Admin Domain

factor

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@Richard G
I wanted to get off @Kal post. I want to always learn more. So I want ask you more questions about the use of the Admin User domain even if it how you do it. So examples are best. I think I might have the scenario down. So lets set the stage up here. So we have "R and B hosting" business. They have 2 servers both DA of course. Named eagle the other falcon. The domain is ranbhosting.com. Which give us fdqn on eagle.ranbhosting.com and falcon.ranbhosting.com

So I think I hear you saying when you create the server the admin user domain is eagle.ranbhosting.com and falcon.ranbhosting.com. Not just left blank. I do remember the setup creating something like this originally (I may have deleted it...) :(. Not understanding the reasons.

It would have to be this way because both servers cant have ranbhosting.com. That would create a conflict. Is this what you are doing or mean by the use of the admin user domain?
 
Hello Brent.

Good idea, because I also did not wanted to disturb Kal's post either since my question was answered.
And I'm also (as you could read) sometimes forgetting or overlooking things and am eager to learn things which might come in handy c.q. to why some things are done different on some places.

So I think I hear you saying when you create the server the admin user domain is eagle.ranbhosting.com and falcon.ranbhosting.com. Not just left blank.
There are domain names created like this by default when you install directadmin, so the hostnames are created as domain names by default.
The reason for this I don't remember exactly, but it has to do with the system needing some domain name do fill in basic domain information needed like for the mailserver and namservers etc.. A hostname is needed to configure exim, might be more reasons.

It's possible to delete that hostname domain created automatically, but in that case you best add the hostname to the DNS of the domain name.

But that is not what I meant, however it's quite possible that way, because when using subdomain as a domain name or in this case hostname as a domain name (technically also kind of a subdomain name), you can do things with it like creating SSL for the hostname and creating an rDNS/PTR record for the hostname.

However, I never used 1 domain name on more than 2 servers. I use a domain for every server.

In your example, your in fact working with subdomains (kind of), not domains.
So where would you host the domain name ranbhosting.com itself? because you would need for example www.ranbhosting.com, it would not look professional to use www.falcon.randbhosting.com. So on one of the two servers you need that randbhosting.com domain.

What I mean by using a domain as admin domain is like this.
Were using the same company, but now we only have 1 server. This has hostname eagle.randbhosting.com so domain is randbhosting.com which we use as admin domain. I enter "eagle" in dns to have that in there too. Than I can do anything from there. I have cron, ftp, email, dkim, spf, whatever I want, and the only thing I have to do is switch to userlevel.

Now we are getting a new server and wanting to transfer to there with the same hostname and nameservers (only other ip's). So I create an A record for falcon in dns of the randbhosting domain on server 1 and this way I can install and already reach the new server with the falcon hostname.

However, if all resellers and admins are created under admin, it can sometimes cause some isseus when moving servers, you can't move parts of them which sometimes is also necessary.

So nowadays we use some domain for example admindomain.com. The server gets server.admindomain.com. As admin, under userlevel we create the domain admindomain.com and can do anything we need to do as admin there, cron jobs, ftp, abuse mail, nameservers etc. etc. but we don't want to use this as main domain, so we do not create a website there. It's only for admin stuff.
I know cP is using this completely different, but cP is using root, not admin. And Plesk is doing it again different.

Now we create a second admin called rbadmin. This one gets the domain name randbhosting.com and because this will be the main domain, we also create the website here and if we also want nameservers with this name, we create nameservers with this name on the same ip's which are used for the default admin account.

Under this hosting account we can create resellers, we also can create more admins for other purposes. We had 5 servers, which were brought back to 2 servers, then 3 servers, 3 servers and a VPS and it was easy this way to move around admins and users, without having to move accounts to other admins first and hope nothing goes wrong.

But even if you want to servers like in your example, then on 1 server, you do need that randbdomain as admin domain if you want to create resellers falling under that domain, or if you don't, you at least need it to be a reseller account under the default admin, to be able to create user packages for your users.

