First steps

You have a running installation and an administrator account. Here is the order that gets you to a sellable, working platform fastest.

1. Configure outgoing email

Sign in to the operator console and open Admin → Settings → Email (or PATCH /api/v1/mail/settings). Enter your SMTP relay’s host, port, credentials and sender address, then send a test message. OPanel uses email for invitations, password resets, email verification, billing notices and, later, alerts about updates and malware findings.

Tip

Until email is configured, invitations and password resets still work — the console shows a one-time link you can hand to the person directly, and opanel admin reset-password prints one from the command line.

2. Set up branding

Under Admin → Branding, set your company name, support address, colors, logo and favicon. This is what customers see in the console and in every email they receive, and, for a reseller, exactly what their own brand can customize — see Brands. Send yourself a test email to check how it looks.

3. Connect Stripe (or skip to external billing)

If you’re using OPanel’s built-in billing, connect Stripe under Admin → Billing: paste a restricted or secret API key (use a sk_test_... key while you verify the flow), set your public URL and grace period, and add the webhook endpoint the page shows you in your Stripe dashboard. Full walkthrough in Billing.

If you already bill through WHMCS, Blesta or HostBill, skip Stripe and drive subscriptions through the API instead — see Billing.

4. Create your first plan

Under Admin → Plans, create a plan: give it a name, a node pool, resource limits (disk, databases, sites, CPU, memory, PHP workers) and features (SSH shell, WordPress tools, backups, WAF control). If you’re selling online, add a monthly or yearly price linked to a Stripe price ID. See Plans for what every limit and feature controls.

5. Create your first customer and site

Two ways to do this:

• As a real signup, if Stripe Checkout is configured: open your panel hostname in a private window, pick the plan and go through checkout as a customer would.
• As staff, from Admin → Customers → New customer, which lets you create the customer, subscribe them to a plan and create their first site without any payment.

Creating a site provisions its Unix user, sandbox, PHP-FPM master and nginx vhost within seconds. Add a domain, point its DNS at your edge server’s address (the domain page shows the exact records to create), and OPanel issues its HTTPS certificate automatically once DNS resolves.

6. Run the doctor one more time

opanel doctor

Confirm there are no outstanding problems before you point real traffic at the server.

What’s next

• Add more servers as you grow: Cluster.
• Turn on the security features you want (WAF mode, malware scan settings, cluster-wide IP blocking): Security.
• Set backup destinations and plan policies: Backups.
• If you’re reselling, create your first brand: Brands.