter custom domain transfer prices, don't check this box. SubDomain: allow users to create subdomains. Subdomains have the same functionalities as regular domains. Stopgap Domain: allow your customers to use hosting services without a real domain. Stopgap domains don't have DNS zones, and don't allow e-mail service. Still, users can access their sites using their instant domain aliases. Stopgap domains support web site management and FTP services. Also, IP-only access is possible with a dedicated IP. Third level domain: allow your customers to create third level domains based on the domain names you offer. E.g. if your domain name is example.com, a user can have a domain like thirdlevel.example.com. Third level domains have the same functionalities as second level domains, i.e. regular domains. Domain alias: (also referred to as stack domain) an extra domain name that points to a 'primary' domain. For example, the owner of the domain name example.com can register another domain name, e.g. example.net and have it point to the location of example.com. This means that every Internet user who goes to example.net will land in example.com. Domain alias can have its own DNS zone, custom DNS records and their own mail service. Parked domain: allow your customers to use H-Sphere DNS server for designating IPs to domain names serviced and hosted on other servers (not those of H-Sphere). Service Domain: should be included only for the administrative plans (like System plan) to host and manage your corporate web-site. To enable users register third level domains with the second level domain name of your corporate site, register it as a service domain. For example, the company offers third level domains at example.com, such as thirdlevel.example.com or userdomain.example.com. Naturally, the site of the hosting company should be available at example.com or www.example.com.

CGI Resource: allow your customers to map file extensions as CGI executables. cgi-bin Resource: allow your customers to create cgi-bin directory, so all the cgi-bin directory's content is treated as cgi executables which the server tries to run. Front Page: allow your customers to use FrontPage extensions on their web sites. Server Side Include: allow your customers to use interactive real-time features such as echoing current time, conditional execution based on logical comparisons, querying or updating a database, sending an e-mail etc., with no programming or CGI scripts. PHP Module: allow your customers to create dynamic web pages with PHP. Redirect URL: allow your customers to redirect visitors from one URL to another. When an Internet user tries to connect to a URL that is redirected, he is taken to the address this URL is mapped to. Directory Index: allow your customers to set their custom directory indexes Server Side Imagemap: allow your customers to have files with a specific extension regarded as map files Throttle Resource: allow your customers 'throttle' the use of traffic in their accounts by delaying or refusing requests to their sites. Error document: allow your customers to configure their own error pages that are shown when the requested pages fail to open. Logical Server Group: appropriate resources under this plan will be created on a particular logical server group.

Referrer Log: check the box to have separate referrer logs written into user directories. Referrer logs contain the URLs from which visitors were referred to your customer's site. Agent Log: check the box to have separate agent logs written into user directories. Agent logs contain data about visitors' browsers or any other Internet-based software, and related data. Error Log: check the box to have separate error logs written into user directories. Error logs store data about errors generated by the server (e.g. Page Not Found error) or by their CGI scripts. Webalizer Resource and Modlogan Resource: Check the boxes to install Webalizer and Modlogan into user directories. These freeware tools parse the transfer log and produce statistics reports in readable HTML format to be viewed through a browser. Urchin3 and Urchin4: Make sure to have Urchin installed and configured before enabling it in the plan. Check the sysadmin guide for Urchin installation and configuration. AWStats: another free tool that generates advanced graphical web server statistics reports. AWStats is set up on each Unix/Linux and Windows web server with H-Sphere installation or upgrade. Transfer Log: check the boxes to have transfer logs written into user directories. Transfer logs include combined data about every visit to your customer's site, including: Remote host IP (i.e. visitor's IP) Time of request (i.e. when visitor requested the page) First line of request Error generated by request, if any Size of message sent in response to the request Referrer (i.e. from which page visitor was directed) Agent ID (i.e. type of browser or another agent and related information, such as user's OS, etc.) Web Stats Password Protection, if enabled, will allow your users to password protect their sites' statistics compiled by Webalizer, AWStats and Modlogan.

