As a Reseller, I want the ability to easily merge multiple cPanel accounts and their addon/parked domains into a single cPanel account, so that I can easily consolidate multiple accounts.
The functionality being requested is the ability to merge multiple cPanel accounts into a single cPanel account with one or more addon domains.
Are there any suggestions for how we should implement this?
Also how should we handle the following:
- Mail in the primary email account of the cPanel account that is being merged into another account?
- Website scripts that will break because they were configured with that old cPanel user's username rather than a virtual user (e.g. authenticating into MySQL using cPanel credentials rather than using the credentials of a MySQL account created via cPanel).
- Additional FTP accounts @old-account because @addon-domain logins for FTP are not currently supported.
Database names would not be an issue on a server where prefixing is disabled (possible in 11.28 and later) since they can simply remain intact.
At this point our focus is just on handling the cPanel side of things (e.g. moving databases handling stats). This functionality will be implemented under the assumption that both accounts to be merged are hosted on the same server already.
Any script-specific changes that need performed (such as updating the URL in wp_options otherwise WordPress will not fully function) will not be handled by this functionality.
For others reading this thread since both accounts are on the same server the situation where some databases have a username prefix and others lacking that prefix on a server that has disabled mandatory prefixing shouldn't be an issue.
This is a feature that has been migrated over from the cPanel Forums. All previous comments and discussions concerning this feature can be located at:
http://forums.cpanel.net/f145/merge-multiple-cpanel-accounts-170790.html
I like this idea 
There are quite a few requests for the other direction - taking an Addon Domain and promoting to it's own account (http://features.cpanel.net/responses/as-a-reseller-i-want-a-tool-that-allows-me-to-easily-convert-local-addon-domains-into-their-own-cpanel-accounts-so-that-i-can-easily-split-accounts-with-ex)
There are quite a few requests for the other direction - taking an Addon Domain and promoting to it's own account (http://features.cpanel.net/responses/as-a-reseller-i-want-a-tool-that-allows-me-to-easily-convert-local-addon-domains-into-their-own-cpanel-accounts-so-that-i-can-easily-split-accounts-with-ex)
Both directions are important to us. From primary to addon and from addon to primary :)
Both directions are important to us. From primary to addon and from addon to primary :)
This would most likely be the ability to move a domain from its own cPanel account to become an addon of another. The opposite has been completed for cPanel 56.
There could be some complications. What if the account to merge has addons/parks of its own? Park domains should migrate, and addons should migrate as well. Once those are moved, the main domain can move. Its just a matter of the mechanics of the merge.
I am thinking that the account should be backed up first so that the process can be reverted.
This would most likely be the ability to move a domain from its own cPanel account to become an addon of another. The opposite has been completed for cPanel 56.
There could be some complications. What if the account to merge has addons/parks of its own? Park domains should migrate, and addons should migrate as well. Once those are moved, the main domain can move. Its just a matter of the mechanics of the merge.
I am thinking that the account should be backed up first so that the process can be reverted.
Has this driven any attention? It would be great to be able to convert addon domains to independent accounts and vice versa. Some clients sometimes have two accounts and want to merge everything ot the same thing the other way round.
Could we please have some feedback for this feature request?
Has this driven any attention? It would be great to be able to convert addon domains to independent accounts and vice versa. Some clients sometimes have two accounts and want to merge everything ot the same thing the other way round.
Could we please have some feedback for this feature request?
Also voting for this, for the same reason. I had each of my domains set up on separate accounts for security purposes, but with the new pricing changes, that's no longer practical. If cPanel can implement this feature, the merge process I'm currently undertaking would go a whole lot faster.
Also voting for this, for the same reason. I had each of my domains set up on separate accounts for security purposes, but with the new pricing changes, that's no longer practical. If cPanel can implement this feature, the merge process I'm currently undertaking would go a whole lot faster.
With the recent price changes, we have plenty of requests from our clients to migrate full cpanel accounts into addon domains of another cpanel account.
This is rather a lot of work and this feature would be very useful.
With the recent price changes, we have plenty of requests from our clients to migrate full cpanel accounts into addon domains of another cpanel account.
This is rather a lot of work and this feature would be very useful.
The recent price changes make this necessary for small resellers with between 30 and 45 accounts otherwise reselling is not viable. I have several of my own domains which could easily become addons to the primary domain. The purpose of my domains is to promote hosting. I find the recent price increases and charge bands impossible to sustain unless I reduce my own accounts.
