Intro To CPanel

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Introduction to the Capabilities of cPanel & WHM

If you have any questions, please contact the cPanel sales team. See page 45 for details.
Introduction to the
Capabilities of
cPanel & WHM
V101712. cPanel, WebHost Manager and WHM are registered trademarks of cPanel, Inc. 2012. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
Explanation of the cPanel & WHM interfaces .................................................. Page 6
cPanel
WHM
Levels of Access ..................................................................................................... Page 8
Root-Level User
Reseller
Website Owner (cPanel User)
Tour of the cPanel Interface ................................................................................ Page 10
Ease of Use
Comprehensive File Management
Website Editing
Web Disk
Backups
Virus Protection
One-Click Software Installations
Statistics and Logs
Multiple Domain Support
Comprehensive Email Management
Spam Protection
Mail Filtering
Mailing Lists
Mail Authentication
Improved MX Entry Editor
Databases
Sripting Support
Security
DNS Management
Advanced Functionality
Tour of the Web Host Manager (WHM) Interface ............................................... Page 20
VPS Optimized vs. Accelerated
Easy Apache
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Table of Contents
Security
Brute Force Considerations
XSRF Protection
Forcing Encrypted Logins
Mail Server
Curbing Incoming Spam
Installers
Service Management
Mail, IM and Pager Notifcations
Service Confguration
CPU Usage and Background Process Detection
Disk Usage
Software Upgrades, Updates
cPanel Build Types
Account Migrations
DNS Functionality
Language Files
Server Backups
Account Management
Enhancing Automation with Packages
Removing Functionality with Feature Manager
Automating Account Management with Billing Software
Shell Access
No Shell Access
Jailed Shell Access
Normal Shell Access
Skeleton Directory
Manage cPAddons
Branding
Customer Contact Pages
Web Template Editor
Resellers
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Table of Contents
Software Modules ................................................................................................. Page 40
cPanel DNS ONLY
cPanel GS (cPGS)
Customizing cPanel Software ............................................................................. Page 42
cPanel is Flexible
cPanel Has an Active Developer Community
For More Information ........................................................................................... Page 44
Explanation of the
cPanel & WHM
interfaces
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cPanel provides an intuitive interface to help website owners manage
their sites, while WebHost Manager (WHM) automates server
management tasks for server administrators. Together, they reduce
overhead by simplifying complex tasks and allowing customers to
manage their own accounts.
Professionals and novices alike love the power cPanel & WHM ofers, including
the ability to activate new web technologies with the click of a mouse. This allows
anyone to meet the needs of todays hosting customers with minimal efort.
cPanel
cPanel, our website control panel interface, is designed for website owners.
cPanel simplifes tasks such as:
Uploading and managing web pages
Creating email accounts
Installing web-based applications such as blogs, shopping carts, and forums
Backing up data
Protecting a sites content and bandwidth
Generating and viewing statistics about visitors
Reviewing error logs to locate broken links and other problems
WHM
WebHost Manager (WHM), our server control panel interface, is designed for server administrators and web hosts.

WHM makes it easy to:
Set up and modify customer accounts
Receive alerts from your server
Install applications and programming language modules
Create and apply hosting plans
Block spam
Integrate new web technologies
Brand customers cPanel interfaces with custom logos
Levels
of Access
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Root-Level User
Root-level users have access to every feature in cPanel & WHM. Root-level users
also have access to all accounts on the server. Other users can be granted root-
level access via the Reseller Center in the WHM interface. This is useful for allowing
technical staf full access to cPanel & WHM, without having to share a single root
password.
Reseller
Reseller accounts have full access to cPanel, but limited access to WHM. A
resellers access to WHM is limited to creating new cPanel hosting accounts and
managing existing accounts. Resellers can only manage cPanel accounts they own,
preventing them from modifying accounts owned by other resellers on the server.
Resellers cannot create additional reseller accounts.
Website Owner (cPanel User)
A website owner only has access to the cPanel interface. They can manage all
aspects of their account and domains, but do not have any access to the WHM
interface. The website owner can also create FTP sub-users and Mail sub-users,
but cannot create additional cPanel hosting accounts.
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Tour of the
cPanel Interface
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Ease of Use
The cPanel interface was designed by a team of interface experts to ensure ease of use. Its intuitive nature helps to reduce
support requests from customers who are unfamiliar with cPanel.
For inexperienced hosting customers, cPanel includes a Getting Started Wizard. This wizard assists new website owners
with confguring basic account settings. Additionally, context-sensitive video tutorials and on-screen documentation help
to ensure that website owners will be able to easily use our software.
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Comprehensive File Management
Perhaps the most important part of managing a website is being able to upload and edit web content. Website owners can
upload fles using FTP, FTPS, SFTP, Web Disk (our implementation of DAV), and our built-in File Managers.
Often, a website owner may hire a professional web designer to build a site. With cPanel, a website owner can easily set
up an additional FTP account for a contractor. This allows contractors access to the website without knowing the cPanel
password.
Website Editing
File Manager has an integrated visual (WYSIWYG) HTML editor to assist novice website owners in creating and customizing
their websites. File Manager also includes a code editor that allows programmers to quickly modify troublesome code.
Web Disk
The Web Disk feature allows website owners to easily maintain their websites using an interface that integrates with their
personal computer or mobile device. Publishing and updating websites is as easy as dragging and dropping fles.
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Comprehensive fle management would be incomplete without backups. cPanel comes with a wizard to assist users with
creating backups of their account. The backup interface is easily accessible. From there, a user can easily select which
areas of a site to back up or download.
