How to install WPMaven from your hosting panel

For hosting companies in the WPMaven partner program. Your customers install WordPress from the panel they already use, and WPMaven comes with it, ready to connect. Your partner code is built into the plugin, so every customer who creates their WPMaven account from that site counts for you.

It installs with WordPress from cPanel and Plesk (WP Toolkit), Softaculous and Installatron, with your partner code built in, and with WHMCS when it creates the hosting accounts.

Try it on a test account first

The steps for each panel below follow that panel’s own documentation, and panels move their menus between versions. Set it up on a test account and run Check that it works before you offer it to customers. Your partner contact can walk your team through it.

What you need

• Your partner code. It is on your Partner program page in the WPMaven dashboard: WPM-P- and six letters and digits, for example WPM-P-K7Q2MX.
• Your plugin package. A zip named wpmaven-wordpress-<your code>.zip: the WPMaven plugin with your code built in. Your partner contact sends it to you. Every panel below installs this one file.

Nothing else changes on your servers. The plugin is standard WordPress: your backup, migration and monitoring tools keep working on these sites.

How your code counts

• The plugin keeps your code in the site’s database the first time it runs, so the code stays when the plugin updates itself.
• When the customer opens WPMaven in their WordPress admin and chooses Create Account or Sign In, the link to the WPMaven dashboard carries your code. A new account created from it is yours.
• The first partner link a browser opens counts for 90 days, and an account is never moved from one partner to another. An account that existed before the customer used your link stays where it is.
• You can add your own reference for each customer, your account number for example. It shows next to that customer on your Partner program page. See Add your own customer reference.

cPanel (WP Toolkit)

In WHM:

1. Open WP Toolkit, then Sets, and choose Create Set. Name it, for example “WPMaven”.
2. In the set, choose Add plugins and upload your plugin package. Turn its state on, so the plugin is active as soon as WordPress is installed.
3. Open Edit Packages and select a hosting package. Check the WP Toolkit option, select your set as the Autoinstall Set, then Save Changes. Repeat for every package that should include WPMaven.

Every WordPress that WP Toolkit installs for an account on those packages then includes the plugin, active, with your code built in.

Plesk (WP Toolkit)

1. Go to WordPress, open the Plugins tab and choose Upload plugin. Select your plugin package. In the same window you can add it to a set, or keep None and add it in the next step.
2. Open the Sets tab. To start a new set, choose Create Set, name it, then Add Plugins and select the WPMaven plugin. Choose to activate it.
3. Go to Service Plans, open a hosting plan, then the Additional Services tab. In the WP Toolkit section, choose to install WordPress with a set, select your set, and save the plan.

Subscriptions created on that plan then get WordPress with the plugin installed and active on their main domain, and customers can pick the same set whenever they install WordPress from WP Toolkit.

Softaculous

1. In the Softaculous Admin Panel, go to Software, then Manage WordPress Sets.
2. Choose Create Sets, enter a name, for example “wpmaven”, and choose Create.
3. Choose Add custom plugin/theme: name “WPMaven”, slug wpmaven-wordpress, and upload your plugin package. Add it to the set.

Your customers then see the set when they install WordPress from Softaculous, and can select it.

To install the set with every WordPress that Softaculous installs through WHMCS (the Softaculous WHMCS Auto Install module), add the set to the module’s softaculous_extra.php, with _admin after its name (it marks a set made in the admin panel), and upload that file next to softaculous.php in WHMCS’s includes/hooks folder:

<?php
$GLOBALS['softaculous_conf']['defaults']['sets_name'][] = 'wpmaven_admin';

Installatron

Installatron can run your own code after it installs an application. Put the plugin package at a web address your server can download, then, as root, add the code below to /usr/local/installatron/etc/installercustomcode.php, or paste it under Administration, Applications, Customization. If the file already has an i_installer_customcode class, add the two lines of init and the wpmaven_install function to it instead.

<?php
class i_installer_customcode
{
    public static function init($o)
    {
        // Your plugin package, at an address your server can download.
        $o->registerArchive("wpmaven", "https://downloads.example-host.com/wpmaven-wordpress-WPM-P-XXXXXX.zip", "zip");
        $o->registerCustomCode("wordpress", "all", "install", "last", "wpmaven_install");
    }

    public static function wpmaven_install($o)
    {
        $o->extract("wpmaven", "wp-content/plugins");
        // Turn it on, on a new site where nothing else is on yet.
        $o->db_query(
            "UPDATE `{$o->db_prefix}options` SET `option_value`=? WHERE `option_name`='active_plugins' AND `option_value` IN ('a:0:{}', '') LIMIT 1",
            array(serialize(array("wpmaven-wordpress/webmaven-wordpress.php")))
        );
    }
}

Every WordPress that Installatron installs then includes the plugin. If your Installatron setup turns on other plugins during the install, WPMaven stays installed but off, and your customers turn it on under Plugins.

WHMCS

• WP Toolkit (cPanel and Plesk): nothing more to do. WHMCS creates the account on the package or plan, and WP Toolkit installs WordPress with your set, as described above.
• Softaculous: use the Softaculous WHMCS Auto Install module, with the softaculous_extra.php line above.

WP-CLI, or any other installer

Install your plugin package and turn it on:

wp plugin install /path/to/wpmaven-wordpress-WPM-P-XXXXXX.zip --activate

Or install the plugin and give the site your code yourself, with either of:

wp option update webmaven_partner_code WPM-P-XXXXXX

// In wp-config.php, above "That's all, stop editing!"
define('WPMAVEN_PARTNER_CODE', 'WPM-P-XXXXXX');

The wp-config.php line wins over the option, and the option wins over the code built into the package.

Add your own customer reference

Optional. Give each site your own reference for that customer, in letters, digits and _ . : -, up to 64 characters, after WordPress is installed:

wp option update webmaven_partner_ref acct-12345

or in wp-config.php:

define('WPMAVEN_PARTNER_REF', 'acct-12345');

It is sent only together with your partner code.

Check that it works

On a test account:

1. Install WordPress from your panel, as a customer would.
2. In WordPress, go to Plugins: WPMaven WordPress is there and active.
3. With WP-CLI on that site, wp option get webmaven_partner_code shows your code, after the first page load of the new site.
4. Open WPMaven in the WordPress admin menu and choose Create Account: the address of the page that opens contains partner= and your code.
5. Create the account. It shows on your Partner program page.

Updates

The plugin updates itself, like any WordPress plugin with an update available, and keeps your code. When your partner contact sends you a newer package, replace the one in your set or your installer, so new sites start on the newest version.

Questions

Write to your named contact. The rest of the partner program, your links, statements and payouts, is in How to use the partner program.