Gandi Reseller Guide

This page is a list of the services Gandi allows you to resell to your customers, and a guide for doing so. It is also available as PDF here.

1. The reseller account

1.1 How it works

Among other things, a reseller account lets you:

  • see all of your customers domains from your single, primary, account handle
  • use a bulk transfer tool to accept multiple domain name transfer emails simultaneously (for domains that use this method)
  • create domains for your customers while specifying the owner contact for each domain
  • receive Gandi's domain renewal reminders for your customers, and manage renewals so they don't have to.

1.2 Account creation

Reseller accounts can be created only by legally registered companies, including sole proprietorships. You can create a reseller account directly on our website at the following address: https://www.gandi.net/contact/create

If you already have a company-type (or any type other than Individual) Gandi account, you can convert it (permanently) to a reseller account. See: http://wiki.gandi.net/en/reseller/mode-reseller

You will automatically be the billing contact for domains you create for your customers.

Any Gandi handle (not just reseller handles) can also become the billing, administrative, and/or technical contact for domains that are owned by other Gandi handles. Being these contacts gives you some partial control over the domains. See: http://wiki.gandi.net/en/contacts

1.3 Contracts and dispute resolution

As a reseller, you must accept Gandi's General Sales Conditions(https://www.gandi.net/contracts/en/g2/pdf/), as well as our General Sales Conditions for Resellers (https://www.gandi.net/contracts/en/reseller/pdf/). You must also mention in your contracts that you use Gandi as a technical provider for the management of domain names (this is a contractual requirement imposed by ICANN). Remember that Gandi remains the ICANN-accredited registrar of record, and you should not claim to be this on your web site or in other communications. Also, note that the reseller contract holds you accountable for the proper servicing of your customers requests concerning their domain names. If you are having any trouble doing so, be sure to reach out to our support to avoid any problems complying with the Conditions for Resellers. Gandi maintains a legal department, which handles all cases that require registrar involvement in disputes between third parties. In most cases, legal issues can be forwarded to legal@gandi.net for investigation and response. We are extremely cautious and careful when processing legal requests, and strictly follow applicable due process. Gandi also maintains an abuse desk, which handles disputes between Gandi and our customers (e.g. abuse by hackers, spammers, fraudulent registrations, etc.).

1.4 Parked domains

For domains you buy for your customers that remain unused, there is a default or “parking” page displayed. The parking page you use is up to you - you don't need to use ours. In fact you can easily create and host a parking page of your own design, and use a default zone file on our DNS to point traffic to it. There are content restrictions on certain domains, so be sure to follow the requirements of the TLD in question. Let us know if you have any questions about this.

2. Gandi and your customers

2.1 Prices

You are free to charge your customers whatever price you wish for the domain name alone, or the domain name included in a package of other services or products. Section 5 explains how Gandi will bill you.

You do not need to notify Gandi when your prices change, though we will do our best to keep you informed of our major price changes. The prices we will charge you are always available on the pricing page of our web site, and this page will be adjusted to your price rates when you log in. You can also obtain pricing information via the API (see Section 3).

2.2 Customer support

The reseller contract requires that you provide basic customer support to your customers. If one of your customers contacts Gandi's support team directly, we will politely ask them to contact you for assistance. You should be sure to keep the contact data in your reseller account handle current, so we can easily do so.

As a reseller, you are allowed direct access to our tier 2 support team via email, chat, and telephone. Note that phone and chat support are limited on weekends.

2.3 Notifications sent by Gandi

In order to avoid confusing your customers we do not generally email them directly, but our system will generate certain messages automatically. Also, our contract with the trustee authority requires that we do occasionally send them certain emails to fulfill our responsibilities as the registrar. For example, as of January 1st, 2014, we have been required to verify the email address of every customer who purchases a new gTLD domain under ICANN sponsorship, and we need to be the originator of these emails, as well as the recipient of the replies.

We can nonetheless give you the possibility of personalizing several parts of the mails automatically sent to your customers. Depending on the email in question, you may indicate your email address as the sender, customize the signature of the mail, and even create a CNAME record for when links are inserted in the emails, ensuring that URLs are not branded with Gandi's name. See:

http://wiki.gandi.net/en/reseller/notifications

The interface for personalizing your messages is found in your account at:

https://www.gandi.net/admin/message/personalization

2.4 Releasing your contacts

You can release a customer from your account if you need to. If and when your commercial relationship with your customer ends, the customer's account handle or domain can be changed so as not to be managed via your reseller account. This is possible either online from your account, or via our API. Your customer will then automatically become a direct customer of Gandi. The procedure is documented in our wiki at the following page:

http://wiki.gandi.net/en/reseller/remove-domain

Note that you will need to inform the customer you release of the procedure for gaining access to their account. Never release a customer handle unless the email in their handle is accurate and verified, and you send them the instructions they need for resetting their password and gaining access.

