Cannot Move Siteworx Accounts with Dedicated IPs to new Reseller Accounts

SiteWorx Bugs
1

I use the Resellers feature of Interworx solely for organizational purposes, as I’m the only one using this server. So I use the main reseller account (the default) as a container for my clients’ sites (i.e. siteworx accounts) and I have another reseller account that I use as a container for my own sites.

I created several Siteworx accounts under the default reseller account, and now I want to move them to another reseller account. However, no matter what I do, I cannot move any Siteworx accounts that have dedicated IPs to a different reseller.

When editing the Siteworx account, I initially just tried to change the “Reseller” value to the desired alternate reseller account. Upon submitting the changes, I’ll get an error message as follows:

? There was a problem validating the form. Please see details below.
? The selected IP address is not available to the selected reseller

I proceeded to the Reseller Account Management page for the alternate reseller account (via the Edit link for said account, under Reseller Management). There, I noticed that the IP address that was assigned to the Siteworx account which I wanted to move was not available to be checked off under the Reseller IP Addresses section.

Under IP management, I checked to see if “Available to Resellers” was set to YES for the site’s dedicated IP address, but it was set to NO. However, since the dedicated IP had already been assigned to an account/domain, I was unable to change the value to YES.

Next, I decided to create a new dedicated IP address with reseller availability, then simply change the IP address of the moving Siteworx account to that new IP. Now, I assume that such a change would not work with accounts that have any SSL certificate(s) assigned to them, which is not entirely ideal, but I haven’t actually tried. In any case, I proceeded to setup an IP address with reseller availability, then went back to edit the Siteworx account, changing the IP address to the new dedicated IP that I had just setup with reseller availability. That submission also failed with the same error as before:

? There was a problem validating the form. Please see details below.
? The selected IP address is not available to the selected reseller

Then I realized I probably needed to provide the alternate reseller account with specific access to that IP address, so I went back and edited the alternate reseller account and checked off the new IP address under Reseller IP Addresses. However, this time, when I went back to edit the Siteworx account, the newly created IP address.

This seemingly creates an impossibility when it comes to moving a Siteworx account to a new reseller account within Interworx. I can’t imagine that I’m the only one using reseller accounts for purely organizational reasons, so I doubt that I’m the only one who has ever tried moving Siteworx accounts between various reseller accounts.

So, I want to recommend that Interworx at least list every single IP address that is available to resellers within the Reseller Account Management panel, especially dedicated IPs (since shared IPs with reseller availability are already listed), regardless of wether they’ve been assigned to domains or not, even if they have been assigned SSL certificates and the like. Alternately, Interworx could list an option for resellers to have access to all IPs available to resellers. That way, with either of these recommended improvements, Siteworx accounts can be moved seamlessly between reseller accounts, regardless of whether they use shared or dedicated IPs (after all, shared IPs can even be shared among multiple resellers).

That also means that users should be able to change the “Available to Resellers” value from NO to YES for dedicated IP addresses that are already assigned to domains/accounts, just as you currently can with shared IPs.

For absolutely 100% seamless transfers however, Interworx should also offer to port the dedicated IP address alongside the Siteworx account, automatically enabling the IP for resellers as well as assigning to that IP to the designated reseller that the Siteworx account is being moved to.

I’m filing this as a bug because I think this area of usage is indeed buggy.

So to summarize my specific issues/requests:

  • Siteworx accounts should be able to be moved between reseller accounts as seamlessly as possible. The following recommendations would likely help make this possible:

[LIST=1]

  • In the IP Management panel, the "Available to Resellers" setting for dedicated IP addresses that have already been assigned to domains/accounts should be able tobe modified from NO to YES.
  • In the Reseller Account Management panel, under the "Reseller IP Addresses" section, Interworx should either list all IPs available to resellers, regardless of whether they've been assigned to domains or have been assigned SSL certificates and the like.
  • Alternately, there should be an option such as "All IP Addresses Available to Resellers" at the top of the "Reseller IP Addresses" section.
  • Along the same lines, IP addresses assigned to any reseller accounts should also be available to the "Master User" reseller account.
  • Of course, dedicated IP addresses already assigned to a Siteworx account would not be available for assignment to any new Siteworx accounts by any reseller, regardless of whether that IP address is marked as available for use by that reseller. The availability of IPs already assigned to a Siteworx account would be solely for use in moving Siteworx accounts between reseller accounts (even if only by the Master User).
  • Perhaps to make movement of Siteworx accounts with dedicated IP addresses between resellers completely and utterly seamless, Interworx really aught to prompt the user for permission (assuming said user normally has such permissions within Interworx) to move the dedicated IP address assigned to that Siteworx account to the designated reseller account simultaneously, thereby automatically setting the dedicated IP address as "Available to Resellers" (if necessary) within the IP Management panel, as well as assigning availability of that dedicated IP address to the designated reseller account that the Siteworx account is getting moved to. [/LIST] For added info, I'm running Interworx version 4.2.0 on my server. Maybe these bugs have been resolved since then, but I doubt it. I'll probably update soon, but I didn't notice any mention of such fixes in the Interworx change log. So I imagine these issues still exist in the latest release.

    Let me know what you think of my suggestions and how you think we can remedy the issues I’ve detailed here.

    • 2

    I commend your attention to detail :slight_smile:

    Nope, they haven’t been resolved…it’s not a “bug” per se, but more of an oversight that someone would use it this way.

    The issue is that dedicated IPs are only available to one reseller at a time, so when it’s checking the availability of the IP for the new reseller, the old one still has it, and therefore it fails. This is absolutely an oversight, and I’ll log this in the roadmap to make a better user experience for moving things around.

    There are a lot of things that can go wrong with sharing dedicated IPs, which is why we make it so hard to do. SSL, for example, will be invalid if there are multiple accounts trying to use the same IP with certs. It’s a “one cert per IP” thing. If we allow a “dedicated” IP to be potentially used by multiple accounts, it turns into a race - whoever installs the cert first wins :slight_smile:

    But, you’re right, it needs to be easier, and we’ll get on that.

    Tim

    3

    Thanks for the followup Tim. I can see what you mean regarding the race to scoop up an IP, so yeah… the ability to just port the IP to the new reseller (and set the IP as “Available to Resellers” in the IP management panel automatically) would be the ideal route to go then. Any idea how long it might be before we see support for this to become implemented?