How to setup WHMCS support Email Piping between 2 different domains

[Louisvdw]

My support email is under my main domain as [email protected], but WHMCS is installed under a seperate account secure.mydomain.co.za (with it's own IP), so piping "| php -q /home/username/public_html/whmcs/pipe/pipe.php" from [email protected] won't work. According to http://wiki.whmcs.com/Email_Piping) I'll have to use the CRON Piping method

There is another (better) way

Here is what to do to setup this scenario to work with Email Piping directly into WHMCS:
We're going to use a normal forward from mydomain.co.za to get to secure.mydomain.co.za and then piping from secure.mydomain.co.za into WHMCS using to normal method of "| php -q /home/username/public_html/whmcs/pipe/pipe.php"

1) Login to your WHMCS admin (e.g. at secure.mydomain.co.za/admin) and setup your support department. (Configuration, Support Departments, Add New Dep./Edit existing Dep.)
Make sure that the email address that you specify is the address from your main domain that you want to use, even though it is under a different account/domain. (e.g. [email protected])

2) Then setup a forward for the email address from your main domain that you specified in your Support Department in 1), to an email address on your WHMCS domain. (e.g. Forward [email protected] --> [email protected])

3) Next we will setup the email piping on the mail address on the WHMCS domain using the pipe command supplied by your WHMCS. (e.g. [email protected] --> | php -q /home/secure/public_html/pipe/pipe.php)

All that is left to do is to test your setup. Send a mail to you support department (e.g. [email protected]) from a separate address that is not a admin. When replying as an admin, the response will be sent to the client from the email you specified under you support department.

My example use a sub domain for WHMCS, but you can use a completely separate domain as well, so long as you can send emails as the mail user from your main domain.

[Pima]

My support email is under my main domain as [email protected], but WHMCS is installed under a seperate account secure.mydomain.co.za (with it's own IP), so piping "| php -q /home/username/public_html/whmcs/pipe/pipe.php" from [email protected] won't work. According to http://wiki.whmcs.com/Email_Piping) I'll have to use the CRON Piping method

We were setup similar to the above earlier and also had to use the cron.

What we did was create a single account mydomain.com and then created a subdomain in this account for WHMCS as secure.mydomain.com the only dedicated IP is assigned as normal but onlly used for the subdomain SSL as the main site has no need for SSL.
All mail is at the main domain and is piped as normal. We found this to be cleaner than creating the sub as a separate account.

Just our experience...

[Louisvdw]

Pima, that is a cleaner option, but I wanted the separate IP and still use email piping. With my setup as it is now, I have different IPs & accounts AND using email piping (Not a CRON)

[mycommon]

You might run into a problem with that though if the host you are using has OpenBaseDir enabled.

If your cron/pipe file is at /home/site1/public_html/whmcs/pipe file and you are trying to call it from a different cpanel account or from a different script in another account say

/home/site2/public_html/whmcs/pipe file

then it might fail due to security permissions?

[Pima]

I have different IPs & accounts AND using email piping (Not a CRON)

Don't know your reasoning for needing a Dedi-IP for your other account??
We did not require it and only assigned the SSL Host to the single IP of the base account to the subdomain SSL(Meaning, SSL issued to secure.main_domain.xxx). We also use piping now and not CRON.

[Louisvdw]

@Pima - It's more of a want than a need

@mycommon - By using a normal forward from the one account to the next where you setup your WHMCS, it's the account itself that has the access. The main account does not have access to the second, so you can't call the PIPE directly.

[rhee]

Louisvdw: I tried your method but it doesn't work since it does not recognize the email when importing it.

when using email forwarding the recipient [email protected] will be forwarding it to [email protected].

The problem is your ticket department is setup to be [email protected] so when importing it from [email protected] it will not be assigned to the proper department.

[Louisvdw]

rhee, a forward does not change to TO address when it forwards a mail. Your mail will be received at [email protected] saying that it is addressed to [email protected]

There must be something else wrong. Do you get an error, or is your e-mail just not received by the support department?

[rhee]

its like this:

I setup whmcs at secure.mydomain.com which is another account that mydomain.com

I created a support ticket [email protected] and forwarded it to [email protected]

When I tried sending to [email protected] whmcs says [email protected] department not found

Thanks,
Rhee

[Louisvdw]

Did you go to your secure.mydomain.com account and created the forward for [email protected] --> | php -q /home/secure/public_html/pipe/pipe.php

This is the part that actually pipe the email to WHMCS

[rhee]

Did you go to your secure.mydomain.com account and created the forward for [email protected] --> | php -q /home/secure/public_html/pipe/pipe.php

This is the part that actually pipe the email to WHMCS

Yes. it was set and importing correctly since the error message is within the WHMCS Mail Log under the tools sesction, the problem was assigning the imported mail to the proper department.

When forwarding emails from [email protected] -> [email protected] , whmcs recognizes that mail as being sent to [email protected] and not [email protected].

Have you tried this setup? I mean do you have a working setup like this?

[Louisvdw]

Yes I have tried this. I currently have to departments (Sales & support) setup like this working 100%.

The process described above is exactly what I did to make it work.

[Louisvdw]

Are you perhaps using CPanel with the X3 theme? 'Cause according to the wiki

If using the x3 theme, you only need to enter "public_html/whmcs/pipe/pipe.php" without the quotes.

[babuun]

If you are getting department not found error, you can create new department for the other domain with the same name and description as the current domain you are using but set those newly created department to hidden so your client won't see duplicate department when submitting ticket.

[Louisvdw]

Thanks tkron. It's basically the same as what I have, you just forward mail for the hole domain using MX Records. It should work very nicely.