2.5 Collecting personal data

In general, Gandi has to collect some data on your customers to register domains with them listed as the Owner, or registrant (as per ICANN rules). This data will be available to you via API calls, though will generally not be available to anyone else. The mandatory parameters we need are:

Name (first and last) street address zip code city country email a password for the customer account (unless the account is created by you and remains under your full control) phone number contact type (company, individual)

Some domains will require additional information as well. See:

http://doc.rpc.gandi.net/contact/reference.html#ExtraParameters

The portion of personally identifiable data that is needed to register domains will need to be safely transmitted to Gandi. This can be done over an encrypted channel using API calls, or on our web site using HTTPS. It is not anonymized in our system. Gandi uses this data for providing service only. We do not sell the data in any way, nor use it for marketing purposes (Gandi does not do classic marketing anyway). We may use the aggregate data for statistical tracking purposes, such as we do for the TLD suggestion service we offer, but we won't disclose it unless we are required to by ICANN rules or legal requirement.

3. Gandi's API

3.1 How it works

Our powerful API consists of methods that allow you to integrate all of the features supplied by Gandi (domain names, SSL, email, hosting) into your own customer portal or web application.

It uses the XML-RPC protocol, which has connection libraries in several languages (PHP, Python, Java, ASP). See:

http://doc.rpc.gandi.net/overview.html

3.2 Activation, testing, and management

API activation and management is performed online directly from your account. The procedure is explained in our wiki at: http://wiki.gandi.net/en/xml-api/activate

We provide an OT&E test platform, as well as a production platform. The OT&E is a “parallel” zone that is not accessible by customers, but which allows you to test domain name creations and management. It is worth noting that for certain registries the environment is temporary, and is reset from time to time.

3.3 Documentation

Our API documentation is available online at the following address:

http://doc.rpc.gandi.net/

The reference document that lists all of the methods available for domain names is located here:

http://doc.rpc.gandi.net/domain/reference.html

The following process diagrams are available:

for domain name creations:

http://doc.rpc.gandi.net/_images/flowchart-domain-create.jpg

for domain name transfers:

http://doc.rpc.gandi.net/_images/flowchart-domain-transfer.jpg

for domain name renewals:

http://doc.rpc.gandi.net/_images/flowchart-domain-renew.jpg

3.4 Support

If you have questions about integrating features using our API methods, our API support teams are available to help. Just contact us via the special email address: api-ote@support.gandi.net

3.5 Service Level

Gandi will commit to a 99.95% uptime of the API endpoints, within limits as required for maintenance windows.

It is important to note that Gandi provides this service by interfacing with several third parties (e.g. registries). Gandi therefore cannot guarantee the uptime or relative maintenance windows of these third parties, though every effort will be made to notify you of known registry maintenance windows. These windows, as well as the use of a limited or degraded mode, are generally not counted against the above uptime commitment.

Gandi maintains a status page at http://status.gandi.net, where the uptime of our various services are tracked, and outages are posted.

4. Domain name management

4.1 Top-level Domain Names (TLDs)

Gandi makes a very large number of TLDs available for you to buy and resell, and we are constantly adding to the list.

With the arrival of the new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs), we are continuously adding new opportunities for domain name registration. You are free to resell any available top-level domain in our offering to your customers, or select those TLDs that are best suited to your own offers, or your customer base.

4.1.1 Types of TLDs

Gandi currently offers our customers over 400 TLDs for automatic registration, transfer and renewal. There are also a large number of “Corporate” TLDs which require special handling (see below). So-called “generic” top level domains (.com, .org, .immoasia, .club, .photography, etc.) are being released frequently as of this writing, and as well there are a large number of “country code” top level domains (.co.uk, .de, .us, etc.) available, with an occasional new entrant coming online.

In general, generic TLDs are easier to register and maintain, and have more support for automatic processing. You will want to evaluate which domains to offer, based on the cost of course, but also on the difficulty of registration.

You can see a list of all of the extensions offered by Gandi at the following page:

https://www.gandi.net/domain/register

4.1.2 Corporate TLDs

Corporate TLDs are those that cannot be managed automatically and/or which require manual operations by our expert staff.

