Creating and assigning packages for resellers

klowet

I am currently using Plesk for my servers and am looking into the functionality of Enhance.

Right now, I host several servers for agency clients (you could call them "resellers"). These agencies manage hundreds of websites for their own end-clients. Currently, I am forced to give each agency their own dedicated server. The reason for this is that Plesk doesn't allow me to strictly limit their individual vCPU and vRAM usage on a shared environment. Additionally, they can currently create their own packages without strict resource limits, which regularly overloads the servers.

I have a specific question that I couldn't quite figure out via the online Enhance demo:
Can I create specific hosting packages and assign them exclusively to certain Resellers, which they can then use to provision sites for their own clients—but without giving them the option to create or modify their own packages?

To clarify my goal: I want to move away from renting out full, dedicated servers to these agencies. Instead, I want them to buy containerized site packages from me. Each individual package needs to be strictly limited in terms of:

Storage space
vCPU and vRAM
PHP mode & FPM settings (e.g., pm.max_children, pm.start_servers, etc.)
PHP variables (e.g., memory_limit, post_max_size, etc.)

This setup would allow me to accurately bill them based on the exact number of packages they consume. Furthermore, it prevents them from having to host their websites across multiple scattered Plesk servers, centralizing everything into one manageable environment.

Is this setup possible with Enhance?

Thanks

Adam

I think you can come close to your goal with Enhance.

When creating a package for a reseller, you have the ability to define a hard limit for CPU, IOPS, IO bandwidth, Nproc, RAM, swap and hard disk quota (filesystem level hard limit).

When a reseller (or his customer) creates a website, these limits are applied per website and cannot be overridden by the reseller.

Likewise php-fpm settings can only be changed by the Master Organisation (yourself).

When a reseller subscribes a customer to a package, it consumes his only Websites resource. Therefore if you create a reseller package allowing 100 websites (for example), there is no way the reseller can oversell system resources or websites.

klowet

So, if I understand correctly: if I create a reseller package with, for example, 2 vCPU and 2 GB vRAM, does that mean all individual websites created by that reseller share or are limited to those resources?

In reality, not all websites can be limited to the same resources. Most agencies sell their own hosting packages to their end-clients, such as 'Light' (1 vCPU / 1 GB vRAM), 'Medium' (2 vCPU / 2 GB vRAM), and 'Large' (3 vCPU / 4 GB vRAM) - or even custom packages with more cores and RAM. It completely depends on their client's website, whether it is a simple informational page or a high-traffic e-commerce shop.

The same applies to the PHP limits they want to assign to their packages. For instance, a 'Light' package might use PHP-FPM 'ondemand' mode, while 'Medium' and 'Large' packages require 'dynamic' mode with higher memory_limit values and different pm.start_servers configurations.

In short, this is what I am looking for: I want to create pre-defined website packages (with specific resource and PHP limits) and make them available to specific resellers. They can then use these exact templates to provision sites for their clients. This allows me to easily bill them based on the specific type and number of packages they consume, without giving them the rights to modify these package definitions themselves.

Currently, I create these pre-defined packages on each individual Plesk server (where they are the sole reseller customer). I advise them to only use those specific packages, but they always have the technical ability to create additional packages or assign different resources to websites themselves. I want to move away from this setup entirely and instead offer my agencies a fixed selection of predefined packages tailored to different types of websites.

Is this specific workflow possible in Enhance?

Adam

klowet So, if I understand correctly: if I create a reseller package with, for example, 2 vCPU and 2 GB vRAM, does that mean all individual websites created by that reseller share or are limited to those resources?

The limits are applied per-website, they are not overall account limits.

klowet In reality, not all websites can be limited to the same resources. Most agencies sell their own hosting packages to their end-clients, such as 'Light' (1 vCPU / 1 GB vRAM), 'Medium' (2 vCPU / 2 GB vRAM), and 'Large' (3 vCPU / 4 GB vRAM) - or even custom packages with more cores and RAM. It completely depends on their client's website, whether it is a simple informational page or a high-traffic e-commerce shop.

