Setting Up the Vanity Group & Sellable Domains

PUQ Web Hosting module WHMCS

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A vanity offer is built on a special server group whose purpose is Vanity. This page sets up that group and the parent domains you will sell names on.

Step 1 — Make a group a Vanity group

Create a server group (Infrastructure → Server Groups → Add Server Group), open it, and on the General tab set Group purpose to Vanity.

Switching to Vanity changes the group editor: the hosting‑config tabs disappear and a Vanity domains tab appears. A vanity group only has four tabs — General, Variables, DNS servers, Vanity domains.

Reserved names

The General tab has a Reserved names box (one per line). These are names customers may not register on this group's domains (e.g. admin2, your own brand words, etc.). They are enforced on the order form, the client setup page, the API and at provisioning — on top of the built‑in technical reservations (www, mail, admin, ns1, _dmarc, …), which you never need to list yourself.

Step 2 — Attach DNS servers

On the DNS servers tab, tick the nameservers that will carry the subdomain records for this group's domains. Subdomain records are pushed to every attached DNS node (active‑active).

If a domain uses External / wildcard DNS (next step), the module writes no DNS at all and this selection is irrelevant for that domain.

Step 3 — Add the parent domains you sell

Open the Vanity domains tab. This is the core of the setup. Note the banner restating the safety guarantee — the module only adds/removes the per‑service subdomain, one mailbox, and (in push mode) one DNS record; it never touches the parent mail domain, the zone, or your provider Hestia user.

Click Add domain and configure each parent domain:

Field	What it means
Parent domain	The domain you own and sell on (e.g. benchwords.com). Sold as name.<domain> (site) + name@<domain> (mailbox).
Mail server + Provider mail username	The shared Hestia mail user that already owns the mail domain. This user must already own the mail domain on HestiaCP before you sell slots on it. Every customer mailbox is created on this one user.
Mail domain	Usually the parent domain; leave blank to use it.
DNS mode	External / wildcard — you maintain a *.domain wildcard (or manage DNS yourself) and the module touches no DNS. Push — the module writes the name A/AAAA record into your existing zone.
Web servers	Which Web nodes may host this domain's sites. The least‑loaded ticked node is chosen at order time. Tick at least one (leave empty only for a mail‑only vanity product).
Status	Active (sellable) to offer it; otherwise hidden from new orders.

DNS mode tip: a *.benchwords.com wildcard A‑record pointing at your web tier is the simplest setup — every new name.benchwords.com resolves immediately with zero per‑order DNS work. Use Push mode only when you need exact per‑name records in a zone the module manages.

Step 4 — Variables (optional)

The Variables tab works the same as for standard groups — group‑wide {name} values used by DNS zone templates. Most vanity setups don't need it (the subdomain record is the only DNS the module writes). Note that a vanity group shows only four tabs — General / Variables / DNS servers / Vanity domains — the hosting‑config tabs are hidden.

Once the group has at least one Active parent domain with a mail user and a web server, it is ready. The next page wires up the product that sells from it.