The new pricing model will force many of us to rethink the viability of cPanel hosting.
The recent price changes make this necessary for small resellers with between 30 and 45 accounts otherwise reselling is not viable. I have several of my own domains which could easily become addons to the primary domain. The purpose of my domains is to promote hosting. I find the recent price increases and charge bands impossible to sustain unless I reduce my own accounts.
The new pricing model will force many of us to rethink the viability of cPanel hosting.
As a hosting administrator I would like to convert a normal cPanel account into an addon domain of an existing cPanel account while keeping files and email accounts in-tact.
As a hosting administrator I would like to convert a normal cPanel account into an addon domain of an existing cPanel account while keeping files and email accounts in-tact.
This is still on our radar, but there are some technical limitations to overcome to make this more feasible. Some projects we have on near future roadmaps make this much more feasible in the long term. Stay tuned and we will update as we have more information.
Dustin (he/him)
Product Owner
@dustinscherer
This is still on our radar, but there are some technical limitations to overcome to make this more feasible. Some projects we have on near future roadmaps make this much more feasible in the long term. Stay tuned and we will update as we have more information.
Dustin (he/him)
Product Owner
@dustinscherer
Years have passed and this feature is still to be implemented....
I get it that this is not the first priority for cPanel since they charge per account.... but come on .... so many people have been asking for this....
Years have passed and this feature is still to be implemented....
I get it that this is not the first priority for cPanel since they charge per account.... but come on .... so many people have been asking for this....
My employer is a web host that does not use CPanel. I'm happy to keep giving CPanel money, but this and other requests are years old and haven't even been touched. If this is the priority users are getting, I have 0 problem moving my sites to my employer and letting them basically pay me to host them.
My employer is a web host that does not use CPanel. I'm happy to keep giving CPanel money, but this and other requests are years old and haven't even been touched. If this is the priority users are getting, I have 0 problem moving my sites to my employer and letting them basically pay me to host them.
At the very least, we should be given more information on why these limitations are not being resolved more quickly so you can move forward on this request. We're left completely in the dark until this just "shows up" one day - hopefully.
At the very least, we should be given more information on why these limitations are not being resolved more quickly so you can move forward on this request. We're left completely in the dark until this just "shows up" one day - hopefully.
I would be useful even to have a half-baked version of this, only the hosting files. I would be fine to recreate emails, ftp and other stuff.
I would be useful even to have a half-baked version of this, only the hosting files. I would be fine to recreate emails, ftp and other stuff.
Howdy,
We do hear you and we understand the desire for this. I personally organize my own domains / accounts this way within my production servers and during a switch from server providers recently this would have been immensely helpful.
Bit of Background:
For those familiar with the original convert-addon-to-account tool, the original reasoning behind that is that it was encouraging behavior that put people in more vulnerable positions, especially where they didn't know the risks associated with having multiple Wordpress installations, some of which did not get updated regularly. With WPTK doing a great job of keeping sites up to date, and us observing better user patterns around domain deployment the risk for server administrators is definitely lower.
Why can't we do this now?
We currently have two large ongoing projects that would make any changes we made in this area high risk, specifically work we are doing on High Availability and work we are doing on the Team Manager for cPanel.
Stay tuned folks! We're working constantly on getting more transparency into our roadmaps and this feature site is as important to us as it is to y'all!
Dustin Scherer (he/him) | Product Owner | @dustinscherer
Howdy,
We do hear you and we understand the desire for this. I personally organize my own domains / accounts this way within my production servers and during a switch from server providers recently this would have been immensely helpful.
Bit of Background:
For those familiar with the original convert-addon-to-account tool, the original reasoning behind that is that it was encouraging behavior that put people in more vulnerable positions, especially where they didn't know the risks associated with having multiple Wordpress installations, some of which did not get updated regularly. With WPTK doing a great job of keeping sites up to date, and us observing better user patterns around domain deployment the risk for server administrators is definitely lower.
Why can't we do this now?
We currently have two large ongoing projects that would make any changes we made in this area high risk, specifically work we are doing on High Availability and work we are doing on the Team Manager for cPanel.
Stay tuned folks! We're working constantly on getting more transparency into our roadmaps and this feature site is as important to us as it is to y'all!
