Can one machine really carry all your sites?
It can, and it is how most web hosting has always worked. Every browser request carries the name of the site it wants, and over HTTPS the browser also names the site at the very start of the encrypted connection (an extension called Server Name Indication). So a single address can serve a shop, a blog and ten client sites, each with its own certificate.
Moving everything onto one box pays off when you are already juggling separate hosting accounts: a designer renewing a plan per client, or a company with a website, an online shop and staff mailboxes spread over three providers. The catch is that you now run what the hosting company used to run for you, so the rest of this page is about doing that without surprises.
What has to run on the box
Several sites need more than a web server. These are the parts, and what bites people when one is missing.
| Part | Its job | What goes wrong without care |
|---|---|---|
| Web server and PHP | Answers each domain from its own folder | One old site forces the PHP version for all the others |
| Databases | Store each site's content | A shared database login lets one site read another's data |
| Mail (SMTP, IMAP, spam checks) | Mailboxes on each client's domain | Messages land in spam or bounce |
| DNS | Points names at the server, publishes mail records | Sites vanish when a record is wrong or missing |
| Certificates | HTTPS for every name | A certificate quietly expires and browsers warn visitors |
| Backups | Bring back a file, a database or a mailbox | Copies kept only on the same disks they protect |
| A control panel | Ties it together, with a login per client | Every small change becomes your job |
The Nexo hosting panel installs all of these in one go (web, email, databases, DNS, FTP and backups) and gives you and each of your clients a panel on top. You can also put Nexo Turbo, our own front server, in front of every site from one switch on your overview: it keeps busy pages ready in a cache and serves them over HTTP/3, compressed.
Keeping every client in a space of their own
Separation is what stops one client's runaway plugin from slowing everybody down. In Nexo each customer is an account on a plan you design.
- Limits per plan. Disk space, number of sites, databases and mailboxes, plus a share of processor, memory and processes, so a busy site slows only itself.
- A cap on outgoing mail. A plan sets how many messages an account may send each hour, which keeps a hacked contact form from burning your server's reputation.
- Its own PHP version, per site. PHP 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 or 8.4, chosen website by website, so the legacy site and the new one live side by side.
- Logins that stay in their lane. Clients sign in to their own panel and see nothing of anyone else's. An FTP login for a freelance designer can be limited to a single folder.
- Help without passwords. You can open a client's panel as them to see what they see; the guide notes it is logged under your name, lasts up to two hours and cannot change passwords or restore backups.
If a partner agency wants to sell under its own name on your machine, make it a reseller: you decide how many accounts, how much storage and which plans it may use, and its customers see only its brand.
Picking the server
How big a machine you need depends on what the sites do, not on how many there are. Ten brochure sites that are mostly cached ask for very little; one shop with a busy search page can ask for more than all of them together. Start from your busiest site and how much mail your clients keep.
- Two drives, mirrored. For client work, a build with a RAID 1 pair means one failed disk does not take every site down at once. Several of the machines offered with Nexo come that way.
- NVMe for database-heavy sites. Shops and membership sites spend their time in the database, so faster storage helps them first.
- Room to grow. Memory, disks and port speed can be added to the machine you already have later, with no move and no new IP address.
- Windows if your clients expect IIS. Nexo also runs on Windows Server 2022 and 2025, where sites run on IIS; Turbo, one-click apps, Node.js and Python apps, Git deploys and the SSH command line stay on Linux servers for now. On Windows you run the manual's PowerShell installer yourself.
Browse the dedicated servers for the full range, or pick one from the Nexo page, where the order form opens with Nexo already chosen on a system it runs on. Only a few sites to host? The smaller Nexo 30 Domains licence covers up to 30 website addresses (subdomains do not count) and comes with our servers only.
From the order to the first client site
- Order a server with Nexo. We install the panel once the operating system is on the machine and switch its licence on; your server's page in the dashboard then shows the panel's address and its first password.
- Sign in at port 2083 of your server as
admin, change that password, and open Settings to add your name, logo, colour and support address. - Set your two nameservers, for example ns1 and ns2 on your own domain. Create those names at the registrar first, pointing to the server's IP. Names registered through our domains page (outside .ro) get glue records in the same dashboard.