Virus Protection
cPanel lets server administrators easily enable virus protection. While viruses rarely infect servers running cPanel & WHM,
email and websites served by cPanel/WHM servers are sometimes used as means to propagate viruses to vulnerable
systems.
cPanels virus protection scans incoming mail for possible viruses. Individual website owners can also scan an entire
account for any fles that may contain viruses.
Backups
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One-Click Software Installations
Its easy to install popular website applications such as
WordPress, phpBB, and osCommerce in cPanel. And with our
free cPGS plug-in, website owners can even run their own online
gaming servers.
cPanel also makes it simple for experienced website owners to
install popular applications and Ruby Gems.
Statistics and Logs
Building a website is the frst step; next, the site owner needs to make the site easy to fnd. cPanel provides several tools
for monitoring how visitors discover a site, and where those visitors are located. Easy-to-read graphs let a website owner
spot trends; from there, she can modify her site accordingly.
Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals may also wish to download raw logs to insert into their own log
interpretation programs. These logs can be viewed and downloaded via the cPanel interface or FTP.
Web developers will be glad to know that they can easily access Apache error logs via the cPanel interface in real time.
Additionally, developers can monitor the bandwidth and browsers used to access the site. This helps website owners make
informed decisions about further website optimization.
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Multiple Domain Support
An individual cPanel account has the ability to host multiple domains.
To have multiple domains serve the same website content, you can use the Parked Domains feature. This feature allows
you to park multiple domains on your main domain. As a result, when a visitor accesses the parked domain, he sees the
content of the main site.
cPanel also supports hosting completely separate websites within the same cPanel account. Addon domains allow a
separate domain to work on the same account, but serve a diferent website. The addon domain could be a directory
within the main website, or a separate website, inaccessible from the main website.
cPanel also provides a Redirects feature. Members of an afliate program may want to redirect visitors to a website on
another server whenever a visitor accesses a domain or subdomain they own. The website owner can use redirects to
automatically bring those visitors to the desired afliate website.
Statistics and Logs
Building a website is the frst step; next, the site owner needs to make the site easy to fnd. cPanel provides several tools
for monitoring how visitors discover a site, and where those visitors are located. Easy-to-read graphs let a website owner
spot trends; from there, she can modify her site accordingly.
Search engine optimization (SEO) professionals may also wish to download raw logs to insert into their own log
interpretation programs. These logs can be viewed and downloaded via the cPanel interface or FTP.
Web developers will be glad to know that they can easily access Apache error logs via the cPanel interface in real time.
Additionally, developers can monitor the bandwidth and browsers used to access the site. This helps website owners make
informed decisions about further website optimization.
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Comprehensive Email Management
Email is a critical function of most contemporary websites. cPanel allows website owners to create many email accounts
and email forwarders. An email forwarder functions as an automatic relay from one address to another. This can be useful
if, for example, you wish to receive company email at a personal email address.
If a website owner needs to create many email addresses or forwarders at once, he can put them into a Microsoft Excel
spreadsheet or CSV fle and use the Import Addresses/Forwarders feature to create those email addresses. All email
accounts that are not forwarders can be accessed via the common mail protocols: IMAP and POP, their more secure and
encrypted siblings IMAPS and POP3s, and a webmail interface.
To assist with setting up an email client, cPanel supports automatic confguration of select clients. A website owner simply
clicks on a link and opens a fle, and the mail client is automatically confgured.
For hosting accounts with multiple domains, domain forwarders can be handy. They forward all email from one domain to
a corresponding address on another domain. For example, setting up a domain forwarder for example.net to example.com
would result in mail addressed to user@example.net being sent to user@example.com.
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Email is a critical function of most contemporary websites. cPanel allows website owners to create many email accounts
and email forwarders. An email forwarder functions as an automatic relay from one address to another. This can be useful
if, for example, you wish to receive company email at a personal email address.
If a website owner needs to create many email addresses or forwarders at once, he can put them into a Microsoft Excel
spreadsheet or CSV fle and use the Import Addresses/Forwarders feature to create those email addresses. All email
accounts that are not forwarders can be accessed via the common mail protocols: IMAP and POP, their more secure and
encrypted siblings IMAPS and POP3s, and a webmail interface.
To assist with setting up an email client, cPanel supports automatic confguration of select clients. A website owner simply
clicks on a link and opens a fle, and the mail client is automatically confgured.
For hosting accounts with multiple domains, domain forwarders can be handy. They forward all email from one domain to
a corresponding address on another domain. For example, setting up a domain forwarder for example.net to example.com
would result in mail addressed to user@example.net being sent to user@example.com.
Spam Protection
cPanel comes with SpamAssassin at no additional cost. This helps curb spam by identifying common patterns in spam
messages, then specifying the likelihood of the message being spam. This likelihood is quantifed as a spam score. Those
who use IMAP or webmail can use SpamBox, a feature that will automatically deposit spam into its own folder.
For additional spam protection, you can enable BoxTrapper. BoxTrapper can be enabled either for all addresses in this
cPanel account, or for individual addresses. BoxTrapper is a challenge response system, where an unknown person
sending a message must respond to a verifcation email before the message is delivered to the recipient.
Mail Filtering
Mail flters allow the server to automatically sort and discard mail before it is delivered. This is most useful for those who
travel frequently and access their mail via IMAP or webmail.