Allow or disallow your customers to create the above mail resources: Email Auto Responder: to automatically reply to senders with a uniform response when mail arrives in a mailbox. Mail Box Alias: to have an alternative address to an existing mailbox. Mail Forward: to automatically forward all incoming mail to a list of remote addresses. Mailing List: to send mail to multiple recipients. Mail Domain Alias: to have an alternative domain name to a mail domain. This is an obligatory resource for Email only plans, and therefore it's not listed as an option in their wizards. Important: Mail Domain Alias in the Email Only Plan is the same as Domain Alias. Mail Relay: enable this option to ensure incoming mail is kept on the mail relay server, if your primary mail server goes down. AntiSpam to set spam filtering for user mail domains. AntiVirus to set virus filtering for user mailboxes. Logical Server Group (Mail servers): appropriate mail resources under this plan will be created on the particular logical server group.

SSL Module: enable your customers to use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer protocol) - a standard for transmitting confidential data such as credit card numbers over the Internet. Comodo SSL: allow buying and installing Comodo SSL directly from user CP. Shared SSL: provide SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption and business authentication to Web business customers. Miva Resource: allow your users to create online stores with Miva Merchant. For more information visit www.miva.com/products/merchant/ osCommerce: allow your users to create online stores using an open source e-commerce solution (osCommerce 2.1 release). For more information visit www.oscommerce.com.

FTP sub-account: allow or disallow your customer to create additional logins and passwords to his directory so his friends or colleagues can independently use it. Virtual FTP Server: allow or disallow your customers to let their friends and colleagues download, upload or view files in the dedicated directories. Anonymous FTP Server: allow or disallow your customers to let anybody else download, upload or view files in the dedicated directories. Custom DNS Record: allow your customers to create new custom DNS records. Shell Access: allow your customers to access and operate their accounts through Shell. Crontab: enable your customers to clock and run their own Unix shell scripts automatically. Kanoodle: enable your customers to promote their website. RLimitCPU: checking the box will restrict the CPU usage by users' cgi scripts. RLimitCPU Min - set the soft resource limit in seconds per process. RLimitCPU Max - set the maximum resource limit in seconds per process. RLimitMEM: checking the box will restrict the memory usage by user' cgi scripts. RLimitMEM Min - set the soft resource limit in bytes per process. RLimitMEM Max - set the maximum resource limit in bytes per process. RLimitNPROC: checking the box will restrict the number of simultaneous processes per user. RLimitNPROC Min - set the minimum number of processes. RLimitNPROC Max - set the maximum number of processes. Site Studio: allow your customers to use a powerful site construction tool enabling them to create a professional-looking site in a matter of minutes. MySQL, MS SQL, PGSQL: allow or disallow your customers to create and use their own databases.

Money Back Guarantee: the period in days after pay registration when users can claim back the recurrent fees they have paid if they decide to quit hosting services. The Money Back amount does not include the Setup Fees and is not affected by the refund percentage. The blank field sets it to zero, which disables the feature. Immediately takes effect and influences existent accounts. Recommended Value: less than 1 billing period. E-mail Order Confirmation: set the system to send e-mail copies of order confirmations to users registered under the plan. Note: e-mail invoices are sent to the e-mail address user provides in his billing info or contact info (in the absence of the first) the default can be overridden by individual user settings toggling the option doesn't affect settings of the existing users Billing Type Paid: no trial period available.Note: don't switch to without billing. Trial: paid plan with trial period available. Check the box to enable trial registration for this plan. If the box is checked, you will have to fill in the following fields too: - Duration: enter the duration of the trial period in days. Usually trial period does not exceed one month. - Credit Limit: maximum amount of credit a trial user can run up acquiring paid resources. If you set Trial Credit Limit to zero, trial users will be able to acquire only free resources. Usually this amount either equals the initial registration payment plus the recurrent fee for one payment period, or exceeds it a bit to enable trial users to buy some extra resources. After this amount has been reached, the user cannot purchase any more resources. When trial users become pay users, they are charged the amount they have run up during the trial period. Note: decreasing the trial period affects already signed up trial users so their trial time is 'cut'. Their accounts can be suspended if they have had their accounts more than the trial period is set to. Without billing: a totally free plan. Accounts registered without filling in the billing forms. Note: don't switch to paid. Credit Limit: amount of account's 'expenses' to be accumulated until it is charged.