- Create a plan, then a new account with the client's domain. Leave the password empty: the client gets a welcome email in your name with a link to choose their own.
- Point each domain at the server. Either it moves to your nameservers, or, when its DNS has to stay elsewhere, the client adds it under Sites with Keep DNS where it is, and the panel shows exactly which records to create at that provider. Once the name points to the server, a certificate is issued and renews by itself.
- Add mailboxes, one at a time or up to 1,000 from a CSV file when a whole office moves at once.
Already have a Linux server somewhere else? You can buy the licence on its own and, logged in as root, run the installer on a fresh machine with no other panel and no live websites. These are the two commands from the Nexo manual, which has a separate PowerShell installer for Windows Server, with the key from your dashboard in place of the X's:
curl -fsSL -o install.sh https://licenses.servcast.net/panel/v1/install.sh
HOSTPANEL_LICENSE=HP-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX bash install.sh --hostname your-serverThe installer prints the panel's address and the first administrator password once, at the end. Save them before you close the terminal.
Will your clients' email reach the inbox?
Mail is where a do-it-yourself server most often lets people down. Gmail asks every sender for SPF or DKIM, asks anyone sending more than 5,000 messages a day to Gmail accounts for both of them plus DMARC, and wants the sending IP to have reverse DNS (a PTR record) that matches a hostname pointing back to the same address. Mail that fails these checks may be marked as spam or refused.
Nexo fills in the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records on each client's DNS tab for you. Two things stay with you: set the server's reverse DNS to its hostname (it is editable on our servers), and if a domain's DNS lives elsewhere, copy the mail records there too. To check from your own computer:
dig +short A mail.example.com # the server's address
dig +short -x 203.0.113.10 # reverse DNS: should print that hostname
dig +short TXT example.com # look for the line starting v=spf1
dig +short TXT _dmarc.example.com # the DMARC policyFor your own welcome emails, the Emails page in Nexo shows a DKIM key named nexo._domainkey and an SPF entry to add for your sending domain, and checks them until both read Published.
Backups, updates and the bad day
Every account is backed up each night, encrypted, and the plan decides how many daily and weekly copies stay. Clients bring back a file, one database or one mailbox themselves, or download the whole account as a .tar.gz file. Those copies sit on the same server, which covers a deleted page or a broken update but not the loss of the machine. Keep another copy elsewhere: download the account backups to storage you control on a schedule you keep. On a licence-only install, the manual's --backup-device option can also put backups on a second disk, which helps if the main disk fails but is still inside the same machine.
Updates are signed and checked before they install, in the early hours New York time or when you click, and the last few versions are kept to step back to. If the licence ever lapses, websites and email keep running; only changes wait until it is renewed.
When one server is the wrong answer
- One website and no wish to run a server. Our web hosting plans give you the same kind of tools from your dashboard, with no server to look after.
- A client who must be kept fully apart, by contract or by rule, belongs on a machine of their own.
- No second copy anywhere. Everything on one machine means one point of failure. If you will not keep backups off it, do not consolidate yet.
Questions people ask
- Does every website on the server need its own IP address?
- No. Browsers send the site's name with each request and at the start of each HTTPS connection, so one IPv4 address can serve every domain with its own certificate. Nexo needs one public IPv4 address on the machine.
- Can I do this on a virtual machine instead of a whole server?
- Yes, Nexo installs on a virtual machine just as on a physical one. It will not install inside a container such as LXC or Docker. Whatever you choose, it needs a fresh system with no other control panel and no websites on it yet.
- How many sites can one server take?
- As many as the hardware can carry. The full Nexo licence does not count accounts or domains; the plans you create decide how much disk, memory and processor each account may use. Nexo 30 Domains stops at 30 website addresses, and when it is reached the panel simply refuses the next new domain.
- Will my clients see your name in their panel?
- Only one small Powered by Nexo line at the foot of the page. The panel's name, logo, colour and help link are yours, and resellers can show their own instead.
- Can a client keep their domain's DNS where it is?
- Yes. When the domain is added, choose Keep DNS where it is and the panel lists the exact records to create at their DNS provider. The certificate follows once those records are live.
- Does Nexo send invoices to my clients?
- No. Billing stays in the tool you already use. Connect it with an API key (for WHMCS there is a ready module), and accounts are opened, put on hold and closed as invoices change.