Virtualmin uses different terms which you may find confusing – especially if you’re coming from the Cpanel/WHM background. For example, a “hosting account” in Cpanel is known as a “Virtual Server” in Virtualmin.

Virtual Servers vs Hosting Accounts

In the Cpanel/WHM, one would click on the “Create Account” link to create a new hosting account, and select the appropriate hosting packages.

In Virtualmin, one would click on the “Create Virtual Server” link and select the appropriate

• Server Template  (there is no Cpanel equivalent for “Server Templates”)
• Account Plan  (equivalent to CPanel “Packages”)

Take note of the “New virtual server type“:

The default is “Top level server” – which means, you’ll be creating another separate hosting account (i.e. different user/login ID).

If you click on the “Sub-server” link – you can either create an “addon” domain (in Cpanel lingo) or a subdomain of the parent domain in this Virtual server.  (Refer to the “Sub-servers Vs Addon Domains” section in this article).

I want to highlight the “Server Configuration Template” – from the screenshot above, you can see that it is showing “Server-X1” as the template to create this new virtual server.

A Virtualmin’s “Server Template” is a powerful feature that enables the system administrator to custom-tailor what features to enable or disable for the virtual servers.

For example, you can create a Server Template #1 that enables the “Mailman” mailing service and the MySQL database, and create another Server Template #2 that does NOT have “Mailman” and runs the PostgresSQL database instead of MySQL. This allows you to create 2 different type of Virtual Servers  (hosting accounts) – one that uses the MySQL database and has the Mailman mailing service enabled, and another type that uses the PostgresSQL database and does not have access to Mailman service.

You can  create as many Server Templates as you want, each with different settings and functionalities.

There is no “Server Template” equivalent in Cpanel/WHM – each hosting account has the same features and functions enabled. You can only specify the limits to the resources allocated, e.g. how many mailboxes, how many databases, the monthly bandwidth quota, etc.  in the “Package type”

Sub Servers vs Addon Domains

This is another source of great confusion – especially if you are familiar with Cpanel.

In Cpanel, your main hosting account is associated with the primary (main) domain, let’s say “Foo.com”.  You can also create additional domains such as “Bar.com”  or “MyFoo.com” under your main hosting account – these domains are known as “Addon” domains in Cpanel.

If you create “recipes.foo.com” in Cpanel, it is known as a “subdomain”.

But in Virtualmin, the main/parent domain “Foo.com” is known as the parent “Virtual Server”, and if you want to create additional domains such as “Bar.com” or “MyFoo.com” – these are known as “Sub-server” in Virtualmin (not “addon” domains).

What about “recipes.foo.com”?  In Virtualmin, it is also known as a “Sub-Server” – yes, I know, it’s confusing. But this is the naming convention chosen by the developers of Virtualmin. After a while, you’ll get used to it and it won’t be as confusing as before.

Summary of Terminologies used in Virtualmin

A “Virtual Server” (in Virtualmin) is known as a “Hosting Account” (In Cpanel)
A “Sub-Server” (in Virtualmin) is known as “Addon Domain” (in Cpanel)
A “Self/Own Sub-Server” (in Virtualmin) is known as “Subdomain” (in Cpanel)