The Manage Billing Entity dialog shows more details about an individual Billing Entity.  From here you can make any modification or status changes to the Billing Entity required.

From this page the user can edit the following information about a Billing Entity

• Name
• Control panel web site address (this must begin with the text 'https://')
• Admin control panel web site address (this must begin with the text 'https://')
• Address
• VAT/Tax Number

IP, DNS and Port management for Billing Entities

Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator supports three mechanisms for using multiple billing entities:

1. Each Billing Entity has its own fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the control panel and the admin control panel (e.g. cp.example.com and admincp.example.com). These share the same IP address, which is also shared by other Billing Entities on the same platform. The end user or admin user accesses the control panel using a URL like http://cp.example.com/ or http://admincp.example.com/ (over http on port 80), which (by looking at the URL passed) redirects the user to an https URL. Each of the https URLs run on a different port. For instance, the following table might describe the redirections:

   HTTP URL	IP:port	HTTPS URL	IP:port
   http://cp.example.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://cp.example.com	192.200.0.1:443
   http://admincp.example.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://admincp.example.com:1443	192.200.0.1:1443
   http://cp.example2.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://cp.example2.com:444	192.200.0.1:444
   http://admincp.example2.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://admincp.example2.com:1444	192.200.0.1:1444

2. Each Billing Entity has its own fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the control panel and the admin control panel (e.g. cp.example.com and admincp.example.com). These have individual IP addresses, which are also not shared by other Billing Entities on the same platform. The end user or admin user accesses the control panel using a URL like http://cp.example.com/ or http://admincp.example.com/ (over http on port 80), which (by looking at the URL passed) redirects the user to an https URL. Each of the https URLs run on a the same port. For instance, the following table might describe the redirections:

   HTTP URL	IP:port	HTTPS URL	IP:port
   http://cp.example.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://cp.example.com	192.200.0.1:443
   http://admincp.example.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://admincp.example.com	192.200.0.2:443
   http://cp.example2.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://cp.example2.com	192.200.0.3:443
   http://admincp.example2.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://admincp.example2.com	192.200.0.4:443

3. A combination of 1 and 2. Each Billing Entity has its own fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for the control panel and the admin control panel (e.g. cp.example.com and admincp.example.com). These might share the same IP address or might not. This might also be shared by other Billing Entities on the same platform. The end user or admin user accesses the control panel using a URL like http://cp.example.com/ or http://admincp.example.com/ (over http on port 80), which (by looking at the URL passed) redirects the user to an https URL. Where an https IP address is shared, the URLs run on a different port. For instance, the following table might describe the redirections:

   HTTP URL	IP:port	HTTPS URL	IP:port	Comment
   http://cp.example.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://cp.example.com	192.200.0.1:443	192.200.0.1 shared across first two BEs
   http://admincp.example.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://admincp.example.com:1443	192.200.0.1:1443	192.200.0.1 shared across first two BEs
   http://cp.example2.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://cp.example2.com:444	192.200.0.1:444	192.200.0.1 shared across first two BEs
   http://admincp.example2.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://admincp.example.com:1444	192.200.0.1:1444	192.200.0.1 shared across first two BEs
   http://cp.example3.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://cp.example3.com	192.200.0.2:443	192.200.0.2 dedicated to example3 but shared between services
   http://admincp.example3.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://admincp.example3.com:1443	192.200.0.2:1443	192.200.0.2 dedicated to example3 but shared between services
   http://cp.example4.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://cp.example4.com	192.200.0.3:443	192.200.0.3 dedicated to example4 customer cp
   http://admincp.example4.com	192.200.0.1:80	https://admincp.example4.com	192.200.0.4:443	192.200.0.4 dedicated to example4 admin cp

The advantage of mode 1 is simplicity. It is only necessary to add your own DNS. Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator will do the rest for you. The advantage of route 2 is that as all secure services run on port 443, you will have fewer problems with outbound firewall restrictions at customer sites. Route 3 gives a compromise, but allows for more possibilities for error.

Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator automatically supports all of these modes of operation. You do not need to tell it which mode you are using. However, you must ensure that you do not configure two billing entities with the domain names which resolve to the same IP address if they also share the same secure port, or one of them will not work. There is no restriction on them sharing the same IP and using the same port (80) for redirects.

Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator will automatically generate the redirects (i.e. the HTTP URLs above) to the correct HTTPS URL.

Managing your DNS

Whatever method you uses, you need to ensure that appropriate DNS entries are generated for your billing entities. You will want DNS entries for both the customer cp and the admin cp. These can point at either an existing interface (if you are using mode 1 above) or a new interface (if you are using mode 2 above), or either (if you are using mode 3).

Using NAT

Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator determines the IP addresses on which to listen using DNS. So, if you specify a URL of https://cp.example.com//, and cp.example.com looks up to 192.200.0.1, Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator will look up cp.example.com in DNS and conclude it should listen on IP address 192.200.0.1. This assumption is almost always correct. However, in some advanced configurations this assumption does not work. For instance, if the control panel concerned is behind a NATing firewall, the external IP address might be 192.200.0.1, but the internal IP address (on which the server should listen) is 10.100.100.1. In this case, Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator has no way of knowing that it should listen on 10.100.100.1 rather than 192.200.0.1. You can specify this manually by using the /etc/extility/amber/hosts.override file, which overrides hosts lookup when building the apache configuration, and makes Flexiant Cloud Orchestrator listen on the specified IP address. The format is broadly the same as the /etc/hosts file. In this instance, the relevant entry would be:

 
10.100.100.1 cp.example.com
 

Managing your network interface configuration

If you are using mode 2 above, or mode 3 with a new network interface, you will also need to add a new network interface to the machine. Use the standard Ubuntu techniques to do this. In brief:

1. Find an unused IP in the range allocated for the management server.
    
2. Still on the management server go to /etc/network.
    

3. Edit the /etc/network/interfaces file on FCO management server.
    

4. Add an entry similar to the following to the bottom of the file
    

   
   auto eth0:1

   iface eth0:1 inet static

           address 192.200.0.2

           netmask 255.255.255.0

5. Adjust the above such that:
   1. The characters before the colon interface name ('eth0:1' above) represent the correct outbound facing interface
   2. The number 1 (in 'eth0:1' ) is unique and in sequence
   3. The interface name is the same in both places
   4. The IP address is a unique IP address on the same IP range as the existing entry
   5. The netmask matches the netmask you are using.
       
6. Save the changes
    

7. Bring the interface up by typing the following (substituting the interface name used)

   ifup eth0:1

It is worthwhile testing the CP and AdminCP URLs with the Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) and the numeric IP URL to ensure that each Billing Entity is pointing at the correct Control Panel.

Important Considerations

The Manage Billing Entity dialog also has a number of subsections, which can be used to display and manage information related to the Billing Entity:

Admin Customers Section

This section shows a list of customers who are Administrators of that Billing Entity.  You can click on the Manage dialog next to one to manage that customer if required.

Default Customer Section

The default customer section specifies the UUID of the default customer.  Any new customers that are created automatically copy their settings such as tabs, widgets, limits etc, from the default customer.  This makes it very easy for Billing Entities to customise the default look and feel for their customers.

Branding Section

The Branding section allows the user to specify the various branding settings for that Billing Entity, they are as follows:

• Colours
• Header Logo
• Login Splash Logo
• Admin Login Splash Logo
• Custom Javascript
• Custom CSS

Payment Processing

The payment processing section allows Billing Entities to define what Payment methods and processes will be used

Image Fields

The Image fields section takes a JSON encoded list of variables which can be used to describe Images available in that Billing Entity.  This is to allow the Billing Entity to customise how images are represented.

Typical examples are:

• Operating System
• Version
• Publisher
• Category