• Default IP type: define the kind of IP user domains will get at signup (shared or dedicated). Each new user to signup for this plan will be given this kind of IP. Recommended value Shared. Note that:
  • In the case of dedicated IPs, when you run out of dedicated IPs, newcomers won't be able to signup.
  • Changing this parameter doesn't affect existent domains. Only new domains created under reconfigured plan will get the defined IP type. This is done either at signup or in the existent account.
• Shared IP Tag: a digital "mark" that is assigned to all accounts created under this plan. Don't change this value unless instructed to do so by your parent host. Recommended value 2.
  Note: don't change the shared IP tag in Windows based plans if they have live accounts.
  In Unix based plans changed shared IP tag immediately shows up in the system control panel interface, however it actually takes effect only when the changes to the server configuration are applied.
• Instant alias appearance for given shared IP tag: select a template to create user instant aliases. Instant aliases are based on your domain names and allow users to view their sites without using their own domains. The example of an instant alias appearance is username.kNNN.example.com, where kNNN is the name of the logical server, on which user's account is located. Changes to this parameter will apply only to new domains, while the existent domains will retain the 'old' shared IP tag.
• Stopgap domain appearance for given shared IP tag: select a representation for user stopgap domains. Stopgap domains will allow users to maintain their sites and access them using instant domain aliases. Stopgap domain is not a real domain and does not allow the user to have any domain name, DNS zone, and e-mail service. However, stopgap domain users can have IP-only access if they purchase a dedicated IP. Changes to this parameter will apply only to new domains, while the existent domains will retain the 'old' shared IP tag.
• Demo only mode allow creating demo end user accounts to demonstrate the capabilities of H-Sphere without having to use real resources. In demo mode resources and services aren't created or used, but their creation and usage is simulated in the user control panel. For instance, users can create mailboxes, and the control panel will behave as if the mailboxes have been created, but in fact they haven't.

Subsequent Steps: Setting Prices

On subsequent steps, set prices and quotas for this plan. To enter the price configuration pages, don't check the Leave registrar prices as they are on step 1.

 In H-Sphere it becomes easier for you to limit amounts of resources users can obtain. Instead of editing existing plans with the resources control, now set max values in the plan wizard as well.

Unix RealMedia Plan Wizard

This plan type allows hosting RealMedia streaming audio content on Unix platforms.

MySQL Plan Wizard

The plans created with this wizard allow customers only to create and use MySQL online databases. The customer can authorize individual Internet users to connect to the MySQL database and use it from any remote location.

Windows Plan Wizard

Windows plans are created similarly to Unix plans (see Unix Plan Wizard). The only difference is that you can include

• MS Sharepoint  to allow your clients install Windows SharePoint Services on their domains
• MS Sharepoint User  to allow your clients create users within their Windows SharePoint Services
• Dedicated Application Pool  to enable your clients create dedicated application pools introduced by IIS 6.0 right from their user cp
• Web Directory  to enable your clients create web directories with two authentication levels and different sets of permission right from their user cp
• Web Application  to enable your clients assign web applications to web directories, in the same time choosing a shared or a dedicated pool for each application
• Virtual Directory to enable your users create virtual directories and reorganize data
• ColdFusion Module to enable your users to maintain sites created by ColdFusion (Third party commercial products such as ColdFusion, MS SQL server, Real Server, and Miva are purchased separately and should be installed prior to H-Sphere)
• ASP resource to enable your users maintain sites created by means of ASP
• ASPSecured to enable your users to manage access to their site resources creating their own groups and users
• ASPSecuredLicense to enable your customers to use ASPSecuredLicense for multiple sites
• ASP.NET to enable your customers to use .NET applications
• MS SQL Manager to enable your customers to manage their MS SQL databases through a web-interface with ASP Enterprise Manager
• ODBC Service: allow your customers to use ODBC resource and manage databases by means of its drivers.
• ODBC DSN Record: allow your customers to have system DSN records based on ODBC drivers.
• CF DSN Record: allow your customers to have system DSN records registred in ColdFusion.

Note: you can't create Windows plans, unless you have 'Windows' physical servers. Not configured means that your system lacks servers pertaining to the services to be run under the plan.

Windows RealMedia Plan Wizard

You can't create Windows RealMedia plans unless you have a winbox with properly configured RealServer.

E-mail Plan Wizard

E-mail plans are created similarly to Unix plans (see Unix Plan Wizard). The only difference is that they don't include any resources other than domain, mail and Custom DNS record. Stopgap domains are not supported.