We don't have an option for that at the moment. The only way to achieve it would be to give the reseller 3 separate reseller packages with those resource limits. They would need to be under different customer accounts as there is a limit of one reseller package per customer.

klowet The same applies to the PHP limits they want to assign to their packages. For instance, a 'Light' package might use PHP-FPM 'ondemand' mode, while 'Medium' and 'Large' packages require 'dynamic' mode with higher memory_limit values and different pm.start_servers configurations.

php-fpm settings can only be adjusted by the master organisation. php.ini is free to edit by the reseller and the end user.

klowet Is this specific workflow possible in Enhance?

As above, you can get close to what you want under a single cluster with some workarounds. The other option is to do what you're doing with Plesk and run one control panel installation per reseller. Give them the master organisation login and let them create their own packages with custom resource limits.

klowet

Adam We don't have an option for that at the moment. The only way to achieve it would be to give the reseller 3 separate reseller packages with those resource limits. They would need to be under different customer accounts as there is a limit of one reseller package per customer.

In that case, the agency would have to remember which package a specific client is using just to log into the correct account. We cannot expect our agencies to do that. On top of that, there are always large websites that require custom, tailor-made packages.

Adam php-fpm settings can only be adjusted by the master organisation. php.ini is free to edit by the reseller and the end user.

How would we differentiate between small and large websites in that scenario? Small websites might use PHP-FPM 'ondemand' mode, while larger ones require 'dynamic' mode. Smaller websites also need lower pm.start_servers, pm.min_spare_servers, and pm.max_spare_servers settings, as well as a smaller memory_limit compared to larger sites. We cannot compare a simple, static corporate website to the resource demands of a real estate platform or a massive WooCommerce store. They all require their own specific resource allocations.

Adam As above, you can get close to what you want under a single cluster with some workarounds. The other option is to do what you're doing with Plesk and run one control panel installation per reseller. Give them the master organisation login and let them create their own packages with custom resource limits.

That is an option, but that is exactly what I want to avoid. I am looking for a single, centralized platform where all my agencies can log in to manage their own clients. Furthermore, if I understand correctly, the problem remains that PHP-FPM settings would still be global, rather than manageable on a per-website basis.

How do other Enhance clients handle this?

Adam

klowet How do other Enhance clients handle this?

Generally I think customers configure reseller packages with sensible defaults for memory, nproc and CPU and this is sufficient for 99% of websites on shared hosting. Combined with full page caching (generally Litespeed/Openlitespeed) very few requests should actually hit PHP.

I understand the use case for letting resellers have a "pool" of resources from which to allocate packages with custom resources (memory, nproc, etc) and this is likely to be possible in the future.

The only other workaround I can think of is to provide an interface in your billing system (maybe by extending the WHMCS module) which let the reseller set website level overrides based on your allowed thresholds. This would obviously require some custom work.

klowet

Adam Generally I think customers configure reseller packages with sensible defaults for memory, nproc and CPU and this is sufficient for 99% of websites on shared hosting. Combined with full page caching (generally Litespeed/Openlitespeed) very few requests should actually hit PHP.

I understand. What are the most commonly used global PHP-FPM configurations for shared hosting that providers typically fall back on? Having spent years working with per-package and even site-level custom configurations, I’m curious to learn how others balance this.

How do other hosts handle larger, resource-heavy websites (like WooCommerce stores) that naturally require more than what the global configuration allows?

As a side question: Are the PHP-FPM settings applied globally across the entire cluster of web servers, or can they be configured on a per-webserver basis?

prasad0889

Adam Like the idea of a pooled quota, and the reseller is free to decide how they want to dedicate those resources to their customers.
+1 from me.

Adam

I'd say most larger reseller providers are running Litespeed web server which deploys LSPHP rather than PHP-FPM.

With PHP-FPM, ondemand mode (the default in Enhance) is typically used because most websites on shared hosting are generally idle and it saves a lot of memory. Enhance goes further than this and doesn't even start the PHP SAPI until the first request comes in. This adds around 200ms to the very first PHP request a website receives after reboot or container restart which is barely perceptible to the end user but can save you many gigabytes of RAM on a busy shared server.

pm.max_children by default is set to 25 which is enough for a very busy website unless PHP execution is particularly slow.

You can change php-fpm settings globally, per-server or per-website but only as the master organisation. The reseller has no access to these settings.

webdig

mendozal

A few years back I added this list of suggestions for resellers:
https://community.enhance.com/d/611-improvements-in-reseller-accounts

I think it includes many of these points.

So +1