Overview

Before you begin the installation process, you can customize the configuration for certain portions of cPanel & WHM.

Installation methods

New installations of cPanel & WHM use the fast installation method by default. This method handles certain aspects of cPanel & WHM differently to drastically reduce installation time. For example, the fast installation method:

• Uses tarballs to download certain code cPanel & WHM files.
• Uses system RPMs or .deb packages, if they are available, to set up the Perl local::lib library.
  • Red-Hat-based systems, like AlmaLinux OS, Rocky Linux™, or CloudLinux™, use RPMs.
  • Debian-based systems, like Ubuntu®, use .deb packages.

Installation options

You can use the following options to customize cPanel & WHM’s installation process:

• --confirm — Require confirmation before the installation script runs.
• --force — Force installation on an unrecommended configuration.
• --keep — Do not delete the target directory after installation.
• --nochown — Do not assign permissions for the extracted files to the current user.
• --noexec — Do not run the installation script.
• --nox11 — Do not spawn an X terminal input terminal.
• --skip-cloudlinux — Skip the automatic CloudLinux conversion process even if a license exists.
  Important:

  If you do not use this option, and you install cPanel & WHM on a Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® (RHEL)-based server with a CloudLinux license, the installer will automatically convert the server to CloudLinux.

• --skip-wptoolkit — Skip the automatic installation of WP Toolkit.
• --skip-imunifyav — Skip the automatic installation of ImunifyAV.
• --target NewDirectory — Extract the cPanel & WHM installation files to the NewDirectory directory.
• --tar arg1 [arg2 ...] — Access the contents of the arg1 archive through the tar command.

Basic server setup

The /etc/wwwacct.conf file contains the basic setup information for cPanel & WHM. After you install cPanel & WHM, you can find and edit this information in WHM’s Basic WebHost Manager Setup interface (WHM » Home » Server Configuration » Basic WebHost Manager® Setup).

To customize this configuration, perform the following steps:

1. As the root user, create the /etc/wwwacct.conf file.
2. Enter all of the wwwacct.conf file’s parameters, with one entry per line:
   Note:

   Separate each parameter and its value with a space.

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

   ADDR 192.0.2.0 NS2 ns2.domain.tld CONTACTPAGER [email protected] LOGSTYLE combined CONTACTEMAIL [email protected] HOMEMATCH home TTL 14400 NSTTL 86400 NS ns1.domain.tld ETHDEV eth0 ADDR6 HOST NS4 DEFMOD jupiter HOMEDIR /home NS3 SCRIPTALIAS y

3. Define the required ADDR or ADDR6, DEFMOD, HOMEDIR, LOGSTYLE, NS, NS2, and SCRIPTALIAS values.
   Important:

   If you do not define these values, account creation will fail.

   For example:

   1 2 3 4 5 6 7

   ADDR 192.0.2.0 DEFMOD jupiter HOMEDIR /home LOGSTYLE combined NS ns1.domain.tld NS2 ns2.domain.tld SCRIPTALIAS y

   Note:

   In this example, ns1.domain.tld and ns2.domain.tld are your nameservers’ identities.

4. Specify values for any other parameters that you wish to configure. Refer to the configuration values table for a complete list of available parameters.

Configuration values

You can configure the following values in the /etc/wwwacct.conf file:

Configuration settings

When you install cPanel & WHM, the system reads the /root/cpanel_profile/cpanel.config file. This file stores the settings that WHM’s Tweak Settings interface (Home » Server Configuration » Tweak Settings) contains, as well as various configuration settings for other cPanel & WHM features. The system uses these settings to set the values in the /var/cpanel/cpanel.config file.

To set these parameters, perform the following steps:

1. As the root user, create the /root/cpanel_profile/cpanel.config file.
2. With one entry per line, list the parameters and values that you wish to configure in key=value format.

For example, to preconfigure your server to deny the nobody user the ability to send email to a remote address, add the nobodyspam=1 line to the /root/cpanel_profile/cpanel.config file before you install cPanel & WHM.