So now this is what I'm wondering about. You're quite correct that both servers can't have randbhosting.com as domain name.
So that domain can only be used on 1 server. So to create resellers on the falcon server (which is server 2), you still need ad admin, don't need a domain to create resellers.
How do you do that with nameservers, use the multi-server setup? Because that's an option.

So it's very well possible to use a server with a domain name like you say. But in our case (or small hosting) I really don't see a problem to use the default admin account also for a domain name. In fact, that is working by design as you can also see from the personal license. It has always been like that in the past.
It can be used differently ofcourse, due to other needs, but if there are not other needs, in those cases I'm curious as to why people should not want to use the admin domain also for the main website and other stuff because it's that easy.
And it's not the root account which WHM uses, so yes that's different, and Plesk is doing it again different. So to me it just looks getting used to a bit unless peopl are doing this different like using the domain name for 2 servers, which I would never do myself, but that's a choice.

Sorry if the text is a bit long, but it explains various possibility's and also shows how we are using it at the moment, becasue we experienced a lot of server moves in the past. Now not anymore luckily.
 
I just always add a fake domain to Admin, then add my own domains under a Reseller with different users...... Always have, that said, I use Cloudflare DNS for all my own domains, server hostnames and nameservers (a records) for my servers...
 
Cloudflare works different I guess. But why use a fake domain name if you don't use it anyway? Then you could just as wel leave it out, correct?
You still do need a correct hostname from some domain name for the server hostname as exim will be using that too.

However we're talking local servers and use. To keep things a bit more simple for the moment. But thank you for insight.
 
I just always add a fake domain to Admin, then add my own domains under a Reseller with different users...... Always have, that said, I use Cloudflare DNS for all my own domains, server hostnames and nameservers (a records) for my servers...

Yep i do it that way, but also for reseller i get them a fake domain (subdomain server/host) then using that for reverse ip ipv4 and ipv6, so if moving domains they are not used for that important part as revers ipv6 on that box.

To be clear for mail ofcourse reseller not that fake domain, only to have reverse ipv6 (ipv4) separated if shared and not pointing to domain wich can be moved then more easy.

Using "fake domains" also handy not to deal with spam and worse for those account. no mail..

So again if moving switching domains to other users or boxex or ip's such things could be handy, if a domain is burned seo, or mailspammer then to.

O sorry to break in offtopic. ;)
 
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Why some things are done differently on some places.
Me too so I talk to people about things that jumps out at me. The use of the admin user domain is one of them.. so I am going slow and we can dissect this down.
the hostnames are created as domain names by default
I create my server with a Hostname like eagle.ranbhosting.com with hostnamectl.
It's possible to delete that hostname domain created automatically
I noticed this in the DNS management area. Yes I delete this zone which would be eagle.ranbhosting.com
I never used 1 domain name on more than 2 servers. I use a domain for every server.
If you own all of those servers dont they belong under your companies domain name like ranbhosting.com with just a different hostname like owl, falcon, eagle and so on.
working with subdomains
falcon or eagle is a hostname for the server. The domain is ranbhosting.com
So where would you host the domain name ranbhosting.com itself?
in my main server named eagle.ranbhosting.com under the domain ranbhosting.com
So on one of the two servers you need that randbhosting.com domain.
correct as above
randbhosting.com which we use as admin domain. I enter "eagle" in dns to have that in there too. Than I can do anything from there. I have cron, ftp, email, dkim, spf, whatever I want, and the only thing I have to do is switch to userlevel.
yes correct. oops change this to its not in the Admin section its in it own account randbhq
I have to do is switch to userlevel.
you can if you created ranbhosting.com in the Admin user account. I didn't do this I created a separate user account as ranbhq and built the domain under ranbhosting.com in the user section of ranbhq.
Now we are getting a new server
is this server new as in empty? is this Shared hosting or a vps?
domain for example admindomain.com.
is this a fake domain you don't really own? If yes what makes you want to do this. It seems
The server gets server.admindomain.com.
So this wouldn't be your companied domain ranbhosting.com? just trying to get the process..
confusing to me.