Dustin Scherer (he/him) | Product Owner | @dustinscherer
Everyone is bringing up a lot of interesting points about this long-desired function.
And while many might say that it would seem to only benefit hosts that are trying to cut license costs, in my particular case this potential feature would be a huge help in many other aspects.
Example reasons:
1. I run my own dedicated servers but I used to give a few certain clients WHM Reseller accounts / access just to give them a bit more control and to shave a few hours of support off the list each week, but that really became impractical for my situation, and I found myself with clients that had created a bunch of separate cPanel accounts for sites that were really just theirs and should have been under just one or two accounts. They were clients who didn't really require a reseller account and didn't know the first thing about it anyway, so the result when I started phasing-out those resellers has been countless hours of manual migration work to get their 5 WordPress (or whatever) sites consolidated into just Addon Domains under their one necessary cPanel account.
2. I host several web designers who are "absorbing" their individual cPanel accounts into just one main one where they manage everything for their design clients. They're doing this to retain their design clients while being able to stay hosted with me, rather than having their customers "poached" by other design firms who just put everything under one main account to begin with - something that is attractive to both my clients and theirs.
3. Sometimes a "reseller" simply wants to close shop to offering services after many years but still keep most of their sites going, and among the dozen or so sites they were handling, more than half of them they still want to manage without having to pay for separate hosting accounts, and in order for me to retain their business they need me to consolidate for them as a normal cPanel account with Addon Domains instead of a Reseller with multiple cPanel accounts. Again this comes back to the same issue of either eating the time & cost of doing the manual migrations to make it happen for them, or risk losing the important client entirely.
4. Even for myself, since I go way back to the days of where the number of cPanel accounts on a given server didn't matter, I too had set up separate cPanel accounts for my own projects / sites that could and should now just be merged and handled under one. I'm now stalled on many projects for fear of the migration from cPanel account to Addon Domain is so time-consuming.
5. Fairly frequently I have a regular hosting customer with more than one cPanel hosting account with me, and they come to me asking if everything can be merged, or else they'll consider moving elsewhere to simplify their lives. They're being given promised by bigger hosts that it can simply just be magically done (and often those hosts do not deliver on that, but it doesn't matter after your customer has taken the time and expense to switch away). This feature would actually help me SAVE / RETAIN customers that I have otherwise lost.
The list goes on, but the point is this - not everyone has the same reason for wanting or needing this feature - but clearly all of us here in this request have at least one reason. In my case, there are many reasons that this ability would make a huge difference.
Even just the thought of being able to convert existing cPanel account sites into Addon Domains (and vice-versa, which exists and was obviously a huge step in the right direction for all of us) has more value than just convenience. It gives POWER to do things that normally we either have to eat the cost of or have to charge for if we don't want to lose money or clients.
Just imagine the sheer power of being able to say to your client, no matter the circumstance - "Yes, we can do that easily and at no extra charge".
There's a reason this feature request gets a lot of attention and so many of us are still hoping for it, and it is equally as good as the reason we hoped for the ability to convert an Addon to it's own cPanel account. Seriously.
Everyone is bringing up a lot of interesting points about this long-desired function.
And while many might say that it would seem to only benefit hosts that are trying to cut license costs, in my particular case this potential feature would be a huge help in many other aspects.
Example reasons:
1. I run my own dedicated servers but I used to give a few certain clients WHM Reseller accounts / access just to give them a bit more control and to shave a few hours of support off the list each week, but that really became impractical for my situation, and I found myself with clients that had created a bunch of separate cPanel accounts for sites that were really just theirs and should have been under just one or two accounts. They were clients who didn't really require a reseller account and didn't know the first thing about it anyway, so the result when I started phasing-out those resellers has been countless hours of manual migration work to get their 5 WordPress (or whatever) sites consolidated into just Addon Domains under their one necessary cPanel account.
2. I host several web designers who are "absorbing" their individual cPanel accounts into just one main one where they manage everything for their design clients. They're doing this to retain their design clients while being able to stay hosted with me, rather than having their customers "poached" by other design firms who just put everything under one main account to begin with - something that is attractive to both my clients and theirs.
