Addon domains in cPanel

An addon domain lets you host another domain on your cPanel account. If you want to host more than one website then an addon domain is often the best way to do so. Instead of having separate cPanel accounts all your domains would be managed via one account.

Creating an addon domain

In cPanel, an addon domain is really just a subdomain with an alias. In effect, though, an addon domain lets host another domain that is independent from your main domain. For instance, you can set up email accounts for the new domain and set up a redirect, just like you can for the main domain on your account.

Like many other pages in cPanel, the Addon Domains page has two sections:

• At the top of the page you can create an addon domain
• Existing addon domains are listed at the bottom of the page

To create an addon domain you only need to enter the domain name. You can normally leave the Subdomain and Document Root fields blank, but you can change the values cPanel suggests if you wish.

Image: creating the addon domain example.com

In the above example we are creating the addon domain example.com. The domain will be linked to the subdomain example.example.net and the website files will be stored in the public_html/example.com directory.

Addon domain FTP account

We did not tick the Create an FTP account associated with this addon domain checkbox. If you are managing both the main domain and the addon domain then you don’t need a separate FTP account. This is because the addon domain’s directory is a subfolder of the public_html directory. You can therefore access the website files using your main FTP account.

If you do choose to create an FTP account for the addon domain then the FTP user will only have access to the website files for the addon domain. This option is therefore useful if you want to give someone FTP access to the addon domain only (and not to the main domain).

Of course, you can also manage the FTP account via the FTP page.

Managing addon domains

Existing addon domains are listed under the heading Modify Addon Domain.

Image: viewing existing addon domains.

There are a couple of actions you can perform on existing addon domains:

• Clicking on the Document Root name opens the directory in cPanel’s file manager.
• Clicking on the pencil icon to the right of the document root lets you change the location where the website files for the addon domain are stored. There should really be no reason to change this but if you want to, you can.
• The Remove link does exactly what it says on the tin: it will delete the addon domain. The website files will not be removed but any email addresses that are using the addon domain’s name will be purged.
• The Manage Redirection link lets you set up a redirect. If you want to point the addon domain to another domain (or a specific URL) then this is where you can set up the redirect. It is also possible to set up a redirect via the main Redirects interface.

The addon domain addon

If you need an addon domain but your hosting package doesn’t have any addon domains available then you can either upgrade your hosting package or purchase the addon domain addon. The latter option will be cheaper (£10 per annum plus VAT) but you will need to have enough available resources for the addon domain.

In other words, you will need to consider if you got enough available disk space, bandwidth, databases and email accounts on your hosting package to host another website. If you are not sure what the best option is, we are happy to help you decide: either give us a call on 0800 107 7979 or submit a ticket.

Addon domains and aliases

One limitation of addon domains is that you can’t create an alias for an addon domain via cPanel. We can add an alias for you, provided that the alias is not for another domain on your account. For instance, if example.net is your main domain and example.com is an addon domain then it is not possible to create an alias so that example.com displays the content of example.net.

Converting an addon domain to a new hosting account

If at any point you want to convert an addon domain to a stand-alone hosting account, we can do that for you. Please open a ticket if you would like us to do so.