WHMCS - Registrar Module

Introduction

Modules directly shipped with WHMCS are maintained by the WHMCS Core Team. Bugs and Feature Requests have to be addressed via https://whmcs.com. It is possible to migrate to our Module Variant.

CentralNic Reseller has a Partnership in place with WHMCS, we expect WHMCS to cover your Support Tickets carefully and with priority. In case they can't help, please reach out.

We are offering our custom module for WHMCS which covers more features than the natively integrated module would ever receive. In addition, this enables us to release more frequently. Therefore, we recommend using our custom variant instead.

CentralNic Reseller™ your instrument for a successful reselling business.

CentralNic Reseller is one of the leading reseller platforms worldwide for domains and internet related services. Our products are all resalable and can be easily integrated into your system through various WHMCS Modules.

Features

WHMCS - Available Module Features & Addons

Installation

WHMCS - Module Installation & Upgrade

Domain Renewal Mode

Please visit our own Frontend that we offer our customers for free here: LIVE System or OT&E System.

Click on your user name at top right and navigate to Settings > System > Account Policy > Renewalmode. Here select ‘Auto Expire’ and press ‘Save changes’.

This is necessary to avoid domains getting automatically renewed and causing costs for you and in WHMCS when they are not renewed by the customer.

If you have already domains registered and managed via WHMCS, please ensure to update their renewal mode manually as well.

Module Migration

Some of our customers started with the CentralNic Reseller module that it is shipped with WHMCS. Our module's configuration page will automatically detect the need for a migration and provide a button to get this covered with a single click. The screen shot below is outdated and about the precedessor "RRPproxy" - the button will appear for the CentralNic Reseller Module as well.

It will do the following actions:

• Reconfigure Domain Pricing from keysystems, rrpproxy or centralnic to cnic, which is the internal name of this module.
• Reconfigure all domain names related to the Registrars keysystems,  rrpproxy  or  centralnic to cnic.
• Deactivate the old module.

Finally, you may want to reconfigure the Lookup Provider via System Settings > Domain Pricing to the new module.

Module Configuration

Navigate to System Settings > Domain Registrars. Find the CentralNic Reseller Module in the list (the one with the version number in the label) and activate it as shown in the screenshots below. If you’re not able to find that Module in the list, something went wrong with the Module Installation - please check this part again please. The HEXONET Module shown in the screenshot isn't required.

Configure this Module by entering your credentials (OT&E or LIVE System Account). Activate TestMode by activating the checkbox in case you want to use the OT&E System - just ensure you don’t mix it up with LIVE System Credentials or vice versa.

Find below the configuration Settings described in short. Some of them are used to turn custom features on or off, by default turned off. Find more details about the features in our article WHMCS - Available Module Features & Addons.

Default TTL

The default TTL used for DNS Management. Used as default value for the TTL Field we made available.

Automatic Transfer Lock

Activate Automatic Transfer Lock setting by using the appropriate checkbox to ensure outgoing transfers can’t be initiated in ease. We suggest that setting as it helps securing your domain names from getting transferred out in ease.

Automatic NS Update on Transfer

Activate Automatic NS Update setting in case you want our module to update domain’s nameservers automatically after successful transfer.

Transfer Checkout Pre-Checks

Activate Transfer Checkout Pre-Checks setting in case you want to have Domain Transfer Orders pre-checked. We validate if initiating the Transfer would succeed.

Enable DNS Management / Email Forwarding / ID Protection

Activate these settings to include synchronizing the related Domain Add-Ons checkboxes within the Registrar TLD Sync. We just Sync it for TLDs configured with us as Registrar in Auto Registration (see Domain Pricing Overview).

Suspend after Expiration

Activate Suspend after Expiration if you want to suspend domain name automatically after expiration. This option is useful if you’re faced with clients who are used to pay their domain renewals very late and you want to pressure a bit. Worst case such clients would lose domains when accidentally forgetting about the renewal. You can unsuspend domains over Client Profile > Tab Domains using the Button Unsuspend.

High-Performance Setup

Activate High-Performance Setup if you want to activate the High-Performance Proxy Setup. Please read about the technical requirements below and necessary configuration steps first. This mechanism is only compatible to Apache - still, you might try to work out a similar configuration for your Web-Server. We did not succeed with this in direction of LiteSpeed. An alternative Option by using the "ProxyServer" Configuration Setting is mentioned below.