In the cPanel interface, clicking the Account Level Filtering icon allows the site owner to create an email flter that afects all
email accounts associated with that cPanel account. Mail flters can also be created on the individual account level.
Mailing Lists
With the cPanel interface, users can create mailing lists that use the popular Mailman software. Mailman ofers great
fexibility, allowing for everything from newsletter distribution to discussion groups similar to those found on Google or
Yahoo.
Mail Authentication
To help ensure reliable delivery of email, cPanel supports the latest mail authentication standards such as SPF and
DomainKeys. Mail authentication can determine whether mail is from someone pretending to be from a domain hosted on
the cPanel server. Enabling these authentication methods is a simple matter of clicking the appropriate icon and enable
button. These features require no changes to any mail clients confguration.
Improved MX Entry Editor
With the changing landscape of email services, it is increasingly common for individuals to have their mail hosted on a
remote service such as Gmail for Domains. As a result, cPanel now has an improved MX Entry editor to give website
owners more control over how their email is routed.
Email Archiving
Email Archiving allows users to save incoming, outgoing, or mailing list messages for a specifed amount of time. Archived
messages are stored under the mail directory in the users home directory.
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Databases
In todays world of blogs and content management systems, even novice website owners need to be able to create
databases. As a result, cPanel has wizards to assist website owners with properly creating databases and database users,
as well as issuing the appropriate permissions to database users.
Experienced website owners will enjoy the phpMyAdmin and phpPgAdmin integration. These tools provide quick, simple
management of MySQL and PostgreSQL databases.
With cPanel, website owners can grant remote access to their databases. This is useful for small businesses that run
programs requiring a centralized SQL server.
Scripting Support
cPanel/WHM natively supports several scripting languages, including CGI Perl, PHP, and Ruby on Rails. FrontPage
extensions continue to be supported in cPanel/WHM despite that technology ofcially having reached end of life
according to its manufacturer.
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Security
In todays world of blogs and content management systems, even novice website owners need to be able to create
databases. As a result, cPanel has wizards to assist website owners with properly creating databases and database users,
as well as issuing the appropriate permissions to database users.
Experienced website owners will enjoy the phpMyAdmin and phpPgAdmin integration. These tools provide quick, simple
management of MySQL and PostgreSQL databases.
With cPanel, website owners can grant remote access to their databases. This is useful for small businesses that run
programs requiring a centralized SQL server.
Scripting Support
While much of cPanel & WHMs security capabilities are handled at the server
level, some security measures are better managed by individual website owners.
Website owners can password protect directories, then enable leech protection
to ensure no one is sharing passwords.
Webite owners who fnd their sites using excessive amounts of bandwidth can
enable HotLink Protection to prevent others from hotlinking images directly
from their hosting account, thus wasting their bandwidth.
DNS Management
cPanel allows website owners to manage their own DNS zones. This is useful
for web design experts that need the ability to modify their DNS. For example,
some remote mail hosting solutions require the creation of a custom DNS zone
for accessing their services.
cPanel/WHM natively supports several scripting languages, including CGI Perl, PHP, and Ruby on Rails. FrontPage
extensions continue to be supported in cPanel/WHM despite that technology ofcially having reached end of life
according to its manufacturer.
Advanced Functionality
Thanks to cPanels Advanced features, even expert designers and programmers will only rarely need to contact their
system administrators for assistance. cPanel allows these individuals to easily customize several advanced behaviors of
their websites, including the appearance of web server error pages and how directory listings should appear in Apache.
Experienced website owners can also create their own cron jobs to automatically execute a script at pre-determined times.
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Tour of the
Web Host Manager (WHM)
Interface
The WHM interface is a powerful yet easy-to-use interface for managing a server. Like the cPanel interface, it also has a
Getting Started Wizard to assist system administrators with properly creating a working server confguration. After this
process is complete, the system administrator can create accounts so the server can begin hosting websites.
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The WHM interface is a powerful yet easy-to-use interface for managing a server. Like the cPanel interface, it also has a
Getting Started Wizard to assist system administrators with properly creating a working server confguration. After this
process is complete, the system administrator can create accounts so the server can begin hosting websites.
VPS Optimized vs. Accelerated
cPanel & WHM comes in two possible optimizations: VPS Optimized and Accelerated. Both ofer identical functionality;
the diference is how the software is optimized. VPS Optimized is confgured for VPS environments where RAM is not as
abundant as on dedicated servers. Accelerated is designed for dedicated servers and thus adjusts itself to make the most
efcient use of those resources. cPanel/WHM automatically detects whether it is being installed on a dedicated or virtual
server, and installs the appropriate optimization of cPanel/WHM accordingly.
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Easy Apache
EasyApache is a tool that ofers great fexibility with regards to adding support for additional server technologies, such
as Tomcat. It also makes recompiling Apache and PHP, and their modules, very easy. In a typical Unix environment,
recompiling Apache and PHP can be a daunting and error-prone task even for an experienced system administrator. But the
WHM interface with EasyApache makes this as easy as clicking a few mouse buttons.
EasyApache allows the installation of additional specifc
PHP modules as needed, with the ability to remove modules
when they are no longer needed. This architecture allows
a web server to run only the programming code required
by websites on that server, thus optimizing the servers
resource consumption and performance. Also, it ofers
the fexibility to easily migrate among versions of Apache
and even run PHP 4 and 5 simultaneously, if desired. To
assist novice administrators, EasyApache will prevent the
installation of modules known to confict with one another.