So to create resellers
I don't have resellers.
How do you do that with nameservers, use the multi-server setup?
The main domain is on the main server ranbhosting.com the DNS is all managed for ranbhosting.com under its DNS zone. all the A records for all the servers all ownd by ranbhosting.com are in that zone. Including all my DNS primaries and secondaries. All the client domains have their zones in DNS on eagle.ranbhosting.com and falcon.ranbhosting.com since DA is a Primary DNS server. All propagated to both server with MSS and by transfer to my secondaries
default admin account also for a domain name
When I asked this I was told it's not as safe so I didn't do it. Not sure it is not as safe but it where I am currently. Sort of why I am asking.
main website and other stuff because it's that easy.
I am thinking I should have on the main domain but that only fixes one server of the too.
And it's not the root account which WHM uses,
.
I did not like this. I wish there was just a non-root admin. Plesk does this but it's
Sorry if the text is a bit long, but it explains various possibility's
Its great thanks
not linked to a domain it just a user. DA does this but it is linked to a domain. Which what we are sort of talking about.
 
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He can but he gets the warning you don have a domain on the Admin user account since it required in EVO apparently.
Yes but that's only an Evo bug which will be fixed as we could read. It was never an issue in Enhanced. But by discovering these things, we can improve Evo ongoing.

I create my server with a Hostname like eagle.ranbhosting.com with hostnamectl.
I also do that upfront ofcourse, but not everybody does. I ment on DA installation, you have to enter a hostname during the setup process, so for good and quick install, one already has to have that hostname ready to fill it in when the setup asks for it.
Like we do it, the hostname is already read from the system during setup and we only have to confirm on using that hostname.

If you own all of those servers dont they belong under your companies domain name like ranbhosting.com with just a different hostname like owl, falcon, eagle and so on.
No. I don't see any reason to. Most users don't even check hostnames. So I have one main site, my users are on different servers, all with their own domain. Yes oke, different nameservers. But since I have a small company I use mycompany.com and my-company.com and this way I already have 2 domain names.
On one server nameservers for users are ns1 and ns2.mycompany.com and on the other it's ns1 and ns2.my-company.com which works great. Normally users don't even watch these kind of things, as long as everything works on www.customerdomain.com and mail.customerdomain.com and such.
Only experienced customers see that different hostnames are used but I doubt if they care about it.

you can if you created ranbhosting.com in the Admin user account. I didn't do this I created a separate user account as ranbhq and built the domain under ranbhosting.com in the user section of ranbhq.
Oke, but in that case you can't create resellers anymore, you can only administer customer packages if you use this as a user account. You don't have resellers accounts, but lots of admins and company's do.
However, another thing then for your case. Where do you enter the A records for ns1 and ns2? Because users can't have their own nameservers, only admins and resellers can, so how do you fix this?

So this wouldn't be your companied domain ranbhosting.com? just trying to get the process..
confusing to me.
I was talking about 2 working methods so that might have been confusing indeed. This is the method we use at the moment.
When using server.admindomain.com then the admin domain would be admindomain.com at user level.
The domain randbhosting.com would be created on a new admin account for example accountname randbh but as admin user.
Please let me know if this isn't clear yet, otherwise we can skip this part for the time being and keep ourselves to the single admin account which we used before.

I am thinking I should have on the main domain but that only fixes one server of the too.
You can still keep that the way you're doing it now, except it takes a bit more work maybe. And I'm not known on how DMARC will respond to this if used when the same domain is on 2 servers. You can add an extra ip in SPF so it can work on two servers. But I wonder how this work when using the same domain name on 2 servers the way you do? I'm sure it will work since you have it that way, but I'm curious as you know.
But I rather choose for a more easy setup.

I do -not- use fake accounts, I always use real domain names. Fake I only use for testing purposes.
A new server is in my eyes a new, so empty, new to install, server.

But I'm really getting confused now about this:
all the A records for all the servers all ownd by ranbhosting.com are in that zone. Including all my DNS primaries and secondaries. All the client domains have their zones in DNS on eagle.ranbhosting.com and falcon.ranbhosting.com since DA is a Primary DNS server. All propagated to both server with MSS and by transfer to my secondaries

Oke this is where my previous question is about, but this answer I don't get really. Users can not have their own namervers, you have the nameserver part for that under reseller level.
Also under reseller level, there is that button where you can setup which nameservers are to be used for newly created accounts.
Unser user level, you can't create customers, so from which account are customers created? It seems you take the long way around instead of the short easy way. But I can be mistaken because I'm confused about this.

