cPanel licensing and installation on a Dedicated Server

cPanel is a web hosting control panel. This article provides basic information on licensing, installation, and accessing cPanel.

cPanel/WHM licenses

Please be aware that cPanel is a licensed product. The price is based on full calendar months (even if you only use it for part of the month.) For example, we will invoice you for the full month of June if you order a cPanel license on June 3rd, 15th, or 27th.

You can upgrade or downgrade your license without reinstalling it. To do this, please send a request via ticket.

Installation

You can install cPanel either automatically or manually depending on your needs.

Automatic

When ordering a new server, you can select an operating system which is then pre-installed on the server. One of these operating systems can also be installed along with cPanel.

Currently cPanel can only be pre-installed with the following operating system:

• CentOS 7.9
• CentOS Stream
• Alma Linux 8.7

If the server is already online, cPanel can be activated and installed automatically (along with an OS) via the cPanel tab of the server on Robot. Once you have restarted the server, the installation will be automatically performed. You will get an email with the login details of both the OS and cPanel once the installation is complete.

Please note that this installation will erase all data on the drives in the server.

Manual

You can also install cPanel manually. This is useful if, for example, it needs to be installed on an OS we don’t pre-install it with.

You, the customer, need to install cPanel yourself. We do not help with that. (This kind of support is not included with our dedicated root servers.) You can order the license directly via the cPanel tab of the server on Robot, and is assigned to the IP of the server. To assign the license to an additional single IP or a subnet IP, write a support request via ticket.

Important note: You cannot install cPanel on Windows; it is only supported on Linux.

Access

Once cPanel has been installed, you will have access to two different web interfaces: WHM and cPanel.

WHM

WHM is the administration interface, and you can reach it at the following URL:

<https://<IP-Adress of the server>:2087>

In this interface, you can set up accounts which will have access to cPanel.

cPanel

cPanel is the account-level interface, and you can reach it at the following URL:

<https://<IP-Adress of the Server>:2083>

In this interface, you can set up a mailbox for each account, for example.

Using our name servers

After the installation of cPanel, name servers are automatically configured as the default name servers in the cPanel configuration.

To use our name servers as slave name servers, you must first be sure that name servers are allowed the zone transfer.

To allow zone transfers from your name servers managed through cPanel/WHM, you need to include the following information in the /etc/named.conf configuration file (under options):

options {
 // weitere Angaben
 allow-transfer {213.239.242.238;213.133.105.6;213.133.100.103;193.47.99.3;};
 notify yes;
}

Note: 213.133.100.103 will become the new IP address for robotns2.second-ns.de on a medium-term basis in replacement of 213.133.105.6.

Then, you need to reload the configuration using the following command:

/etc/init.d/named reload

On DNS Console, when you now create a DNS entry, you can select Slave DNS Entry.

FAQ

Where can I find answers to my questions concerning cPanel/WHM?

Please check cPanel’s own support resources on their website.

The cPanel licensing seems to have failed – what can I do?

Sometimes, the license does not properly synchronize with the cPanel licensing server. In this case, please enter the following command on the command-line; it will manually synchronize the license:

/usr/local/cpanel/cpkeyclt

Can Plesk/cPanel licenses be bound to vSwitch/Failover IPs?

Yes, this is possible. For this, you can send a request to our support team by opening a support ticket.