We have added these extensions because they may be necessary to certain of our customers, notably for registering domains in special geographical locations. Note, however, that these TLDs are frequently more expensive than others, and the subscription to Gandi's Corporate offer is necessary for being able to register them, since our dedicated team must manually perform registration and management operations.

You can become a Corporate customer as well as a reseller if you need to offer this type of TLD. Please see:

https://www.gandi.net/corporate

4.1.3 Limitations of TLDs

Certain TLDs have prerequisites, notably concerning the physical location of the owner and/or the administrative contact. Some of the country code top-level domains (ccTLD) require a local presence in the country concerned, in particular many of those domains that are designated Corporate. Others do not, but require an association with the location concerned to be proven (e.g. .london). Local presence requirements can often be provided by Gandi, and are known as “Trustee” contacts. In the case of Corporate domains, there is often a separate charge for this service that we can quote for you.

There are also other types of restrictions. These depend on the TLD, such as .aero domains for example, which are reserved to those with a direct link to the aeronautical industrial sector.

To see a list of TLDs that have particular requirements, please visit our wiki at:

http://wiki.gandi.net/en/reseller/domainrules

4.2 Purchase a domain

As a reseller, when you purchase a domain name for your customers, you can specify them as the owner of the domain name directly at the time of registration, either by creating a new contact for them or choosing an existing one.

For detailed information on the registration of a domain from a reseller account, visit:

http://wiki.gandi.net/en/reseller/register

4.3 Transfer a domain

You will likely find yourself transferring domain names to Gandi to consolidate your domains, or away from Gandi to other registrars at your customers request.

Gandi provides you with powerful tools that will facilitate your transfers to us.

As a reseller, you can also personalize the transfer confirmation emails (FOA) that are sent to your customers, and can avoid mentioning Gandi on them (except as a technical provider, which is necessary to satisfy your contractual obligation).

As with domain name creations, you can also specify the Gandi handles to associate with the domains when you launch the transfer.

If you have a large number of transfers to Gandi to perform, you can use a tool we provide to automatically confirm them. By using this tool, you can avoid having to reply to each confirmation email individually. For detailed information on this procedure, please consult the following page:

http://wiki.gandi.net/en/reseller/bulk-transfer

4.4 Domain renewal

Domain renewals are simple to perform at Gandi. You can either select the domains to renew manually, depending on your agreement with your customers, and/or set up automatic renewal. Automatic renewal will use funds from your prepaid account, which can optionally be automatically replenished with a credit card you save in your account.

In the case of automatic renewal, the operation will be attempted 31 days before the domain's expiration. Click here for more information.

If the domain is not renewed at that time, your customer will get an email reminder at 30 days before, 7 days before, and finally one day after the expiration date.

You will find a table that summarizes the renewal periods for various TLDs at http://wiki.gandi.net/en/domains/renew#renewal_restoration_and_deletion_times

Note: The auto-renewal feature requires payment to be completed to proceed, and renewals cannot be refunded. The risk of customer non-payment for renewal, including auto-renewal, must be borne by the reseller, and the reseller can not refuse a customer's renewal request.

5. Billing

5.1 How it works

The prices you will pay for domains at Gandi depend on your handle's price rate. This rate is automatically calculated and attributed to your account depending on your total purchase volume over the last 12 months.

You can see the scale and what the thresholds are at http://wiki.gandi.net/en/billing/rate

The starting rates are called “A”, and the most advantageous are “E” rates. Your prices are calculated depending on what rates are applied to your handle.

If you anticipate a high volume of purchases, please contact us at reseller@gandi.net and indicate your reseller handle in your mail along with your request. We may be able to grant you a better rate to start with.

5.2 Payment methods

We accept payment from resellers via credit card, PayPal, and bank transfer, and for resellers in France we can also accept checks. All of these methods can be used to also credit your prepaid account, which in turn can be used for paying for operations (such as automatic renewal). This saves you the worry about any payment delays.

You have the possibility of getting an alert in the event your prepaid account balance falls below a certain value. You can also set up your pre-paid account to be automatically paid from a credit card you add to your account. For more information on this please visit http://wiki.gandi.net/en/billing

5.3 Payment by invoice

Our Corporate (large accounts) department offers a payment option that allows them to pay by invoice at the end of the month, in exchange for an annual service fee. The Corporate subscription also allows you to register domains that are specifically reserved to Corporate subscribers.