Uptime is improved with EasyApache, since all confgurations set via EasyApache are automatically tested before
being applied to the server. The automated nature of EasyApache also reduces the Apache downtime caused by these
confgurations to mere seconds, even on the busiest of servers.
Experienced system administrators can opt to run EasyApache via the command line as: /scripts/easyapache.
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Easy Apache Security
The WHM interface provides a myriad of security tools for securing a server. Combining these with server-hardening
technologies available via EasyApache will help protect the server against potential attackers.
Many of these security tools can be found in the Security Center section of the WHM interface.
EasyApache is a tool that ofers great fexibility with regards to adding support for additional server technologies, such
as Tomcat. It also makes recompiling Apache and PHP, and their modules, very easy. In a typical Unix environment,
recompiling Apache and PHP can be a daunting and error-prone task even for an experienced system administrator. But the
WHM interface with EasyApache makes this as easy as clicking a few mouse buttons.
EasyApache allows the installation of additional specifc
PHP modules as needed, with the ability to remove modules
when they are no longer needed. This architecture allows
a web server to run only the programming code required
by websites on that server, thus optimizing the servers
resource consumption and performance. Also, it ofers
the fexibility to easily migrate among versions of Apache
and even run PHP 4 and 5 simultaneously, if desired. To
assist novice administrators, EasyApache will prevent the
installation of modules known to confict with one another.
Uptime is improved with EasyApache, since all confgurations set via EasyApache are automatically tested before
being applied to the server. The automated nature of EasyApache also reduces the Apache downtime caused by these
confgurations to mere seconds, even on the busiest of servers.
Experienced system administrators can opt to run EasyApache via the command line as: /scripts/easyapache.
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When enabling brute force protection, an administrator may add her own IP address to the
Trusted IPs list within the cPHulk utility; this is handy in case an administrator forgets her
password, since it curbs the ability of a system administrator to lock herself out of her own
server.
XSRF Protection
XSRF protection prevents malicious websites from taking advantage of the fact that you are
logged into a cPanel & WHM server to trigger actions on that cPanel & WHM server. We
recommend that you enable this protection; you can do this from the WHM Tweak Settings
screen.
However, be mindful that scripts that have not yet been updated to
make use of the APIs available since the initial release of cPanel 11
may stop functioning as a result of enabling XSRF protection. If you
need assistance with bringing your own scripts up to date to use our
APIs, contact our technical analysts for assistance.
Unencrypted logins via HTTP can be quite vulnerable to
a hacker snifng trafc over an unsecured Wi-Fi network.
Without encryption, passwords are broadcasted in plain
text, allowing anyone to read them. WHMs Tweak Settings
feature can force all logins to cPanel, WHM and webmail to
be performed over an encrypted SSL connection.
However, if these settings are enabled, we strongly
recommend that you also set up an SSL certifcate for
the cPanel/WHM/webmail service itself. Otherwise, novice website owners may become frightened when seeing an
error in their web browser about the server using a self-signed SSL certifcate. One SSL certifcate for the cPanel/WHM/
webmail service can be installed via the Manage Service SSL Certifcates screen in WHMs Service Confguration section.
This screen can also be used for installing SSL certifcates for other services. Keep in mind that these services do not
automatically inherit any SSL certifcates set up for websites at this time.
Mail Server
cPanel & WHM uses Exim for its SMTP services. Exim also emulates support for sendmail, so all scripts that rely on
sendmail capabilities will work on a cPanel & WHM server. For optimal performance, cPanel & WHM uses the maildir
format of storing email, rather than the older mbox format. This also assists in the performance of webmail and IMAP on
the server. cPanel & WHM uses Dovecot for ofering POP3 and IMAP capabilities, but Courier remains supported.
WHM allows even a novice system administrator to implement powerful mail server capabilities, such as blocking spam
before the server ever processes it. This is implemented by means of several settings, including rejecting mail which has
very high SpamAssassin Spam Scores or mail coming from an IP address on a Realtime Black List (RBL).
RBLs are lists of IP addresses that are known as, or likely to be, sources of spam. By blocking spam before the server
ever processes it, resource utilization is noticeably reduced. WHM supports 2 RBLs by default, but additional RBLs can be
added.
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When enabling brute force protection, an administrator may add her own IP address to the
Trusted IPs list within the cPHulk utility; this is handy in case an administrator forgets her
password, since it curbs the ability of a system administrator to lock herself out of her own
server.
XSRF Protection
XSRF protection prevents malicious websites from taking advantage of the fact that you are
logged into a cPanel & WHM server to trigger actions on that cPanel & WHM server. We
recommend that you enable this protection; you can do this from the WHM Tweak Settings
screen.
However, be mindful that scripts that have not yet been updated to
make use of the APIs available since the initial release of cPanel 11
may stop functioning as a result of enabling XSRF protection. If you
need assistance with bringing your own scripts up to date to use our
APIs, contact our technical analysts for assistance.
Unencrypted logins via HTTP can be quite vulnerable to
a hacker snifng trafc over an unsecured Wi-Fi network.
Without encryption, passwords are broadcasted in plain
text, allowing anyone to read them. WHMs Tweak Settings
feature can force all logins to cPanel, WHM and webmail to
be performed over an encrypted SSL connection.
However, if these settings are enabled, we strongly
recommend that you also set up an SSL certifcate for
the cPanel/WHM/webmail service itself. Otherwise, novice website owners may become frightened when seeing an
error in their web browser about the server using a self-signed SSL certifcate. One SSL certifcate for the cPanel/WHM/
webmail service can be installed via the Manage Service SSL Certifcates screen in WHMs Service Confguration section.