Regulating the overall number of resources that can be created

To set the maximum number of resource units a user can buy under this plan, go to INFO -> Plans -> Resource -> Edit (next to the selected resource) -> the Max field

VPS Plan Wizard

VPS plans are created similarly to Unix plans (see Unix Plan Wizard). The only difference is that you can include

• VPS memory limit: check to restrict memory consumption by one VPS account.
• VPS process limit: check to set the maximum number of simultaneous system processes.
• Summary Disk Usage: mandatory resource. Users will be charged for the actual disk space used.
• VPS context RSS limit: the maximum resident/virtual memory usage for processes running and libraries loaded on a VPS server.
• VPS files limit: the maximum number of file handlers opened inside a VPS server.
• VPS TCP sockets limit: the maximum number of TCP connections established on a VPS server.
• VPS CPU hard limit: the maximum CPU usage (of all host server CPUs) for a VPS server.
• Custom DNS Record: check to enable creating custom DNS records.
• VPS server details: returns technical server info.

Markup Plan Wizard

Markup plans are created on the base of other hosting plans configured to allow reselling.

1. To allow reselling of a plan, go to Plans -> Manage, click the Settings icon in the Advanced column next to the plan you would like to configure as available for reselling and turn on the option "This plan can be resold". Otherwise when creating a markup plan it won't list this plan as available for reselling.
2. Go to Plans ->Create and choose Create a markup plan at the bottom of the form.
3. On the form you will be taken to, pick a base plan for your markup plan.
4. On the first wizard step can change only Settings options. You cannot exclude predefined resources.
5. On subsequent wizard steps set retail prices. Base plan prices are displayed in square brackets.

Admin Plans

To create an admin plan:

1. Select Create in the Plans menu.
2. Select Administrator plan wizard. Allow admins to do the following:

   

   Plan name: enter admin plan name.
   Signup Admin: sign up new users.
   Compatible Plan Groups: arrange compatible plans in groups.

   

   Login as user: log into users' accounts.
   TroubleTicket Admin: answer users' trouble tickets.
   Allow assignment of trouble tickets: assign users' trouble tickets to other tech support members.
   Account Preview: view users' contact and billing info and other account details.
   

   

   Merchant Gateway Manager: configure merchant gateways.
   Admin Billing Manager: administer users' billing: debit and credit users' accounts, view reports.
   Daily Financial Report: create daily user reports.
   

   

   Kanoodle Manager: sign up as a Kanoodle.com Referral Partner from H-Sphere.
   Site Toolbox: configure and enable Site Toolbox utility
   SpamAssassin Manager: configure SpamAssassin.
   

   

   Admin DNS manager: manage DNS settings.
   Reseller Server Alias: access and create reseller server aliases.
3. Click Next to complete plan creation.
4. Once the plan is created, turn this plan ON in the Signup Access section on the plans page in order to allow signups .

Use this plan to create administrative plans for all purposes.

Editing Admin Plans

To edit admin plan:

1. Go to the Plans -> Manage page and select necessary plan.
2. On the Plan Edit Wizard, make necessary changes by checking/uncheking resources.
3. Click Next to confirm changes.

Demo Plans

Demo plans, similarly to regular plans, are created with Plan Creation Wizards:

1. Select Create in the Plans menu.
2. In the list of plans select the plan.
3. On Step 1 of the wizard, enter a name for the plan and choose the resources you want to demonstrate in the user demo control panel.
   Note: In user control panels, many resources will show as disabled even if you include them into the plan. See below for their list.
4. Scroll down to the Settings section and check the Demo Only Mode box.

   

   Important: You won't be able to turn this option off in the plan editor later.
5. Click Next to proceed. Skip domain registration page if it appears.
6. Step 2 shows the fields to enter free amount of resources necessary for the system to operate.



Note: You don't need to enter prices or free units.
7. Click Next to complete plan creation.
8. Once the Demo plan is created, go back to Manage in the Plans menu and turn the newly created plan ON for user signups.
9. If you want to create more payment periods for the plan, go to Plans -> Manage -> Settings and add as many payment periods as you need.

Now that the plan is created and enabled, users can sign up for it and navigate their control panels. If they like the system and want to go ahead and buy it, they will have to sign up again under a paid plan. Demo Mode doesn't allow switching plans.

Remember that a demo account takes a user license like any other H-Sphere user account.

