How to install WHMCS

WHMCompleteSolution is a complete client management, billing and support system for web hosts. You can give WHMCS a try for 15 days free of charge, without any restrictions or obligations to lease or purchase it at the end of your trial period. The official WHMCS website is:

You can order and receive your free 15-day license for using WHMCS from the following link:

During the order process, you will need to sign up for an account by filling a simple registration form:

Once you complete your registration, you will receive your account's login details at the e-mail address that you have provided in the registration form and you will be able to log in to your account from the following link:
https://www.whmcs.com/members. Via the My Products/Services >> Product Details menu you will be able to download the Free Version of WHMCS. In the License Details field in the Product Details menu you will find the License key for your installation.
Once you have downloaded all the necessary files from the WHMCS website, you will need to begin the installation process. WHMCS requires the following in order to run:

• PHP Version 4.2.x or later
• MySQL Version 4.1.x or later
• Curl Support (with SSL support)
• GD Image Library
• Ioncube Loaders Support

WHMCS does not need to be tied to a server for automatic account provisioning in order to function. You can use the system as a standalone billing & support center without any issues. WHMCS is encrypted using the Ioncube system. There are, therefore, two ways in which you can use WHMCS. You can use the runtime decoders or you can install the Ioncube decoders into PHP directly. The first way is the simplest as all you have to do is upload the Ioncube folder from the Ioncube download in our client area to your WHMCS directory, but it doesn't always work. So, the second is slightly more difficult, but more commonly successful. As all our servers have Ioncube installed on them, you should not have any problems with this requirement.

Installing WHMCS is very simple. The following steps will guide you through the process:

1. Unzip the contents of the zip file to a folder on your computer
2. Rename the file configuration.php.new to configuration.php
3. Upload the entire WHMCS folder to your website - if you experience problems, try uploading in binary mode
4. Next, you can rename the folder to whatever you like (billing, clients, etc.)
5. Now visit the installation script at https://www.yourdomain.com/whmcs/install/install.php to run the installation process - if you get an Ioncube related error message, see the Ioncube installation steps above
6. Follow the instructions on the screen, which will involve setting file permissions as listed below, entering your license key and setting up your primary admin account
7. When done, delete the install folder from your web server and CHMOD the configuration.php file back to 644.

Installation Process

You can upload the files to the server in two ways. You can do this either by using an FTP client like FileZilla or by using the Control Panel-integrated File Manager. Upload the files in binary mode. Note: Many FTP clients have problems with corrupted encoded files, thus you should make sure that your FTP client can upload in binary mode. The files can be uploaded in the pubic_html folder or any folder under it. Once the WHMCS install zip file is uploaded in the desired directory, you can extract the archive using the integrated option in the File Manager. Once you have extracted the files, please do rename the file configuration.php.new to configuration.php. It is located in the whmcs folder that the extraction of the archive will create in your public_html folder. Once this is done, you can rename the whmcs folder to whatever you like (billing, clients, etc.). Now visit the installation script at https://www.yourdomain.com/whmcs/install/install.php to run the installation process. Please note that if you have renamed the whmcs folder, you will have to change its name in the link to the installation file as well. Now proceed with the script installation steps.

Step 1: The first one will be to read and agree to the End User License Agreement.

Step 2: The second step is called System Requirements Checks and it shows if your account is suitable for a WHMCS installation. Everything should be in green and have a Passed status.

Step 3: The third step is dedicated to your License Key and Database Connection Details. In the License Key field enter the license that you have received from the My Products/Services >> Product Details menu in your WHMCS account. In the Database Connection Details fields you will have to enter the details for the database that will be used by the script. You can create a database through the MySQL databases menu of your cPanel Control Panel.
Once that database is created, you must create a user for it through the same menu and assign the user to the database. The user should have full privileges assigned over the database. This can be done using the Add User To Database option in the MySQL databases menu in your cPanel Control Panel.

Step 4: Set up an Administrator Account - Here you must enter your personal details for your administrative account such as First Name, Last Name, Email, Username and Password.

Step 5: This will conclude the WHMCS installation and you will reach the final Step 5. Installation Complete

Here's what you should do next:
1. Delete the Install Folder You should delete or rename the install directory.
2. Secure the Writable Directories
It is advisable to move the attachments, downloads & templates_c directories (which need to be writable for WHMCS to function) outside of the publicly accessible folder tree on your website.

NB! It is important to know that after you complete the installation, it will take some time for the license to activate. This is due to the fact that WHMCS records the domain name, the directory and the IP to which the billing software is installed.

Move the attachments, downloads & templates_c folders:
The three folders "attachments", "downloads" and "templates_c" need to be writeable by WHMCS and therefore require the permissions 777 (writeable by all). When folders have this permission level, it is safer to place the folders outside the publicly accessible folder tree on your website. WHMCS allows you to do this. If you do move the folders, then you must tell WHMCS where they have been moved to by adding the following lines to your configuration.php file:

Note that if you are running suphp or phpsuexec, you should not make the mode changes as the folders will already be writeable. In fact, you cannot set folder or file permissions to be 777 when running suphp or phpsuexec - the highest permissions are 755 for both folders and files.

Change your WHMCS Admin Folder name

Malicious users who visit your site and recognize a WHMCS installation will know that they can try logging into your admin area via the admin folder. To protect yourself, you can rename the admin folder to any name you like. You cannot move the folder - only rename it. You can then tell WHMCS what the name of that folder is for the links in admin notification emails by adding the following line to your configuration.php file:

Replace "myadminname" above with the new name you just gave to your admin folder.
Please note that if you have already created a cron job, or one has been created for you, you will need to update the path on the cron as well.

3. Set up a Daily Cron Job
You should set up a cron job from your Control Panel to run once per day.