If you would like to subscribe to this service, please contact our Corporate team via the online form at https://www.gandi.net/corporate/contact

5.4 Refunds

We refund transactions where the service was not delivered due to errors on our part, or where our policy specifically permits it (e.g. SSL certificates are refunded fully for up to 30 days, no questions asked). Some transactions (e.g. registrations of domains and nearly all domain renewals) are non-refundable once completed, as we are billed for these operations by the registries and cannot be refunded.

6. Associated services

6.1 Email

You are provided with 5 free email mailboxes per domain name with a quota of 1GB of storage, as well as an unlimited number of email forwarding addresses and aliases.

6.1.1 Mailbox management

The mailboxes can be fully customized and are available both by POP and IMAP. You can also provide your customers with the address of our white label webmail address (https://webmail.eu.com) that we make available to you. You can set the storage quota for each email mailbox within the total limit attributed to the domain name, or just pool the quota across all the mailboxes. For more information on GandiMail please visit http://wiki.gandi.net/en/mail.

If you offer this service to your customers, you must manage the mailboxes and quotas - your customers can't do so themselves. This means you will need to become the Administrative or Technical contact for domains where you want to offer this service.

6.1.2 Email forwarding

For each domain name in your account, you have an unlimited number of email forwarding addresses. These addresses can be defined via our web interface (more information is available on this at http://wiki.gandi.net/en/mail/create-email-forward) or via the API.

6.1.3 Mail Pack

If your needs exceed what is provided by the free offer, you can get additional mailboxes and storage space by subscribing to our Mail Pack, which starts at €1 (excluding VAT) per month, for customers with A rates. Once the pack has been subscribed to, you have up to 1,000 email mailboxes, and additional storage for €1 per GB per month. Finally, email pack users have access to an out-of-office reply feature, and a special “like” alias.

For more information on the Mail Pack visit our wiki at http://wiki.gandi.net/en/mail/mailpack

6.2 Gandi's DNS

Gandi provides you with a reliable and solid DNS service running on a worldwide DNS infrastructure that rapidly relays requests around the world.

6.2.1 Zonefile management

The management of your zonefiles is free of charge, and can be done either using a user-friendly online form, or with an expert interface (for more on this, see our wiki at http://wiki.gandi.net/en/dns), as well as via our API.

You may also define a default zone that will be used during the purchase or transfer of your domain names installed on Gandi's DNS, unless you specify a particular zone to use. You can define this zone from the preferences page in your account:

https://www.gandi.net/admin/preferences

6.2.2 Web forwarding

When you use Gandi's DNS for your customers' domains, you have access to a web interface that will let you easily set up web forwarding for domains and/or subdomains.

For more information on web forwarding see:

http://wiki.gandi.net/en/domains/management/domain-as-website/forwarding

6.3 SSL certificates

With each new domain name managed in your Gandi account (created or transferred), we provide you with a free Single-Domain Standard SSL certificate for one year.

We also have many different levels of SSL certificates for purchase, available as single-domain, multi-domain, and/or wildcard (multiple subdomains). The various descriptions as well as prices for each can be seen at

https://www.gandi.net/ssl

These products can be fully managed by our API methods, and you can therefore integrate it into the portal that you provide to your own customers. See:

http://doc.rpc.gandi.net/cert/index.html

6.4 Gandi Hosting

While the Gandi API allows you to fully manage our hosting options, reselling of Gandi hosting is only supported under certain circumstances. Reselling of hosting is limited to the creation of Gandi VPS systems that you run, and set up yourself with accounts you control for your customers to use. You will pay for the Gandi VPS using hosting credits, which you cannot directly resell. This means that you are responsible for paying for the hosting, and managing your customers' access to it.

As Gandi Cloud VPS servers are powerful systems to which you have root access, there is not a real-world technical restriction on the number or size of customer hosting accounts, or the services you could offer in this way, other than the practical limitations of available software and maximum size limits of the Gandi VPS systems you create. You can build, manage and automatically scale a fully-functional hosting system to meet your customers needs. See:

https://www.gandi.net/hosting/iaas

Other hosting services that direct Gandi accounts can access and use will not be available for resale. This includes:

  • Simple Hosting
  • Gandi Blog
  • Gandi Site
  • Sitemaker

As mentioned, when used with a domain, email can be offered, and SSL certificates and Gandi Cloud VPS can be used as services to resell.

Questions? Ask us in support, or write to us at feedback@gandi.net.

最后更改: 2016/06/08 08:46 (外部编辑)