Demo plans demonstrate how to:

• Transfer domains previously created
• Add subdomains
• Add Stopgap domains
• Create Third level domains
• Add domain aliases
• Create Parked domains
• Use Trouble Ticket support system
• Change disk quota and traffic usage
• Change billing period
• Create MySQL, MS SQL and PgSQL databases
• Set Summary Disk Usage
• Create FTP sub-account - additional logins and passwords to main directory
• View Error, Transfer, and Agent logs

Demo plans don't allow to:

• Have a home directory on the web server
• Have mailboxes and other mail resources
• Have MySQL / PGSQL / MS SQL databases
• Register domains through the domain registrars
• Create Service Domains
• Use Site Studio site construction tool
• Use third party products such as Miva, osCommerce, Modlogan, Webalizer, cgi scripts, etc.

Access to Plans

Accounts can be created from outside the control panel ("from the street") or from existing accounts in H-Sphere. An account can be created "from the street" if it has unrestricted access. You can also restrict plan access to users of selected plans or only to administrators.

To set up plan access:

1. Select Manage in the Plans menu.
2. Click Access for the plan to restrict access to.
3. Check authorized plans:

   

   • Admin only: To make this plan available only to the administrator, check only Admin. For example, all Admin level plans should be unavailable to other users other than administrators.
   • Registered Users: To make this plan available only to registered users under specific plans, check these plans in the list.
   • Full access: To make this plan available "from the street", uncheck all plans in the list.

Plan Controls

To access plan controls, enter the admin Control Panel and go to Plans menu -> Manage. Here you can see a list of available plans and multiple control options to handle the plans:

• Clicking the lens icon near the plan will start the signup wizard.
• ON/OFF icon: turn the plan ON to enable signup under the plan for all users including admin. Turning it OFF will disable signup and with it all plan settings will be preserved.
• Access - set permissions to create accounts under a plan for the users of other plans. FULL against the plan identifies that full access to this plan is granted.
• Show: select resources that will show on signup pages for the plan.
• Resources: set the maximum number of resources a user can buy under this plan.
• Settings - configure template locations. This page is partly reserved for H-Sphere development and should not be used in production control panels.
• Edit in the Action section - click to open the Edit Plan wizard.
• Copy: create a copy of this plan. You may need this option to create a new plan based on the selected plan.
• Delete: delete a plan.

Show

This pages shows all resources included into the plan in the Plan Creation Wizard. Here you can select resources that will show to users on signup wizard pages.

Simply check all necessary resources and click Change.

Resources

If you want to limit your users in using certain resources, you can use the Resources page to set the maximum number of resource units a user can buy under this plan.

To set the maximum number of resource for a certain plan:

1. On the Plans page click the Resources icon. The following page will appear:



2. Click the Edit link to configure basic settings for resources:
   
   
   
   • Max: set the maximum number of resource units a user can buy under this plan.
     Note: as for IP, you can set the 'Max' value only to dedicated IPs.
   • Custom Values: provide extra configuration parameters.
   • Don't add custom values unless you definitely know how to use them.

   Note:

   1. The Price link is not valid anymore! Please set prices with plan edit wizards.
   2. In H-Sphere 3.1 and up, max values for resources are set directly in plan edit wizards.

 

  Copy

Alternatively to the Plan Creation Wizard, you can use this feature to create custom plans based on previously created plans. To create a new plan, click Copy for the selected plan sample. The newly created copy will appear in the plan list. You can now modify it according to your needs via Plan Edit Wizard or above discussed configuration tools.

Delete

Although deleting plans is quite a rare procedure (as plans are essential part of the whole system), you may want to delete needless or harshly created plans.

To delete a plan, click the Trash icon in the selected plan entry.

Warning: Deleted plans cannot be restored by any means! Do not delete any of the system default plans because they serve to create custom plans!

It is impossible to delete a plan if there is at the least one account created under it. In other words, you can delete only the plans without any accounts.

To see your deleted plans list, click the Deleted Plans link under the System Plans chart on the Plans page, Info menu.

Plan Settings

Plan settings on the Plans page allow to configure template locations, payment intervals and promotions.

To access plan settings:

1. Enter the admin Control Panel and select Manage in the Plans menu.
2. Click the Settings icon in the Advanced section for the target plan.