3. Sometimes a "reseller" simply wants to close shop to offering services after many years but still keep most of their sites going, and among the dozen or so sites they were handling, more than half of them they still want to manage without having to pay for separate hosting accounts, and in order for me to retain their business they need me to consolidate for them as a normal cPanel account with Addon Domains instead of a Reseller with multiple cPanel accounts. Again this comes back to the same issue of either eating the time & cost of doing the manual migrations to make it happen for them, or risk losing the important client entirely.
4. Even for myself, since I go way back to the days of where the number of cPanel accounts on a given server didn't matter, I too had set up separate cPanel accounts for my own projects / sites that could and should now just be merged and handled under one. I'm now stalled on many projects for fear of the migration from cPanel account to Addon Domain is so time-consuming.
5. Fairly frequently I have a regular hosting customer with more than one cPanel hosting account with me, and they come to me asking if everything can be merged, or else they'll consider moving elsewhere to simplify their lives. They're being given promised by bigger hosts that it can simply just be magically done (and often those hosts do not deliver on that, but it doesn't matter after your customer has taken the time and expense to switch away). This feature would actually help me SAVE / RETAIN customers that I have otherwise lost.
The list goes on, but the point is this - not everyone has the same reason for wanting or needing this feature - but clearly all of us here in this request have at least one reason. In my case, there are many reasons that this ability would make a huge difference.
Even just the thought of being able to convert existing cPanel account sites into Addon Domains (and vice-versa, which exists and was obviously a huge step in the right direction for all of us) has more value than just convenience. It gives POWER to do things that normally we either have to eat the cost of or have to charge for if we don't want to lose money or clients.
Just imagine the sheer power of being able to say to your client, no matter the circumstance - "Yes, we can do that easily and at no extra charge".
There's a reason this feature request gets a lot of attention and so many of us are still hoping for it, and it is equally as good as the reason we hoped for the ability to convert an Addon to it's own cPanel account. Seriously.
PS - One other great reason I forgot - sometimes we host a small partnership company, let's say two web developers, and then that company splits and one partner gets half the clients and vice-versa. Yep... have run into that more than once. This is about making easy transitions for these kinds of situations and customer retention, instead of customer sticker-shock if we charge or lost revenue hours if we do these for free to keep the client.
PS - One other great reason I forgot - sometimes we host a small partnership company, let's say two web developers, and then that company splits and one partner gets half the clients and vice-versa. Yep... have run into that more than once. This is about making easy transitions for these kinds of situations and customer retention, instead of customer sticker-shock if we charge or lost revenue hours if we do these for free to keep the client.
I've been following this topic and would like to add my 2c ....
We only host web sites for web design clients and would like this feature for ease of use and for good housekeeping. From time to time a client has a new web site designed and no longer requires our hosting but we continue to host the domain and maintain the DNS. In these cases, we end up with a CPanel account which ONLY has DNS info, nothing else - no web site or emails. We would prefer to move the account to a dedicated Add-on account, which we reserve for hosted DNS or simple web-forwarding domains and the like.
Up until now we do it manually ... copy the existing DNS, delete the Account, re-add as a Add-on, re-add the DNS. This is a pain and needs great care, especially when domain has huge number of DNS entries. A simple "convert-account-to-addon" feature would be great.
I vote for this feature.
Will.
I've been following this topic and would like to add my 2c ....
We only host web sites for web design clients and would like this feature for ease of use and for good housekeeping. From time to time a client has a new web site designed and no longer requires our hosting but we continue to host the domain and maintain the DNS. In these cases, we end up with a CPanel account which ONLY has DNS info, nothing else - no web site or emails. We would prefer to move the account to a dedicated Add-on account, which we reserve for hosted DNS or simple web-forwarding domains and the like.
Up until now we do it manually ... copy the existing DNS, delete the Account, re-add as a Add-on, re-add the DNS. This is a pain and needs great care, especially when domain has huge number of DNS entries. A simple "convert-account-to-addon" feature would be great.
I vote for this feature.
Will.
I would definitely love to see this feature as well - we have to perform this from time to time manually as well, and would rather have some sort of a wizard to handle it internally and reliably.
I would definitely love to see this feature as well - we have to perform this from time to time manually as well, and would rather have some sort of a wizard to handle it internally and reliably.
This is so important. I implore cPanel to look at this seriously and make it happen. It's such a laborious task that could be solved so easily with automation.