When I asked this I was told it's not as safe so I didn't do it. Not sure it is not as safe but it where I am currently. Sort of why I am asking.
I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be safe. Maybe some people things "what if the account gets hacked" yeah well... admin exists so also without website it can get hacked.
When a website gets hacked, it's mostly spam. I have not encountered an issue in those 12 years where an admin account was hacked in a way that hackers could login as the admin. And we've worked for many years like this, as have many other admins.
And as a last argument.... the personal license. It's new but it's created from the original DA and only has 1 admin account on admin level. If it wasnt'safe to use it this way, DA had not created it like this imho or at least had change things already over the years because really loads of admins are using it this way.

.
I did not like this. I wish there was just a non-root admin. Plesk does this but it's
That was about the WHM which uses root. I don't like this either, but it was just to show how different that worked because in cP one can have an administrator to just administrate the server, but tis is in fact root, not admin, it's a real difference.
And Plesk... well... lets leave it at the dots...

ts great thanks
not linked to a domain it just a user. DA does this but it is linked to a domain. Which what we are sort of talking about.
Your welcome. But keep in mind that if you don't link a domain to admin, it's not just a user, it's an admin user so still with a lot of rights and options.
However, you also thank you for this, I find it most interesting how people do things and why.
 
Yes but that's only an Evo bug
I guess I need to check out Enhanced until they fix this..
I ment on DA installation, you have to enter a hostname during the setup process
Yes but shouldn't this match the real fqn of the server like eagle.ranbhosting.com
I use mycompany.com and my-company.com and this way I already have 2 domain names.
Ah here is where I see one of our setup differences. I am cheap and only have one domain name...LOL
Where do you enter the A records for ns1 and ns2? Because users can't have their own nameservers, only admins and resellers can, so how do you fix this?
When they sign up for an account/site my system created their zone file on my dns server and they point their domain at the register to my dns servers dns1.ranbhosting.com and dns2.ranbhosting.com. NS cusomer.com dns1.ranbhosting.com
setup which nameservers are to be used for newly created accounts.
the nameserver is setup as dns1.ranbhosting.com dns.ranbhosting.com
we can skip this part for the time being
sure
real domain names. Fake I only use for testing purposes.
ok I wasn't sure when people say fake they just mean some domain name they made up OR the actually bought a domain and are just calling it fake.
I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be safe. Maybe some people things "what if the account gets hacked" yeah well... admin exists so also without website it can get hacked.
When a website gets hacked, it's mostly spam. I have not encountered an issue in those 12 years where an admin account was hacked in a way that hackers could login as the admin. And we've worked for many years like this, as have many other admins.
I thought this too. Maybe I should change my ways..
That was about the WHM which uses root. I don't like this either, but it was just to show how different that worked because in cP one can have an administrator to just administrate the server, but tis is in fact root, not admin, it's a real difference.
And Plesk... well... lets leave it at the dots...
Ok gotcha just agreeing
However, you also thank you for this, I find it most interesting how people do things and why.
For sure it why I like it here. we can just talk about things.
 
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I don't have resellers.
ok so I guess technically I do have resellers? I have admin and under admin the account ranbhq is listed under admin on the admin resellers page.

Is it possible to move a domain from one User to another?
 
I have heard this but do you do this to get around the requirement of having an admin user domain?
Maybe admin doesn't need a domain, but yes......

FWIW, you do not need to add a domain for hostnames...... DA adds DNS records for it at setup.

The main reason I use Cloudflare DNS for my company domain, imagine if you have 200 servers, and all DNS records for your company domain's DNS, namly all your hostnames A records, on a DA/etc server goes belly up... Disaster.....
 
Maybe admin doesn't need a domain, but yes......

FWIW, you do not need to add a domain for hostnames...... DA adds DNS records for it at setup.