3. On the page that shows you can manage the following options:
   • Plan Name: this is the only place where you can edit the name of the plan.
   • Default Template defines the page that opens when a user logs into the control panel. To specify a custom page, enter the file name and the path relative to the template directory. If your template works incorrectly, you can remove it to return to the system defaults.
   • Template Directory specifies the name of the directory with templates used by this specific plan. If a template is not found in this directory, the system takes generic H-Sphere template with the same filename.

     For example, you have a plan called 'SPECIAL', where the Template Directory parameter is set to special and the current skin is set to 'No Menu'. When the system tries to find, for instance, the design/login.html template, it will first scan the ~cpanel/shiva/shiva-templates/nomenu/replacements/special/design/ directory, and if fails, it moves on to the ~cpanel/shiva/shiva-templates/nomenu/design/ directory in search of this template.

     As seen from the above, the Template Directory parameter is NOT used for creating custom templates. Instead, when a new plan is added to the system, plan-specific templates are placed in this directory. Besides that, when you customize H-Sphere templates, you should check the replacements directory of each design location for plan-specific templates and customize them if necessary.

   • Contact info: it's highly recommended to use this feature only for admin plans! With this feature turned OFF, user contact info will be unavailable which will disable billing for all accounts under this plan and sending system email notifications.
   • Credit limit: enter a credit limit for the plan. Read more in Credit Limit documentation.
   • Payment Interval: enter how far in advance recurrent fees for billing period resources are prepaid. Read more about Creating Billing Periods.
   • Custom Values: menuId: in H-Sphere, each plan type has its own corresponding menu configuration. These menu types are configured in the /hsphere/local/home/cpanel/shiva/psoft/hsphere/menu.xml file. We use the menuId variable to specify the menu type. These are the standard menu types for the corresponding H-Sphere plan types:
     

     unix - Unix plan;
     admin - Admin plan;
     ttadmin - Trouble Ticket Admin plan;
     bill - Billing plan;
     reseller - Reseller plan;
     winduz - Windows plan;
     real - Real Server plan;
     mysql - MySQL Only plan;
     email_only - E-Mail Only plan;
     vps - VPS plan.
     

   You can add your custom menu to menu.xml and specify the custom menuId in the form to assign it to the plan. In menu.xml, you should add the new menudef tag:
   custom_menuId">
   ...
   

   Note: Menu customization should be done very carefully, according to the Menu Customization Guide.

   WARNING:
   If you set an incorrect value to menuId or leave this field empty in the form, the left menu in your Control Panel won't show up!
   
   
   • Add custom value: don't add them unless you definitely know how to use them.



This page is reserved for H-Sphere development and debugging and should not be used in production control panels.





Promotions management: assign flexible discounts to the particular plan. One plan can have several associated promotions.

Controlling RAM&CPU Usage

Enable RLimit in Plans

To apply RLimit to user scripts under a certain plan, scroll down to the Other section of the Plan Edit Wizard Step 1. It lists the following resources:

• RLimitCPU - restrict the strain of CPU usage.
• RLimitCPU Min - set the soft resource limit in seconds per process.
• RLimitCPU Max - set the maximum resource limit in seconds per process.
• RLimitMEM - restrict the memory used by processes run on the server.
• RLimitMEM Min - set the soft resource limit in bytes per process.
• RLimitMEM Max - set the maximum resource limit in bytes per process.
• RLimitNPROC restrict the number of the processes run simultaneously.
• RLimitNPROC Min - set the minimum number of processes.
• RLimitNPROC Max - set the maximum number of processes.

Configure RLimit Values

In most cases the default values are the best to prevent overconsumption of system resources on the one hand and allow correct performance of cgi scripts on the other.

To set custom values for these resources, select Manage in the Plans menu. Then, click the resources link next to the plan you would like to edit. On the page that appears, find:

Warning: Don't change any parameters other than Min and Max.

The above changes will be applied only to accounts created thereafter. If you need to apply these changes to a specific existing account, enter this account's control panel, go to the Web Options page, and click Apply Changes.

Limiting Resource Use For Individual Accounts

Tip: To switch RLimitMEM OFF for one account in a plan where RLimitMEM is ON, do the following:

1. Switch RLimitMEM OFF for the whole plan
2. Enter this accounts' control panel
3. Go to the Web Options page
4. Click Apply Changes
5. Go back to your admin control panel
6. Switch RLimitMEM back ON for the whole plan

The reverse procedure can be used to switch RLimitMEM ON for one account in a plan where RLimitMEM is OFF.