This screen can also be used for installing SSL certifcates for other services. Keep in mind that these services do not
automatically inherit any SSL certifcates set up for websites at this time.
Mail Server
cPanel & WHM uses Exim for its SMTP services. Exim also emulates support for sendmail, so all scripts that rely on
sendmail capabilities will work on a cPanel & WHM server. For optimal performance, cPanel & WHM uses the maildir
format of storing email, rather than the older mbox format. This also assists in the performance of webmail and IMAP on
the server. cPanel & WHM uses Dovecot for ofering POP3 and IMAP capabilities, but Courier remains supported.
WHM allows even a novice system administrator to implement powerful mail server capabilities, such as blocking spam
before the server ever processes it. This is implemented by means of several settings, including rejecting mail which has
very high SpamAssassin Spam Scores or mail coming from an IP address on a Realtime Black List (RBL).
RBLs are lists of IP addresses that are known as, or likely to be, sources of spam. By blocking spam before the server
ever processes it, resource utilization is noticeably reduced. WHM supports 2 RBLs by default, but additional RBLs can be
added.
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For experienced system administrators, WHM ofers the
Advanced Exim Confguration Editor, to allow for manual
modifcations to the Exim confguration.
Curbing Outbound Spam
WHM ofers many tools to curb the server from becoming
blacklisted because it is sending spam. The frst line of defense
if the SMTP Tweak tool mentioned above on the Security Center
screen of WHM. This sends website owners mail through the
servers ofcial mail server, forcing them to obey any rules set by
the system administrator.
A good indicator that someone is spamming is if they are sending excessive amounts of email. In Tweak Settings, WHM
ofers a couple of useful settings:
A common setting for number of emails per hour is 100. Also, since suPHP and suEXEC are used by default on new
cPanel/WHM servers, there is no legitimate reason for the nobody user to send email. Therefore, on servers running
suPHP and suEXEC, you may block nobody from sending email so that any malicious activity can be easily tracked to the
appropriate user.
Since blacklists operate on the basis of IP addresses, it may be prudent to allocate a dedicated IP address to resellers
and clients who send large quantities of email. Then, you can enable settings in the Exim Confguration Editor that force
mail to be sent from an individual IP address, rather than the servers primary IP. While this does not prevent blacklisting, it
quarantines the impact of individual users sending spam.
Installers
WHM allows server administrators to install software and
modules via its graphical interface. Installing RPMs, Perl
modules and code modules for other languages (e.g. PHP,
PECLs, and Ruby Gems) can all be accomplished via the
Software section of the WHM.
When you enter one of these pages, you will be prompted for
the module to install. Then, WHM will handle the installation.
For installing modules in Apache or modules for PHP itself, use EasyApache.
Service Management
WHM allows you to browse swiftly through the status of the servers services, as well as restart
any service as you desire.
WHM maximizes uptime by automatically restarting any service that goes ofine. During this
process, the WHM server will contact the server administrator about the service failure in case
manual intervention is required.
The WHM interface ofers fexibility regarding notifcations about notable events taking place on the server. These events
include notifcations about disk integrity, kernel crashing, account suspensions, and more. The server administrator can be
notifed via email, pager/SMS, as well as via AIM and/or ICQ. These preferences can be set in the Server Contacts section
of the WHM interface.
WHM ofers experienced administrators the ability to customize the behavior of many of the services employed in a cPanel
& WHM environment.
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For experienced system administrators, WHM ofers the
Advanced Exim Confguration Editor, to allow for manual
modifcations to the Exim confguration.
Curbing Outbound Spam
WHM ofers many tools to curb the server from becoming
blacklisted because it is sending spam. The frst line of defense
if the SMTP Tweak tool mentioned above on the Security Center
screen of WHM. This sends website owners mail through the
servers ofcial mail server, forcing them to obey any rules set by
the system administrator.
A good indicator that someone is spamming is if they are sending excessive amounts of email. In Tweak Settings, WHM
ofers a couple of useful settings:
A common setting for number of emails per hour is 100. Also, since suPHP and suEXEC are used by default on new
cPanel/WHM servers, there is no legitimate reason for the nobody user to send email. Therefore, on servers running
suPHP and suEXEC, you may block nobody from sending email so that any malicious activity can be easily tracked to the
appropriate user.
Since blacklists operate on the basis of IP addresses, it may be prudent to allocate a dedicated IP address to resellers
and clients who send large quantities of email. Then, you can enable settings in the Exim Confguration Editor that force
mail to be sent from an individual IP address, rather than the servers primary IP. While this does not prevent blacklisting, it
quarantines the impact of individual users sending spam.
Installers
WHM allows server administrators to install software and
modules via its graphical interface. Installing RPMs, Perl
modules and code modules for other languages (e.g. PHP,
PECLs, and Ruby Gems) can all be accomplished via the
Software section of the WHM.
When you enter one of these pages, you will be prompted for
the module to install. Then, WHM will handle the installation.
For installing modules in Apache or modules for PHP itself, use EasyApache.
Service Management
WHM allows you to browse swiftly through the status of the servers services, as well as restart
any service as you desire.
WHM maximizes uptime by automatically restarting any service that goes ofine. During this
process, the WHM server will contact the server administrator about the service failure in case
manual intervention is required.
The WHM interface ofers fexibility regarding notifcations about notable events taking place on the server. These events
include notifcations about disk integrity, kernel crashing, account suspensions, and more. The server administrator can be
notifed via email, pager/SMS, as well as via AIM and/or ICQ. These preferences can be set in the Server Contacts section
of the WHM interface.
