How To Install WHMCS Manually As A White Label Reseller

The first step to getting started with White Label Reseller Hosting is to install and configure WHMCS. You can do this relatively quickly. Our support technicians can also do this once you order this service from Hostwinds. The purpose of this guide, though, is for clients who wish to install this themselves.

Download WHMCS Installation Files

Note: To make full use of this article, you must log in to the Hostwinds Client Area. Click on the Support dropdown link from the client area and click on the Downloads link at the bottom of the dropdown. Hostwinds will take you to the Downloads page from here.

Next, click on the link for Purchased Software Downloads, and select the latest version of WHMCS available. Click the Download link, and it will download the archived folder to your machine locally.

Upload WHMCS Installation Files to your Account

Next, log in to your FTP account through an FTP client of your choosing, your default logins to access your FTP will be in the following format:

Hostname: either your domain name or your server's hostname

Username: Your cPanel / FTP username

Password: Your cPanel / FTP password

Port: 21

Hostwinds provides you login information in a welcome email upon purchase. We also recommend using FileZilla as your FTP client.

Once you are set up and using your FTP client, navigate to the folder public_html. Please keep in mind that anything within this folder is live and online, as is the document root for your main domain name.

Next, navigate to the folder in which you wish to have WHMCS installed. If you would like to have WHMCS installed on your primary domain, simply staying within the public_html folder will create yourdomain.com/whmcs. If you would like to have WHMCS be on a subdomain, you can create a subdomain within cPanel and then unzip the files to your subdomain document root. Using this method, you can have WHMCS installed to clients.yourdomain.com/whmcs or any variation of subdomain/folder schema you choose.

On your local machine, unzip the folder into a directory of your choosing, using either WinZip, WinRar, 7zip, or any other version of archiving software you wish to use.

From there, you will drag the entirety of the unpackaged folder structure to the location of your choosing.

Suppose you do not have software on your local machine to unzip/unpack archived folders. In that case, you can directly upload the .zip download to your account using File Manager. Once the file is uploaded to your account using File Manager, you can right-click on the .zip archive and extract using cPanel's File Manager extraction.

Pre-Install: File Changes and Updates

From here, click on the URL into which you previously unzipped the WHMCS folder. Find this wherever you unzipped the above package, and place this URL in your browser, i.e., http://mydomain.com/whmcs.

You will arrive at the Welcome to WHMCS! page; use the Click here to begin... link to begin. On the following page, WHMCS's End User License Agreement will display. Review the license agreement, and once accepted, click on the I Agree link.

You will move to the New Installation page. Here you will see a System Requirements Check Failed warning indicating that a file is missing. You should expect this and, to correct this, navigate to the WHMCS folder in your FTP account or cPanel file manager, and locate the file named: configuration.php.new.

Rename this file to configuration.php

Once renamed, click on the Recheck Requirements button. If you have done the above steps correctly, you should see a System Requirements Check Passed message. You can click on the View the detailed check results button link to see more. Still, for this article, we suggest clicking the Begin Installation button.

Installation of WHMCS

Now that you have seen the above screen click on Begin Installation.

The screen will request information on your WHMCS license key and your database connection details.

WHMCS License Key

You can obtain your license key from your Hostwinds account's client area by clicking on the Services dropdown link and selecting the My Services link. Your White Label Reseller service will display in the PRODUCT/SERVICE table. To move forward, click on the green Manage button and enter the White Label Reseller Account service management page.

Your WHMCS license key is considered an addon to this service. On the top-left side of the dashboard panel, click on the Addons link in the Actions dropdown.

At the very bottom of the Addons page, you will see "Current Addons" and your WHMCS White Label License Key. You will need to highlight and copy from WHMCS- to the end of the line. Next, paste the copied key on your WHMCS installation page in the License Key field.

Database Connection Details

To continue, you need to create a database and a database user. It is relatively simple to complete using cPanel's MySQL Databases feature.

To do this, you will need to log in to your cPanel account and Click on the MYSQL Databases in the DATABASES section. Alternatively, you can find this by typing in SQL in the search bar.

Your cPanel username will prefix your MySQL username and MySQL database name. Name them both however you wish, and note that these can be as simple as _username__whmcs for both if you desire. It's entirely up to you.

In the Create New Database section, name the database you are creating. Once the database is named, click the Create Database button.

Next, create a database user under the Add New User section of the MySQL Users area. From here, you can enter the username you wish to use and a secure password for the username. Ensure you store this password safely, as you will be using it to complete the installation. In the example below, the username follows the same schema as the database name, being u_cpanelusername__whmcs. Enter in both the username and password and click on the Create User link.

Lastly, you need to give permissions to the user you have created for the database you have created. Scroll down to Add User to Database section and ensure you select the user you created under the User dropdown. Also, make entirely sure to choose the database you have created under the database dropdown. Click on the blue Add button to add the new user to the database you created.

On the next page, click on the All Privileges checkbox at the top of the Manage User Privileges allowing this user complete control of the database. Once you grant All Privileges to the user, click the blue Make Changes button at the bottom of the page.

Upon doing so, you can now update the fields on the WHMCS installation page!

• Database Host: Keep as default, being localhost
• Database Port: Keep as default, being 3306
• Database Username: This will be the user you created. Ensure it includes your cpanelusername before the underscore.
• Database Password: This will be the password you set for the database user
• Database Name: This will be the database you created. Ensure it includes the cpanelusername before the underscore.

Once you have filled in all the fields above, click the blue Continue button.

Setup Administrator Account

Now you will need to set up the administrator account for your WHMCS installation. Continue by entering the details with your information in the presented fields. You will need to enter your first and last name, email, administrator username, and your desired password. Once you have done so, click the blue Complete Setup button.

Clicking the button starts the installation of WHMCS immediately.

Note: Do not back out or close the page from this point. Once your installation is complete, we will present you with the confirmation message of Installation Completed Successfully!.

Cleanup and Final Steps

Once you have finished the earlier steps, you will need to delete the entire folder of /install/ from your WHMCS directory. You can do this either in your FTP client or through cPanel's File Manager tool. Click on the file, and from the dropdown, click on the delete link.

Create Daily Cron Job

There will be an option to set up the daily cron job on this page, followed by a PHP command to use. To do so, Copy the command under step three (3) that begins with PHP -q

Once you have done so, move into your cPanel account, and under the ADVANCED area, click on the Cron Jobs link. Alternatively, to find this area, you can use the search bar and search for Cron.

In the Add New, Cron Job area, click on the Common Settings dropdown and select the Once Per Five Minutes option. In the Command field, paste the PHP command you copied earlier and press the blue Add New Cron Job button.

From here, you can go to the admin area of the installation page of your WHMCS. Do so by using the login details you created for the setup of your admin user account.

Congratulations, WHMCS is now fully installed and set up on your hosting account!