Community Knowledge Base

Website Panel Module for SmarterMail

Package Description

WebsitePanel is a multi-tenant, enterprise hosting automation tool with support for private cloud servers. It enables you to centralize the management of your hosting infrastructure and share resources across multiple customer accounts. This product can be used with SmarterMail and SmarterStats to deploy users and domains\sites from a single interface.

Package Goals

The SmarterMail WebsitePanel module allows the administrator to create, remove, and manage domains, users, mailing lists, and aliases. User settings that can be modified include the ability to change mailbox size, manage passwords, set domain admins, manage autoresponders and mail forwarding. Advanced settings and server settings are managed from within the SmarterMail domain and / or system administrator logins in SmarterMail itself. Server defaults will want to be configured prior to integrating with WSP.

The SmarterStats WebsitePanel module allows site and user creation, and allows the ability to link directly to the site to view reports as a particular user. Server and site/domain settings will need to be managed on the server itself.

Prerequisites

  • You will need to be registered with WebsitePanel in order to access the download links
  • Microsoft.NET framework 4.0 (ensure this is registered within IIS)
  • IIS 6.0 or higher
  • Microsoft SQL Server, installed locally or hosted remotely
  • Licensed install of SmarterMail 9.x or higher and / or SmarterStats 7.x or higher

Configuration

Once all of the prerequisites are met, configuring the modules is fairly straightforward. The steps below cover adding a new server to your environment, creating a hosting plan, and creating a customer account to utlize the server resource that was set up.

Adding a Server

When you're ready to add a new server, ensure the server password is configured in the Website Panel installer.

  1. Navigate to Configuration -> Servers
  2. Click Add Server
  3. Enter the Server Name, the URL, and Server Password (this is configured in the WebsitePanel installer)
    • Server URL: http://127.0.0.1:9003 (default)
    • Enter the password configured during the initial setup
    • Ensure “Check for installed software” is selected
  4. SmarterMail and SmarterStats should be picked up during the installed software check. These services will need to be configured separately, however. Navigate to Configuration -> Servers.You should see your server, and the services associated.
    • Click on SmarterMail 10.x +
    • Set the SmarterMail web services URL
    • Select a public IP address
    • Set the Admin Login
    • Configure any additional options
    • Click Update
    • You should be back in the server configuration page.
    • To configure SmarterStats, scroll down and Click SmarterStats 5.x +. Otherwise, skip to step 5
    • Set the SmarterStats web service URL
    • Specify admin credentials
    • Select the SmarterStats server
    • Click Update
  5. You should now have a server set up for the particular service resource.

Creating a Hosting Plan

Below you will find the steps for creating a hosting plan that uses the particular server and service resource you've created.

  1. Navigate to Account Home
  2. Click on hosting plans in the left hand menu
  3. Click Create Hosting Plan
    • Set the Plan Name
    • Set the target server to your desired server with the particular service resource attached
    • Set your quotas
      • Check System, then set desired options
      • Check Websites (Only necessary for SmarterStats), then set desired options
      • Check Mail, then set desired options
      • Check Statistics, then set desired options
    • Click Save
  4. You should now have a hosting plan set up that uses the particular service resource.

Creating a Customer Account

Below are the instructions for creating a customer account that will utilize the resource and hosting plan created.

  1. Navigate to Account Home
  2. Select Customers from the left hand menu
  3. Click Create user
    • Enter a Username and Password
    • Fill in all other required information
  4. Click Create
  5. It will bring you to a new window with an option to create a new hosting space. Click Create hosting space to begin the process
    • Select your hosting plan that this will apply to, fill out required fields and select Create Space
  6. After the space has been created you will need to create a domain for your users within SmarterMail
    • Sign into WSP with the newly created user
    • Navigate to Domains, and select Add Domain
    • Set the domain name, ensure create website is checked (for SmarterStats)
    • Leave the other checkboxes unticked
    • Click Add Domain
  7. Using the hosting space menu on the left, navigate to Mail -> Accounts, and select Create Mail Account
    • Fill in the email address, and select the domain that was created in step 6
    • Enter a Password
    • Set the Mailbox Size Limit
    • Specify customer information, and a signature if necessary
    • Enable\Disable Autoresponder
    • Enable\Disable Mail forwarding
    • Click Save
  8. This will prompt WSP to call the SmarterMail web services to create the domain, and the newly created user. I have not found a way to purely add just a domain to SmarterMail using WSP. A user must be created to prompt the domain creation
  9. Using the hosting space menu on the left, navigate to Advanced Web Statistics and click Add Statistics Site
    • Select the website that was created in step 6c, the site ID will populate on its own once the site is created
    • Specify your users, and passwords
    • Click Add Site
  10. The statistics site will then be added into SmarterStats. You can view the site statistics by navigating to Advanced Web Statistics and click View Statistics, you will automatically be signed in as the user.
  11. You should now have a new customer set up that can take advantage of your hosting plan that uses SmarterMail.