WHM ofers experienced administrators the ability to customize the behavior of many of the services employed in a cPanel
& WHM environment.
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WHM makes monitoring CPU loads easier than ever by placing the load stats at the top of the interface. This shows
the servers load over the past 1, 5, and 15 minutes. WHMs in-depth tools also allow tracking CPU usage to individual
processes and website owners. Background Process Detection allows you to disable risky services (such as Eggdrop) from
running on the server.
Disk Usage
WHM also allows for quick monitoring of the servers disk space consumption and other disk I/O statistics. This is useful
for determining whether additional disk space needs to be added to the server.
By default, WHM is set up for automatic updates. This will ensure the server receives all the latest security patches and
functionality. WHM will automatically update any software that can be safely upgraded without supervision. This can
include automatically updating MySQL 5.0 to the latest 5.0 build, updating cPanel & WHM to the latest build, and so forth.
cPanel & WHM can be safely updated and upgraded without having to make a full server backup beforehand. cPanel/WHM
remains fully operational during an update or upgrade. Also, no server reboots or restarts are required after a cPanel/WHM
update or upgrade. cPanels stringent quality standards ensure that all software introduced into a cPanel environment is
tested before being put into production use.
Automatic updates can be disabled as well as customized via the Update Preferences screen in the WHM interface.
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WHM makes monitoring CPU loads easier than ever by placing the load stats at the top of the interface. This shows
the servers load over the past 1, 5, and 15 minutes. WHMs in-depth tools also allow tracking CPU usage to individual
processes and website owners. Background Process Detection allows you to disable risky services (such as Eggdrop) from
running on the server.
Disk Usage
WHM also allows for quick monitoring of the servers disk space consumption and other disk I/O statistics. This is useful
for determining whether additional disk space needs to be added to the server.
By default, WHM is set up for automatic updates. This will ensure the server receives all the latest security patches and
functionality. WHM will automatically update any software that can be safely upgraded without supervision. This can
include automatically updating MySQL 5.0 to the latest 5.0 build, updating cPanel & WHM to the latest build, and so forth.
cPanel & WHM can be safely updated and upgraded without having to make a full server backup beforehand. cPanel/WHM
remains fully operational during an update or upgrade. Also, no server reboots or restarts are required after a cPanel/WHM
update or upgrade. cPanels stringent quality standards ensure that all software introduced into a cPanel environment is
tested before being put into production use.
Automatic updates can be disabled as well as customized via the Update Preferences screen in the WHM interface.
cPanel Build Types
There are 4 primary build types of cPanel & WHM. The illustration below shows how an update propagates through the
build types, being more thoroughly tested as it propagates:
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Account Migrations
Whether you need to transfer 1 account or all of the accounts on a remote server, the WHM interface can assist. Its transfer
interface can be used for moving accounts between servers, or for migrating from certain other control panels to cPanel/
WHM.
To migrate customers from another hosting provider, simply have them send you their full cPanel backup fle. You can then
place this backup in the /home directory of the destination server, and restore the backup.
If you are migrating from another cPanel/WHM server to which you have root access, you get several additional features.
WHM ofers the ability to skip the home directory, which is very useful for multimedia-intensive websites which can have
their fles migrated by other means. For these transfers, DNS on the remote cPanel/WHM server will be updated to point to
the new server once the account has been migrated, reducing downtime caused by DNS propagation. Compression is now
done in-stream to reduce the hard disk resources required to migrate accounts from an overloaded machine.
If you are migrating accounts from another control panel to which you have root access, feel free to make use of our
migration assistance. More information is available at http://migrate.cPanel.net.

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Account Migrations
Whether you need to transfer 1 account or all of the accounts on a remote server, the WHM interface can assist. Its transfer
interface can be used for moving accounts between servers, or for migrating from certain other control panels to cPanel/
WHM.
To migrate customers from another hosting provider, simply have them send you their full cPanel backup fle. You can then
place this backup in the /home directory of the destination server, and restore the backup.
If you are migrating from another cPanel/WHM server to which you have root access, you get several additional features.
WHM ofers the ability to skip the home directory, which is very useful for multimedia-intensive websites which can have
their fles migrated by other means. For these transfers, DNS on the remote cPanel/WHM server will be updated to point to
the new server once the account has been migrated, reducing downtime caused by DNS propagation. Compression is now
done in-stream to reduce the hard disk resources required to migrate accounts from an overloaded machine.
If you are migrating accounts from another control panel to which you have root access, feel free to make use of our
migration assistance. More information is available at http://migrate.cPanel.net.

DNS Functionality
WHM will automatically handle all DNS functionality for accounts maintained via the cPanel & WHM interfaces. However,
the WHM interface does allow customization of DNS templates and DNS records, as well as other DNS management.
WHM supports BIND by default. However, smaller servers (e.g. VPS servers) hosting only a few websites will beneft from
our support for the lighter weight NSD software.
WHM also allows DNS clustering with other servers running either cPanel/WHM or cPanel DNS ONLY. cPanel DNS ONLY
is currently available at no cost.
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Language Files
WHM is bundled with a myriad of language fles for translating the cPanel interface. However, in case cPanel & WHM does
not come with the language you need, WHM provides tools that make it very easy to translate the cPanel interface yourself.