This is so important. I implore cPanel to look at this seriously and make it happen. It's such a laborious task that could be solved so easily with automation.
A new tech specialist signed up with us. He accumulated many domains and clients, and then we converted him to a reseller just because he has so many contacts and he is signing up so many new businesses. A true power user. Proud to have him on-board and really so good for our business.
As our reseller packages are limited to 10 or 20 and so on, and he enquired if there is a more optimal way to manage some of his clients that own more than one business. In other words, our power user tech specialist has power business entrepreneurs as his clients.
Now since we can't convert from main domain to add-on domain, we had a very difficult explanation to our clients and his clients as to the shortcomings of WHM/cPanel. To the point of referring to other panels because we can't go on like this.
@whm, let's make this happen, soon? You're putting us in a difficult situation?
A new tech specialist signed up with us. He accumulated many domains and clients, and then we converted him to a reseller just because he has so many contacts and he is signing up so many new businesses. A true power user. Proud to have him on-board and really so good for our business.
As our reseller packages are limited to 10 or 20 and so on, and he enquired if there is a more optimal way to manage some of his clients that own more than one business. In other words, our power user tech specialist has power business entrepreneurs as his clients.
Now since we can't convert from main domain to add-on domain, we had a very difficult explanation to our clients and his clients as to the shortcomings of WHM/cPanel. To the point of referring to other panels because we can't go on like this.
@whm, let's make this happen, soon? You're putting us in a difficult situation?
Yes, this feature would help a lot in many different situations. Some contributors mentioned pricing model - but it is not about it. Our customers do change their business models and we have to adjust. Doing this manually is a lot of work. + there is risk of breaking DNS or other things.
And same would apply to changing domains from "parked" to "addon" or even moving addon or parked domain from one cPanel account to another.
Being able to freely reconfigure a domain without the need to delete it would certainly make our support and life better.
Yes, this feature would help a lot in many different situations. Some contributors mentioned pricing model - but it is not about it. Our customers do change their business models and we have to adjust. Doing this manually is a lot of work. + there is risk of breaking DNS or other things.
And same would apply to changing domains from "parked" to "addon" or even moving addon or parked domain from one cPanel account to another.
Being able to freely reconfigure a domain without the need to delete it would certainly make our support and life better.
I first supported this request 19 months ago, and hey ho, nothing has happened since.
I couldn't wait any longer for CPanel to offer a solution, so I went ahead recently and manually converted some accounts to an dd-on. As I mentioned previously, these were accounts with no hosted mails or hosted web site but where I now simply host the domain's DNS and/or web/email forwarding.
FWIW, here's what I did for each account or parked domain wanted to convert ....
1. Copy the account's DNS (there's no export/import facility, so I manually C&P the DNS page in WHM, and pasted it into an Word doc, and saved it.
2. Checked and noted if there was any web redirects and/or email forwarding in place.
3. Terminated the Account and/or removed parked domain
4. Created an Add-on for this domain under a CPanel Account I keep simply for DNS-only accounts
5. Go to CPanel -> Domains -> Manage the Domain ->Modify the Zone, and recreate the "old" account's DNS by C&P each line of the "old" DNS to create a "new" DNS record for each line.
6. Re-added any web redirects and/or email forwarding, as in 2 above.
7. Checked all was still working and then relaxed. :)
Will
I first supported this request 19 months ago, and hey ho, nothing has happened since.
I couldn't wait any longer for CPanel to offer a solution, so I went ahead recently and manually converted some accounts to an dd-on. As I mentioned previously, these were accounts with no hosted mails or hosted web site but where I now simply host the domain's DNS and/or web/email forwarding.
FWIW, here's what I did for each account or parked domain wanted to convert ....
1. Copy the account's DNS (there's no export/import facility, so I manually C&P the DNS page in WHM, and pasted it into an Word doc, and saved it.
2. Checked and noted if there was any web redirects and/or email forwarding in place.
3. Terminated the Account and/or removed parked domain
4. Created an Add-on for this domain under a CPanel Account I keep simply for DNS-only accounts
5. Go to CPanel -> Domains -> Manage the Domain ->Modify the Zone, and recreate the "old" account's DNS by C&P each line of the "old" DNS to create a "new" DNS record for each line.
6. Re-added any web redirects and/or email forwarding, as in 2 above.
7. Checked all was still working and then relaxed. :)
Will
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