The main reason I use Cloudflare DNS for my company domain, imagine if you have 200 servers, and all DNS records for your company domain's DNS, namly all your hostnames A records, on a DA/etc server goes belly up... Disaster.....
Totally get it. If I had 200 servers.;)
 
FWIW, you do not need to add a domain for hostnames...... DA adds DNS records for it at setup.
Yes that's known. We already stated that here or in the other thread. But as Brent already wrote, you don't need to use that. You can also delete this and add the server name to the domain if you're going to use the domain.
So if the record is server.domain.com you can also delete that record and add an A record for server in domain.com DNS settings.
However, we're talking small business. Indeed if you have lots of servers, it will be al different ballgame to set up all that. Seems to me Cloudlinux is the best solution for those large company's anyway. I couldn't even imagine administering like 50 servers even and I'm glad I don't have to. :)

Yes but shouldn't this match the real fqn of the server like eagle.ranbhosting.com
Ofcourse. I didn't state anything else. It's only that I know that there are people/admins out there, who won't change their vps12340.datacenter-cheap.com hostname to something else and only change it to eagle.randbhosting.com on DA setup.
Which isn't a big problem because DA will also set this hostname for Exim if I'm not mistaken. But you can ran into issues so yes, best practice is to also use hostnamectl and take care, even on a VPS that system hostname matches the fqdn DA hostname imho.

When they sign up for an account/site my system created their zone file on my dns server and they point their domain at the register to my dns servers dns1.ranbhosting.com and dns2.ranbhosting.com. NS cusomer.com dns1.ranbhosting.com
I seem to have been unclear. Ofcourse they can use your nameservers at their registrar. But at your server. Nameservers are created via the reseller level or DNS management. But only on reseller level you can setup which nameservers newly made users will get when creating an account.
So if you only have a user account for your main domain randbhosting.com can you still access the admin resellers part so you can configure this for new accounts in the nameserver section of the reseller level? That is what I meant.

ok so I guess technically I do have resellers? I have admin and under admin the account ranbhq is listed under admin on the admin resellers page.

Is it possible to move a domain from one User to another?
Ehmz... I don't know. If you say you have a seperate user account, you wouldn't be listed under reseller accounts.
But if you would use the reseller leve of admin and use the "list users" there, your account should be present.

And yes, you can not only move domains but you can also transfer complete accounts between resellers and/or admins.

I'm still wondering about one other question. For your randbhosting.com you're using a user account you say.
But I don't get that.
Say you get 5 customers. You can create them from randbhosting.com because randbhq is a user and not a reseller, correct?

So users need user packages. Where do you create them? Under admin on admin level? Or under admin under reseller level or...?
 
Ah here is where I see one of our setup differences. I am cheap and only have one domain name...LOL
I missed that one. LoL, I'm also cheap and have several domains but only 2 in use for servers. And both are reseller accounts. I only administer all servers because the admin has very very little knowledge, so that's why I always do complete setups for admin too. ;)
So we help each other, it's a good friend of mine, I do his servers, and I can use server to for my company and setup my own reseller account. I could also have created an admin account for myself, but don't see any reason to. As reseller I can login and don't see users which aren't mine. :)
 
50 servers even and I'm glad I don't have to.
You would have to hire smtalk...
best practice is to also use hostnamectl and take care
for sure.
nameserver section of the reseller level?
if I follow you yes you can.
admin and use the "list users" there
I see it in Admin Show all users. In Reseller's list resellers it's not there. LOL.
So users need user packages. Where do you create them?
Resellers Manage user packages
my own reseller account
Ah good deal for him and you.
 
Resellers Manage user packages
Yes, so if I understand correctly you're using admin reseller level for the nameservers and the user packages.
Oke that's an option too indeed. I would rather administer them from my own userlevel so if I already did not want an admin account, just like now, I would have given me a reseller account for my randbhosting company and host the website.
And I can do almost everything for my users and login as them via the reseller account. Seems to me better than a user account for my company.
But again, that's ofcourse a matter of choice.

Ah good deal for him and you.
Yep, already 12 years, we're both happy with it.
 
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