The mysql-version key

You can configure the version of MySQL® or MariaDB® to use in the /root/cpanel_profile/cpanel.config file’s mysql-version key before you install cPanel & WHM. To ensure that your cPanel & WHM installation uses your intended database version, your mysql-version key must meet the following requirements:

• Your mysql-version key requires a single decimal point. We do not support the configuration of specific database build versions: for example, MySQL 8.0.29.
• Your mysql-version key cannot contain strings. For example, if you install cPanel & WHM with a mysql-version key of MySQL 8.0, the installation process will fail. To configure a cPanel & WHM installation to use MySQL 8.0, instead enter a mysql-version key of 8.0.
• To install MariaDB instead of MySQL, enter a supported MariaDB version for the mysql-version key.
• If you set the mysql-version key to an unsupported database version (for example, mysql-version=5.1), the installation process will fail. For more information about supported database versions, read our Supported MySQL/MariaDB versions documentation.

Account restoration

The /etc/cpanelacctrestore file contains a list of accounts to automatically restore during the cPanel & WHM installation process. You can use this file to restore accounts to a freshly-installed server.

To restore a list of cPanel accounts during the cPanel & WHM installation process, perform the following steps:

1. As the root user, use a text editor to create the /etc/cpanelacctrestore file.
2. List the user account names, one entry per line.
3. Upload the backup file or files to one of the following directories:
   • /home
   • /home2
   • /home3
   • /root
   • /usr
   • /usr/home
   • /web

Release tiers

The /etc/cpupdate.conf file determines the product version for your installation of cPanel & WHM. This file also controls when your server performs the automatic upgrades to new major versions of cPanel & WHM.

When you preconfigure this file, cPanel & WHM will install the specified version or the major version that corresponds to the specified release tier.

To preconfigure the cPanel & WHM release tier, perform the following steps:

1. As the root user, create the /etc/cpupdate.conf file.
2. In the /etc/cpupdate.conf file, use the CPANEL parameter to set your desired release tier.

For example, to configure your server to use the STABLE tier, add the CPANEL=stable value to the /etc/cpupdate.conf file.

The cpsources file

The /etc/cpsources.conf file determines the locations from which your server downloads updates. By default, cPanel & WHM servers retrieve updates directly from WebPros International, LLC through our httpupdate.cpanel.net pool of update servers.

Invalid data

If you see the following error in your server’s logs, the /etc/cpsources.conf file likely contains invalid data:

[2015-12-08 14:12:54 +0200] ***** FATAL: Unable to retrieve tier version info: timeout

To resolve this issue, move the /etc/cpsources.conf file to another location, then run the /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/upcp script. The system will automatically restore a valid cPanel-supplied version of the /etc/cpsources.conf file.

touch /var/cpanel/never_ever_use_fast_update_not_even_a_check

rm /var/cpanel/never_ever_use_fast_update_not_even_a_check

yum

Yellowdog Updater, Modified (yum) is an RPM package management tool for RHEL-based servers that automatically installs with your operating system.

The yum tool and commands do not work on Debian-based Linux servers, like Ubuntu®. Debian-based systems use the apt tool. For more information, read the apt section below.

Exclude packages

Because cPanel & WHM handles its own installation of services through the rpm.versions system, the installer automatically configures the /etc/yum.conf file to exclude the following packages:

AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, and CloudLinux 8

• bind-chroot
• dovecot*
• exim*
• filesystem
• p0f
• php*
• proftpd*
• pure-ftpd*

CloudLinux 9

• bind-chroot
• cloud-init-18*
• dovecot*
• exim*
• filesystem
• one-context*
• p0f
• php*
• proftpd*
• pure-ftpd*

Remove yum groups

Before you install cPanel & WHM, make certain that the following yum groups are not installed on your server:

• FTP Server
• GNOME Desktop Environment
• KDE (K Desktop Environment)
• Mail Server or E-mail Server
• Mono
• Web Server
• X Window System

To remove a yum group, run the yum groupremove command. For example, to remove the Mono and Mail Server groups, run the following command:

yum groupremove "Mono" "Mail Server"

apt

apt is a package management tool for Ubuntu-based servers that automatically installs with your operating system.

Exclude packages

Because cPanel & WHM handles its own installation of services, the installer automatically configures the /etc/apt/preferences.d/99-cpanel-exclude-packages file to exclude the following packages:

Ubuntu

• base-files
• dovecot*
• exim*
• nsd
• p0f
• php*
• proftpd*
• pure-ftpd*

Apache

EasyApache 4 allows you to preconfigure your profile before you install cPanel & WHM on your server. To preconfigure your profile before installation you will need to create the /etc/cpanel_initial_install_ea4_profile.json file. If you create this file ahead of time then the installation process installs and copies this profile to the /etc/cpanel/ea4/profiles/custom/ directory.

For information about how to create an EasyApache 4 profile, read our EasyApache 4 - Create a Profile documentation.