About cPanel & WHM Long-Term Support

For cPanel & WHM 11.38

Hosting providers often prefer to maintain a homogenous environment of software and applications, including the deployed version of cPanel & WHM. Using a specific update tier (such as STABLE, RELEASE, or CURRENT) is generally sufficient to ensure a consistent environment across many servers.

In some circumstances, providers would prefer not to rely upon cPanel's tiered release system to dictate the installed version of cPanel & WHM. Additionally, providers requiring a specific version of cPanel & WHM need an assured method of deploying new installations of cPanel & WHM, even when that version is no longer the current production release.

The purpose of Long-Term Support

We actively develop cPanel & WHM, and release new builds frequently. Traditionally, more conservative users have elected to completely disable software updates in order to maintain control over their deployments of cPanel & WHM. The Long-Term Support (LTS) initiative provides an alternative to disabling updates, and will help ensure that cPanel & WHM servers receive important updates and fixes.

cPanel & WHM 11.34 includes changes to Long-Term Support

The 11.34 release of cPanel & WHM introduces changes to the Long-Term Support initiative.

• The lifespan of a release, going forward with 11.34, will be 12 months from the initial publication of the production version.⁽¹⁾ Depending upon circumstances, the LTS period may be extended at the discretion of cPanel, Inc.
• Previous release lifespans will not change; cPanel & WHM 11.30 and 11.32 will retain their 18-month lifespan.
• The LTS versions will be available as upgrades from previous cPanel & WHM versions, as well as new cPanel & WHM installations.
• Over the lifespan of an LTS release, we will provide security and other critical updates.
  • Note: LTS releases will not receive new features unless deemed critical to a release's viability, or to ensure compatibility with later versions of cPanel & WHM.

Third-party applications

Various third-party applications are provided with cPanel & WHM (for example, MySQL and Roundcube).

When installed with an LTS version of cPanel & WHM, these third-party applications will continue to receive critical and security-related updates. However, fixes may occur in the form of back-ported patches, rather than upgrades to the latest version of the application.

EasyApache 3

The development and distribution of EasyApache is not tied to the release of cPanel & WHM.

We will continue to provide updates to EasyApache as it applies to an LTS release of cPanel & WHM. However, certain features may rely upon a specific version of cPanel & WHM.

If the currently installed version of cPanel & WHM does not meet the EasyApache version requirement, the new functionality or feature will not be available.

Site Software (cPAddons)

Site Software will continue to receive updated applications throughout the lifespan of an LTS release.

WHM Plugins

WHM Plugins will continue to receive updated applications throughout the lifespan of an LTS release.

Schedule for Long-Term Support Releases of cPanel & WHM

cPanel & WHM Version	Approximate Release Date	Anticipated End of Life*
11.32	February 20, 2012	August 20, 2013
11.34	October 15, 2012	October 2013
11.36	January 25, 2013	January 2014
11.38	April 2013	TBD

* cPanel & WHM releases which have reached End of Life:

• Are unavailable for installation
• Will no longer receive fixes or patches from cPanel, Inc.

Footnotes

⁽¹⁾ Development releases of cPanel & WHM do not qualify for LTS. We do not consider their publication dates when calculating an LTS version's lifespan.