Revision as of 14:51, 30 December 2015

For information regarding domain management in WHMCS refer to this page.

Domain Lookup

WHMCS currently supports two domain lookup providers for domain searches performed via the domain checker and shopping cart interfaces.

• Standard WHOIS - this checks domain availability using WHOIS servers directly, and is the default Domain Lookup provider used by WHMCS installations. When using this method, in addition to the users chosen domain name and TLD, the status of the same domain with other TLD extensions can be provided at the same time (formerly known as Bulk Check TLDS).
• eNom Namespinner - this utilizes the eNom API to provide intelligent automated suggestions based on the domain or keywords a user enters.

For more information regarding the namespinner options, please see Domain Namespinning

Domain Registration Options

Unticking these options will hide the associated option from the order form. For example if you do not wish customers to transfer domain names to you, unticking the checkbox will remove the option from the order form. When all options are unticked the Choose a Domain domain checker will also be removed from the default template homepage.

Enable Renewal Orders

When enabled clients will see domain renewal options in the client area and a renewal category in the shopping cart allowing for them to renew domains at any time. When unticked clients will only be able to renew domains when the renewal invoice is automatically generated.

Auto Renew on Payment

Enabling will renew domains automatically at the registrar (eNom, ResellerClub etc) when the renewal invoice is paid.

Auto Renew Requires Product

With this option ticked, domain names with a Recurring Amount value of 0.00 will only be renewed if there is a corresponding service under the same client with a matching domain name. If there is none, the domain renewal will not be processed and a "Free Domain Renewal Manual Action Required" error emailed to admins along with an entry in the Activity Log.

This is useful for preventing accidental free domain renewals when offering free domains. Under certain circumstances the Next Due Date of the domain and the service can fall out of sync.

If you do wish to renew the domain, navigate to the client's Domains tab and click the "Renew" Module Command button.

Default Auto Renewal Setting

If enabled, your customers will automatically be invoiced for the renewal of domain names in line with your automation settings. You can override this on an individual domain level by ticking the Do Not Renew checkbox on the client’s domain tab. For more information refer to this page.

Create To-Do List Entries

When enabled, entries will be created automatically in the To-Do List when a domain-related action occurs that requires manual intervention. For example if a domain registration fails due to an error, with this option enabled an entry will appear.

Domain Sync Enabled

Automatically checks and updates the Status and Expiry Date of domains names against your domain registrar to ensure the date in WHMCS is always correct (registrar permitting). To use this feature tick the option and configure the following cron job on your server:

php -q /path/to/home/public_html/whmcspath/crons/domainsync.php

This can be configured as often as you like, however to avoid overloading your domain registrar we recommend running it every 4 hours. The sync script will check Active 50 and Pending Transfer domains at a time; Active domains will have their Expiry Date corrected to match the registrar if different, if the dates already match it will report "In Sync". Pending Transfer domains will usually report an error until the transfer process is complete at which point the status will automatically be changed to Active, the Domain Transfer Completed email template sent and the Expiry Date obtained from the registrar. When used with the eNom module, the script can also send the Domain Transfer Failed email template if the transfer process fails.

For additional security the /crons directory can be moved outside the publicly accessible directory, for more information refer to Further Security Steps

Sync Next Due Date

Used in conjunction with the above feature, when ticked the Next Due Date will be synchronized with domain name's Expiry Date. The number field can also be used to specify how far in advance of the Expiry Date to set the Next Due Date - the default setting 0 means the Expiry Date and Next Due Dates will be the same. Increasing the number means the renewal invoice will be due before the domain's expiry date, useful if your clients use slow payment methods such as cash or cheques which need time to clear.

Domain Sync Notify Only

Used in conjunction with the Domain Sync options above, enabling this will email a list of domain names to your administrators which have incorrect Statuses and Expiry Dates, but not change them.

Allow IDN Domains

Ticking this option allows domains containing any character to be used. When unticked WHMCS will only allow clients to use a-z and 0-9 in domains.

Default Nameservers

In these fields specify the default nameservers to be used for standalone domain orders, these would typically be your own or that of an outside DNS management service (eg. your domain registrar). For example in order to use eNom's DNS management service the default nameservers would be:

dns1.name-services.com
dns2.name-services.com
dns3.name-services.com
dns4.name-services.com
dns5.name-services.com

When a domain is ordered alongside a hosting service the appropriate nameservers set under Setup > Products/Services > Servers > Edit are used instead.

Default Contact Details

Specify which details will be displayed in the whois database for domains registered through WHMCS upon initial registration (registrar module permitting). The client's details will always be used as the registrant contact, ticking Use Clients Details will use their details for all other contacts. But by unticking this option and entering your details in the fields beneath these will be used as the Billing, Admin and Technical contacts instead. Clients will be able to change this via their client area later.