Server Backups
WHM allows for automatic server-wide backups which can be stored locally or remotely. Administrators can control when
backups are run and what types of backups are made. One can even exclude specifc users from having their accounts
backed up. This is useful if you host multimedia-intensive websites that can easily contain over a terabyte of data.

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Language Files
WHM is bundled with a myriad of language fles for translating the cPanel interface. However, in case cPanel & WHM does
not come with the language you need, WHM provides tools that make it very easy to translate the cPanel interface yourself.
Server Backups
WHM allows for automatic server-wide backups which can be stored locally or remotely. Administrators can control when
backups are run and what types of backups are made. One can even exclude specifc users from having their accounts
backed up. This is useful if you host multimedia-intensive websites that can easily contain over a terabyte of data.

Account Management
The WHM interface provides the ability to allocate accounts and terminate accounts, among many other account
management functions. All cPanel users are created as standard Unix users.
Account functions are divided into 3 sections of the WHM interface. First, Account Information provides information about
accounts hosted on the server.
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Second, Account Functions allows modifcation of an individual account.
Lastly, Multi-Account Functions allows you to perform a single operation with multiple accounts.
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Second, Account Functions allows modifcation of an individual account.
Lastly, Multi-Account Functions allows you to perform a single operation with multiple accounts.
Enhancing Automation with Packages
You can automate the creation of accounts with similar privileges by means of packages. Packages are the internal WHM
representation of a hosting plan, and can serve as templates for new accounts. These packages can also be used by third-
party billing software that integrates into cPanel & WHM.
Removing Functionality with Feature Manager
The Feature Manager lets you enable or disable any icon in the cPanel interface. This allows you to create hosting plans
with a minimal set of features, which can help avoid overwhelming novice website owners. Later, you can up-sell customers
to more feature-rich hosting plans. Feature Manager ofers precise control with regards to user privileges.
Root users have access to two special feature lists. The default feature list is used for any account that is not assigned
a package, or is assigned a package without its own custom feature list. The other special feature list is the disabled
feature list. This list is handy for preventing subordinate users from accessing a given feature. Features in the disabled
feature list cannot be re-enabled by means of creating another feature list.
Automating Account Management with Billing Software
While cPanel & WHM is not bundled with billing automation functionality, there are many third-party billing automation
solutions known to work with cPanel & WHM. Thus, you do not need to perform these tasks. Contact the cPanel sales
team at sales@cpanel.net for assistance with fnding billing automation software to suit your needs.
Shell Access
cPanel & WHM ofers varying levels of shell access:
No Shell Access
The default and recommended option. The website owner will be completely unable to log in via SSH, but still able to use
the secure SFTP (FTP via SSH) functionality of the cPanel & WHM server.
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Jailed Shell Access
The website owner will be able to log in via SSH, but will be restricted to limited functionality deemed to be relatively safe in
a shared hosting environment. This should only be given out on an as-needed basis.
Normal Shell Access
Other than the restrictions of standard Unix user permissions, a normal shell access user would be able to do anything they
desire on the server. It is generally considered poor practice to ofer normal shell access to a hosting customer.
Skeleton Directory
Just as a skeleton serves as the basis for the human body, a skeleton directory provides a basis for new websites to
build upon. Your skeleton directory will contain all the default fles to be placed on every new account you, or your billing
software, creates. This can be useful for customizing a website owners initial homepage, or for providing more advanced
functionality, such as implementing custom .htaccess rules by default.
Manage cPAddons
CPAddons is the name of the system cPanel/
WHM uses to allow one click installations of
many popular web application and e-commerce
packages. In the cPanel interface, this is simply
called Site Software. However, cPAddons goes
beyond merely installing these applications.
The cPAddons system is designed to encourage the
use of up-to-date software. This is critical, as many
older versions of these applications may have known security vulnerabilities that were resolved in newer versions. If an
application is out of date, the website owner will be sent an email automatically informing him to click a button in the cPanel
interface to automatically upgrade the software.
The power of the cPAddons system comes from the ability to administer such applications at a server-wide level. Server
administrators can specify which applications they wish to ofer, select whether they wish to moderate installation requests
for those applications, and force upgrades to all website owners running outdated software. This additional focus on
system administration is what makes the cPAddons system unique.
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Jailed Shell Access
The website owner will be able to log in via SSH, but will be restricted to limited functionality deemed to be relatively safe in
a shared hosting environment. This should only be given out on an as-needed basis.
Normal Shell Access
Other than the restrictions of standard Unix user permissions, a normal shell access user would be able to do anything they
desire on the server. It is generally considered poor practice to ofer normal shell access to a hosting customer.
Skeleton Directory
Just as a skeleton serves as the basis for the human body, a skeleton directory provides a basis for new websites to
build upon. Your skeleton directory will contain all the default fles to be placed on every new account you, or your billing
software, creates. This can be useful for customizing a website owners initial homepage, or for providing more advanced
functionality, such as implementing custom .htaccess rules by default.
Manage cPAddons
CPAddons is the name of the system cPanel/
WHM uses to allow one click installations of
many popular web application and e-commerce
packages. In the cPanel interface, this is simply
called Site Software. However, cPAddons goes
beyond merely installing these applications.
The cPAddons system is designed to encourage the
use of up-to-date software. This is critical, as many
older versions of these applications may have known security vulnerabilities that were resolved in newer versions. If an
application is out of date, the website owner will be sent an email automatically informing him to click a button in the cPanel
interface to automatically upgrade the software.
