Domains, creation dates and reminders

I was wondering if there is an easy way to see when a hosting space was created? There doesn't appear to be a creation date in admin. I'm getting to the end of my first year and it's time to start billing some folks. It would be nice to know exactly when a domain was first hosted. What would be even nicer would be an admin feature that mailed a reminder to both me and the client a month before expiry. Or am I talking b*ll*x? Cheers All.

With registrations, it is easy as you *do* get reminders about renewals (even if set to auto-renews). It's not so easy with "hosting" for a given domain when many domains are hosted on the same account; the "anniversary" that drives billing is the one for the "master" account - and with unlimited extra domains, it *is* easy to get confused.

With a little planning for the future, you could make yourself an easy to track system by just adding a text file to the user space with the creation date of each domain, and update it when you add a domain.

Or just "touch" a "created_on_date" file when you create the domain, and leave it alone - it's file date from ls will reveal when it was created.

I know, those are "after the fact" suggestions - I don't really know offhand of a way to check from the panel or the shell.

Have though of going through your email (or your "Support History" in the panel) to find the "Domain whatever.tld has been successfully created" message that is sent upon domain creation? That ought to work, in a pinch.

--rlparker

if you look at the whois it gives you the information.

From shell just do whois domain.com and the information includes something like:

Record created on 2007-03-11 06:54:08.
Record expires on 2008-03-11 06:54:08.

True, but that won't help the OP determine when he began *hosting* that domain on his DH account for his clients - it only shows when the domain was registered.

In the case of some (many) of my clients, their domains registrations were already in place before I began to host them, or were in place but not hosted at all for a period of time.

--rlparker

you could go to statistics under the status panel, click on the site, and view long term report. see when it started.

That's a really good idea, and I though of that, but I'm sad report that sometimes that method won't work either.

If they have ever moved you from one server to another, it "starts over". There are also certain other "events" that can cause your original "long term" stats to be "irretrievable".

I was really sad when I learned that the "long term" reports for a domain I put online at DH in 1998 were suddenly "reset' to a little over a year ago. Waaaaah!

That said, in the OP's case it couldn't hurt to check, as they might be usable for this purpose in his case. I'd just suggest that he try to verify it with some other method, or hope he can remember that it is "just about right", because it might not be accurate.

--rlparker

you would think there would at least be an email in your support messages as to when you added the domain???

Very true! (that's what I suggested in my first response to the OP). Even if it was registered somewhere else, support sends that "you have successfully added" message when you add a domain. That is probably his best bet.

--rlparker

Easy clarification. DH keeps track of two things (one if you haven't transferred the domains to DH's registrar). The account billing dates, and domain creation dates (again, only if DH is the domain's registrar). If you're paying by the year, DH should send you an email when your bill's due for the individual account(s). If you're paying DH also for the domain name, I think about a month or so before the domain expires they'll fire you an email letting you know it's about to expire. Of course if you have it set to autorenew there's nothing you have to do about that, but you'll still get the email. As for determining when, exactly, an account is created? Look back at the individual account's invoices. The first invoice listed will give you a rough idea of when it was created. That's the easiest way to do what you're asking.

Yes, I have an opinion.

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Hmm, thanks for your replies. I'll have a dig through my post and see what I can find. The dated file idea is good too. Come to think of it, I seem to remember there's a component for Joomla! that manages hosting...

Mebbe a reminder system would be a good suggestion for the CP, or perhaps there's a CRON way to do it.

All the best.