cPanel Tools PozitivStudija, Fotolia.com PozitivStudija, The webmaster’s control panel CPANEL For companies that provide hosting and email packages to clients to administer a myriad of tasks, WHM and cPanel provide a web-based graphical control panel designed to help. BY MARCEL GAGNÉ etting up a Linux server to host a cPanel (yes, it stands for Control ministration interface that makes it pos- website is a relatively trivial mat- Panel) and WHM (the Web Host Man- sible to create accounts for both end ster. Of course, I assume that the ager) provide a web-based graphical users and resellers so that they, in turn, reader has some experience with Linux control panel designed for companies can administer their own domains via and understands the concepts of basic that provide hosting and email packages cPanel. Once an account (which can server administration. After all, you still to their clients. WHM is a top-level ad- consist of one or more domains) is cre- need to install Apache to serve up a sim- ple site. More complex sites requiring a database might demand MySQL or Post- greSQL as well. Let’s not forget the P in the LAMP stack, PHP to round out a basic server’s needed software. Adding a second site to this server re- quires that you understand something about virtual hosts, but it’s still relatively easy if you know what you are doing. But even a competent systems adminis- trator can start feeling overworked if he or she needs to host a hundred sites, each with its own domain, a correspond- ing number of databases, and another thousand email accounts. Sure, you can still do it, but eventually, the job can daunt even the most accomplished sys- tems administrator. That’s where cPanel comes into play (see Figure 1). Figure 1: WHM and cPanel are, at least to the hosting provider, one and the same. WWW.ADMIN-MAGAZINE.COM ADMIN SPECIAL 39 Tools cPanel Figure 2: The WHM home screen offers up a list of commonly used Figure 3: Enter “update” in the Find box and cPanel/ WHM can even functions. update cPanel/ WHM. ated, administration of that account can its rocky past, both in terms of owner- get it from their ISP as an add-on to their be delegated to the account holder. In ship and of various problems with the dedicated host; I make that last distinc- that respect, WHM and cPanel are, at product. That said, the modern WHM/ tion because WHM/ cPanel is also sup- least to the hosting provider, one and the cPanel package is an excellent, rock- ported in a variety of virtual system en- same, whereas cPanel is what the ac- solid package that any hosting provider vironments. count holder sees. should at least consider. Using a web browser, you can access The types of controls you can delegate The biggest downside, from my per- WHM and cPanel via pre-defined ports include the creation of additional do- spective, is that it only supports on your server. For instance, WHM is ac- mains and subdomains, email accounts, FreeBSD, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and cessed via port 2086 using the root login: FTP accounts, and so on. Account hold- CentOS. That said, many ISPs do provide ers who have access to cPanel can keep servers running CentOS or Red Hat, and http://yourhost.dom:2086 track of their disk usage, bandwidth, and many offer cPanel and WHM as an op- resource utilization in general. They can tion. A recent addition to cPanel’s prod- Also, you can use port 2087 for a secure create email accounts, change pass- uct line is Enkompass, essentially cPanel login. Users accessing cPanel, on the words, manipulate databases, view web- for users of Microsoft Windows Server other hand, use port 2082 with whatever site logs, add FTP users, create and products. Enkompass can manage multi- username and password the administra- download site backups, and a whole lot ple servers across an Active Directory tor provided for their account. Similarly, more. Another way to look at it is this: domain. In this article, I will be focusing port 2083 allows secure access to cPanel. WHM is root. on the Linux-based WHM/ cPanel offer- When you first login to WHM, you are ing [1]. presented with a number of icons repre- Mini History lesson senting some of the more common func- cPanel’s pedigree is mixed, and it has an Getting started tions in WHM (see Figure 2 for a close- interesting history. Part of that history Although cPanel can be licensed directly up). On the left-hand side, there’s a follows it to this day with people citing from cPanel Inc., most hosting providers rather long list of administration catego- ries that cover server configuration, se- curity, account and reseller functions, DNS configuration, backup, remote ac- cess functions, package management, database administration, daemon con- trol, and pretty much anything else you might need to run a domain and web hosting service on your server. Figure 5: When creating an account, the sys- Figure 4: Plenty of functions are associated with accounts and account maintenance. tem can assist in selecting strong passwords. 40 ADMIN SPECIAL WWW.ADMIN-MAGAZINE.COM cPanel Tools Figure 6: Each account you create may have a package of features Figure 7: Customers have access to different Webmail clients, like and limits included with it. Horde, Roundcube, and Squirrelmail. Given the sheer number of options list of just about anything you can do These limits include things like maxi- here, there’s also a rather nice little with accounts (see Figure 4). There’s mum bandwidth, the amount of disk search bar at the top (labeled Find). Just also a second icon labeled Account Infor- space, whether the client has shell ac- enter a few letters from the function you mation, which contains reporting func- cess (SSH), the number of FTP accounts, are trying to address; for example, enter tions (list accounts, show bandwidth, the number of email accounts, the num- acc for anything that might have the etc.). ber of databases they can create, and word account as part of it. This will nar- To create an account, click on Create a more. All these things define a package, row down the list to the things that cur- New Account, then enter the appropriate and the nature of the package usually rently interest you. Type update and the information. Each account has a user has a lot to do with what you are willing various update features of the WHM will name and password associated with it; a to charge. become available. Now you might strength meter and password generator Additional settings on the account cre- choose to roll your own custom versions are included to help you generate secure ation screen concern whether you are of Apache and PHP to suit your environ- passwords (see Figure 5). handling DNS functions and mail rout- ment (look for EasyApache) or update A little farther down the account cre- ing (you could be handling email on a the system packages. Here, you can even ation screen, you’ll find options for the separate server). Once you’ve entered all update WHM and cPanel (see Figure 3). panel theme, the locale (language), the information, click Create. A number whether this is a reseller account (if this of messages go flying by as the custom- Account Functions account can create other accounts), and er’s account, cPanel implementation, The heart and raison d’être of cPanel so on. One rather interesting choice you and whatever features you are providing, and WHM are the account functions. need to make is the package you are sell- including the directory structure, are all After all, you wouldn’t be looking at ing your client (see Figure 6). To explain created. A report will follow on the something like cPanel and WHM if you this, I’ll back up to the side menu and screen, and that report will be emailed weren’t looking to resell hosting ser- tell you about packages. to you as well. vices. From the main menu, you can When you offer hosting to a client, Once an account is created, you can click the Account Functions icon to get a you invariably place limits on their site. turn over control of this account to the Figure 8: Your new MySQL database will require a username to Figure 9: Database access privileges are granted with the click of a access it. checkbox. WWW.ADMIN-MAGAZINE.COM ADMIN SPECIAL 41 Tools cPanel standard INSERT, UPDATE, ALTER, DROP, and so on that are familiar to any- one who works with MySQL. Permis- sions are granted by clicking on the check box that corresponds with the privilege in question (see Figure 9). To give the user all of the normal privi- leges, you can click the ALL PRIVILEGES check box or simply select what your ap- plication will require from this user. Click Next Step, and the user will be cre- ated for you (step 4 merely completes the task). When it comes to setting up a MySQL database quickly, it doesn’t get much easier than this. For more complex tasks associated with the database, cPanel comes with Figure 10: cPanel users may be granted access to phpMyAdmin, a comprehensive web inter- phpMyAdmin, a complete web-based in- face for working with MySQL databases. terface for working with MySQL data sets (see Figure 10). Many systems ad- account holder. Or not. That is entirely tools like WordPress, or CRM systems ministrators will already be familiar with up to you.