The power of the cPAddons system comes from the ability to administer such applications at a server-wide level. Server
administrators can specify which applications they wish to ofer, select whether they wish to moderate installation requests
for those applications, and force upgrades to all website owners running outdated software. This additional focus on
system administration is what makes the cPAddons system unique.
Branding
We encourage you to brand our software as you wish. Feel free to simply replace our logo, or completely transform the
appearance of the software. The branding capabilities of cPanel are extensive.
The cPanel Branding Editor, built into our software, allows you to easily make use of all of these branding capabilities.
The Branding Editor is simple enough to allow you to perform some basic branding in under 5 minutes, but sophisticated
enough to allow you to transform the cPanel interface to be consistent with your hosting websites design.
Below is a comparison between our default branding and a custom branding style, illustrating how signifcantly you can
customize the cPanel interface:
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Customer Contact Pages
cPanel also makes it easy for resellers to enter their contact information into the control panel. This makes the resellers
information available to website owners, who can then swiftly fnd someone to assist them. This can also be integrated
with most ticket system software.
Web Template Editor
Using the Web Template Editor, resellers can customize several web pages that display when visitors access their
customers sites. This includes the Account Suspended page and the interstitial page displayed when cPanel is detecting
whether the software needs to work behind a frewall, the page displayed when an account has moved, and the default
page displayed when the resellers IP address is typed directly into the web browser.
By using custom nameservers, custom default pages via the skeleton directory feature, and custom contact pages, a
reseller can provide a fully branded experience to her customers, never hinting that shes actually just a reseller.
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Resellers
Resellers - users who purchase server resources and then resell them to website owners - are an important market for
many hosting companies. As a result, we designed our software with the ability to create reseller accounts. These resellers
can then create and manage accounts via the WHM interface. While resellers can manage the accounts they create, they
cannot manage accounts they do not own.
In the general context of cPanel/WHM, reseller users can have as much or as little control over the server as the server
administrator desires. In fact, some reseller accounts are allocated to users who are not actual resellers. For example,
a system administrator may grant reseller access to a junior system administrator so that the junior system administrator
can perform basic server maintenance tasks. This goes beyond the privileges one would normally grant a reseller user, but
stops short of full root access.
WHM does have the ability to grant multiple resellers root-level access. This does not grant them root access to the
servers command line, but does give them access to all the functionality of cPanel & WHM. This option is typically only
recommended for system administrators. You should not grant this feature to customers or resellers customers.
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Software
Modules
Software
Modules
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Our Software Modules extend the functionality ofered by cPanel & WHM. You can learn more about these at: http://
cpanel.net/products/cpanelwhm/related-server-software.html
cPanel DNS ONLY
cPanel DNS ONLY is designed to work in conjunction with existing
cPanel & WHM servers. Servers running cPanel DNS ONLY will
participate in a DNS cluster with other cPanel DNS ONLY and
cPanel/WHM servers. This increases nameserver uptime and
prevents outages caused by a single point of failure.
cPanel GS (cPGS)
cPanel Game Server allows a cPanel hosting provider to host
game servers in conjunction with a cPanel & WHM environment.
Game servers may be hosted on a server separate from the
primary cPanel & WHM server. This allows the cPanel & WHM
server to serve web pages while the game server powers hours of
fun for your clients.
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Customizing
cPanel Software
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In a cPanel & WHM environment, regular website owners, resellers, and root users all have access to the APIs. However,
as with the cPanel & WHM interfaces, users are limited to permissions granted to them. For example, since a regular
website owner cannot create additional cPanel accounts, they are also unable to do so via the APIs.
Our integration team has assembled software development kids (SDKs) in PHP and Perl to assist with the process of
integrating existing systems with cPanel & WHM. Our developers have handled the technical details for integration, so
your developers can focus on customizing our software to meet your needs.
Our staf is glad to assist with using our APIs and understanding how you can extend cPanel & WHM functionality. For
more information about our APIs, please visit http://sdk.cPanel.net.
cPanel Is Flexible
With our APIs, you can trigger actions from outside our software, even remotely. Additionally, you can add custom
functionality to cPanel or WHM, customize the appearance of cPanel software, add custom icons and icon groups to
the cPanel interface, and even create your own cPanel API functions. cPanel is so fexible you can modify the actual
functionality of cPanel features, such as the process of creating an email address. You can also trigger actions to take
place after a server action takes place (e.g. MySQL updates).
cPanel Has an Active Developer Community
There is a large and active developer community surrounding cPanel software. As a result, if you are seeking to add
functionality to our software, check to see whether someone else has already done so. This can help conserve your
companys developer resources for other projects, Many developers promote their software on our Apps and Plugins for
cPanel forum. You can fnd our community forums at: http://forums.cPanel.net.
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Fore More
Information
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Detailed information about all of the capabilities mentioned in this document is available at our
documentation website: http://docs.cPanel.net. If you cannot fnd the information you need, please
contact our sales team.
The cPanel sales team is available via email at sales@cpanel.net. Also, the cPanel sales team can be
contacted via phone at: +1 (570) 606-4795.
To keep up to date about new features, please visit the News section of our website and use the email
sign-up form to receive updates. We will notify you of important information, including when release notes for new versions
of cPanel become available.
cPanel development is guided by you, our user community. If you would like new functionality for any cPanel product,
please visit our community forums at http://forums.cPanel.net and post in the appropriate Feature Requests forum.
V101712. cPanel, WebHost Manager and WHM are registered trademarks of cPanel, Inc. 2012. All rights reserved.

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Introduction to the Capabilities of cPanel & WHM

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