In case you are experiencing network latency issues (long node path to our data center), this setup may help improving the situation. After activation your WHMCS is requesting ALL our API requests via HTTP to localhost / 127.0.0.1 and there, a Proxy Mechanism cares for forwarding these requests to our API endpoint using HTTPS. This mechanism improves the performance as it is keeping the connections persistent and avoids a bit of reccuring connection handling overhead.

APACHE

At least Apache version 2.2.9 is required.

An example Apache configuration with binding to localhost:

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.1:80>
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    ServerSignature Off
    SSLProxyEngine on
    ProxyPass /cnr/api/call.cgi https://api.ispapi.net/api/call.cgi min=1 max=2
    ProxyPass /cnr/api-ote/call.cgi https://api-ote.ispapi.net/api/call.cgi min=1 max=2
    <Proxy *>
        Order Deny,Allow
        Deny from none
        Allow from all
    </Proxy>
</VirtualHost>

The following Apache2 modules must be installed and activated:

sudo a2enmod http_proxy ssl
sudo service apache2 restart

OTHER WEB SERVERS

Basically, LiteSpeed is a Drop-in Replacement for Apache and very compatible with Apache Configuration Settings. Still, we were not able to get the above mechanism supported by LiteSpeed.

ALTERNATIVE OPTION

Let me point you to the “Proxy Server” setting as well. Set up a Proxy Server with a connection keep-alive setting and provide the ip address and the port e.g.

Proxy Server: 66.96.200.39:8080

or just the ip / hostname for port

Proxy Server: 66.96.200.39

Suppress ID Protection

We made this available on customer demand while its purpose is "questionable". By this, the id protection service in WHMCS won't be forwarded to the CentralNic Reseller System. This means, you can sell that service without any binding to the counterpart service of our API and by this you're not generating costs for yourself.

Renewal Protection

The option is useful if for whatever reason you have some domains that have been renewed multiple times by mistake in the past, or if your default renewal policy is set to AUTORENEW, which we do not recommend. The proper setting would be AUTOEXPIRE.

If the option is enabled, upon renewal the current due date for the domain is retrieved from WHMCS. If the domain expiration date is already greater than the next due date, then the renewal will be skipped. So the due date in WHMCS will be increased by one year, but the domain will not be renewed because it already expires after the next due date. The next year, the renewal should be processed normally, as it will be aligned.

When a renewal is skipped, it is logged in the WHMCS activity log, plus an email is sent to admins with the subject “CentralNic Reseller Renewal Skipped”.

Domain Deletion Mode

Possible Settings: ImmediateIfPossible, AutoDeleteOnExpiry

Some TLD Providers support an immediate deletion of domain names. Otherwise, it will be about letting them expire if not renewed.

Allow DNSSEC

If you want to offer secure DNS / DNSSec, feel also free to activate the checkbox for DNSSEC. Find further details documented documented in the "NS & DNS Management" section.

Daily Cron

Makes some daily consistency checks and sends an e-mail report. Use it in case you're interested in a daily report related to your domain portfolio.

TestMode / TestPassword

This is of interest for your QA System which you can connect to our OT&E Registrar Backend System by activating this checkbox and providing the respective password.

Proxy Server

You may configure a Proxy Server to use for connecting. This configuration setting is optional. But this might be the entry point for performance improvements. I you have a Reverse Proxy set up, communication will be sent to this server. It could care for keeping connections open for a while (connection keep-alive) to improve HTTP communication performance.

Precheck ID Protection / DNS Management / Email Forwarding

These settings lead to prechecking the checkboxes of shopping cart items. Your clients will still have to submit this, but they don't have to activate the checkboxes manually.

KeyDNS Nameserver

Comma-separated list of Nameservers to use for domains with DNS Management. Leave empty to use defaults: ns1.dnsres.net, ns2.dnsres.net, ns3.dnsres.net

NS & DNS Management

If you want to use DNS, URL or Email forwarding, domains must resolve to the CentralNic Reseller nameserver cluster (*ns1.dnsres.net, ns2.dnsres.net, ns3.dnsres.net).

You can enter them in System Settings > General Settings > Domains as Default Nameservers for your customers:

You can also create your own nameserver hostnames and use them, as long as they are registered and resolve to the correct IP addresses.

If you plan to use CentralNic Reseller’s KeyDNS, ensure to activate checkbox DNS Management for the appropriate TLDs in the Domain Pricing Section of WHMCS (System Settings > Domain Pricing).

When registering a domain name, a checkbox for this Domain Addon will then be offered to your customers. When used, it finally allows managing resource records for that domain name over WHMCS.

DNSSEC Management

In order to activate this feature, within the WHMCS Admin area, go to

System Settings > Domain Registrars > CentralNic Reseller

and activate the DNSSEC checkbox.

In the domain details, a new “DNSSEC Management” section will be displayed. This feature allows your customers to add DS and KEY records and set the maxSigLife.

Additional Domain Fields

The registration of some domain extensions requires sometimes additional domain fields (e.g. Legal Type and CIRA Agreement for .CA domain).

BUNDLE VERSION 19 AND LATER

(Earlier Versions received deprecation!)

No need for a custom additional domain fields configuration. Feel free to clean up previous configurations related to TLDs offered over us. We ship with a new mechanism which is API-driven and therefore directly connected to the CentralNic Reseller API. It is providing the additional domain fields fully auto-generated and cares for considering them in the API Requests accordingly. By this approach, we were able to introduce full translation support via Language Override Files which is not possible via WHMCS Core built-in possibilities. Also, we expect the support effort to dramatically decrease and we added a automatic prefilling mechanism for VATID, Legal Type and Country and Language related fields. If you notice a field that could be automatically filled with data, let us know.

If you’re interested in adding your custom translation, add domains with TLDs of interests to your Shopping Cart and switch to the Shopping Cart Item’s Configuration. There, add &showtranslationkeys=1 to the URL and press enter. Instead of the texts, you’ll now seee the Translation Keys which can be used in the Language Override files for adding your custom translations. If you remove that URL parameter again, texts will be displayed as usual. The fallback will always be our default english texts in case a translation is not present. It allows for translating step by step.

NOTE: As of v24 of our Software Bundle, we're shipping with language files covering arabic, english, french and german translations for .DE, .EU, .FR and .IT.  Custom translation can still be covered by using language override files to override our default translations. Find our translation files under folder /resources/cnic/lang. Use them as boilerplate for your custom translations. For translation that are not yet part of our language files, either address your need via customer support ticket to us or use the above way via request parameter to find the translation key out.

CNR Account Hardening

In order to secure your WHMCS installation, we recommend creating a role user only dedicated for WHMCS. This role user will only be able to execute the WHMCS needed commands.

Restrictive User Role

• Login to the CentralNic Reseller Control Panel (OT&E, LIVE)
• Click on your username (top right)
• Click on ‘User management’ from the dropdown menu
• Create a new user by clicking on “Create new User”
• Click on the newly created user to configure its permissions
• Give the following locations read, write and delete permissions:
  • Contact
  • Dns
  • Domain
  • Domainapplication
  • Nameserver
  • Certificate (for CNIC SSL Addon)
  • Hosting (for CNIC cPanel Hosting Addon - currently available only on demand!)
• Give the following locations read only permissions:
  • Account
  • Price
  • Tool
  • Log
• Login to your WHMCS Backend and replace your CentralNic Reseller username with your new user.

If there’s any of the above permissions not available for selection, please reach out to support. If it is still not working, please try again after activating “Rights required for web interface usage” as well in the above mentioned Control Panel.

2-Factor Authentication

WHMCS itself does not support using 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) for Registrar Modules. So having 2FA activated for your user and using it in WHMCS simply does not work. If you’ve set up a restrictive role user as described above and you’re using that one in your registrar configuration, then you can activate 2FA for your account (!!!not for your restrictive role user!!!).

You can activate 2FA by logging in to our control panell (OT&E, LIVE). Then click on your user name at the top right of the page and then navigate to Passwords and Security. There, click on Enable Two-Factor Authentication and follow that wizard.

If you lost your 2FA device / code generator, contact our support - see the footer of this page.

Activate IP Restrictions

You can activate IP Restrictions for both: your account and the above described role user. Find instructions on how to add a restrictive role user as described above.

You can do that for your account by logging in to our control panel (OT&E, LIVE). Then click on your user name at the top right of the page and then navigate to Passwords and Security. There, click on Restrict API Access to Whitelist and fill out the form.

Troubleshooting

WHMCS - Known Bugs