Automation is one of the main keys to scaling your operations efficiently. cPanel and WHM offer a suite of built-in automation tools that will streamline management and customer support, allowing you to focus on growing your business. In this guide, you’ll learn what hosting automation means, why it’s important even for smaller teams, and how to start automating the right tasks with the tools you already use — like WHM, cPanel, and WHMCS. 

Short Summary 

• The article explains how to scale a hosting business using automation tools in cPanel & WHM. 
• cPanel & WHM provide built-in tools that reduce manual workload, allowing hosting businesses to scale efficiently without sacrificing quality or performance to enhance customer satisfaction. 
• Pairing cPanel/WHM with tools like WHMCS and JetBackup enables seamless automation across billing, support, and backup systems. 
• Automated updates, server monitoring, and resource alerts ensure that performance and security scale along with the business. 
• Automate account management, billing, domain registration, SSL and backups to maintain efficiency and consistency. 

What is Hosting Automation? 

Hosting automation means letting software handle tasks that would normally take up your time. Instead of manually creating new accounts, setting up packages, or sending invoices, an automated system does it for you — faster and without mistakes. 

For example: 

• When a new customer buys a hosting plan, automation can instantly set up their account in WHM/cPanel. 
• It can send out their welcome email with login details. 
• If a customer doesn’t pay on time, it can suspend the account automatically. 
• It can generate invoices, process payments, and handle renewals. 
• Routine maintenance, like backups and system updates, can run on a set schedule without manual work. 

This frees you up to focus on supporting customers and growing your business — not chasing invoices or fixing setup errors. 

Benefits of Automation in Hosting 

Automation can significantly enhance the efficiency and scalability of your hosting business, by taking away repetitive and at times complicated tasks for both you and your users. Some of the key benefits include: 

• Time Savings: Automating repetitive tasks frees up time for more strategic activities. 
• Consistency: Automated processes ensure consistent performance and reduce the risk of human error. 
• Scalability: Automation allows you to manage a growing number of accounts without a proportional increase in workload. 
• Customer Satisfaction: Faster response times and reliable services improve customer satisfaction and retention. 
• Expanded Customer Offerings: Think plug-and-play tools like AI website builders, social media management, and much more. 
• Better Security: By automating updates, backups, and monitoring, you lower the risk of vulnerabilities and security breaches: these are all must-haves in today’s threat landscape. 

Automation Features in cPanel & WHM 

cPanel & WHM offer a range of automation features that can streamline various aspects of your hosting business, making life simpler for both you and your users. Here are some of the most valuable tools and how to use them effectively: 

1. Account Management Automation 

Managing multiple hosting accounts manually can be time-consuming. cPanel and WHM provide several tools to automate account management, ensuring simplicity of use as well as making more mundane tasks a thing of the past. Some of the tools include: 

• Account Creation and Termination: WHM allows you to automate the creation and termination of cPanel accounts. You can set up predefined packages and use the “Create a New Account” and “Terminate an Account” features to streamline these processes. 
• Account Suspension: Automate account suspension for non-payment or policy violations using WHM’s “Manage Account Suspension” feature. 
• Automated Backups: Use WHM’s “Backup Configuration” to schedule regular backups of all accounts. This ensures data safety and quick recovery in case of issues. 

2. Billing and Invoicing Automation 

Efficient billing and invoicing are crucial for maintaining growth and customer satisfaction: a bad billing experience is a sure-fire way to lose customers, fast and forever. WHMCS (WebHost Manager Complete Solution) integrates seamlessly with cPanel & WHM to automate billing processes: 

• Automated Invoicing: WHMCS generates and sends invoices automatically based on your billing cycle. 
• Payment Processing: Integrate payment gateways with WHMCS to automate payment processing and reduce manual intervention. 
• Renewal Reminders: WHMCS can send automated reminders to customers about upcoming renewals, reducing the risk of service interruptions. 

3. Domain Management Automation 

Managing domains efficiently is essential for any and all hosting business: it’s one of the most important services this type of business offers, and being able to do it effectively is paramount of ensuring your continued survival in an increasingly competitive landscape. cPanel & WHM offer tools to automate domain-related tasks: 

• DNS Management: Automate DNS zone creation and management using WHM’s “Edit DNS Zone” and “Add a DNS Zone” features. 
• Domain Registration: Integrate with domain registrars to automate domain registration and renewal processes. 
• SSL Certificates: Use WHM’s “AutoSSL” feature to automatically issue and renew SSL certificates for your customers’ domains. 

4. Server Management Automation 

Maintaining server performance and security is critical for a hosting business. Security will most likely be at the top of the list for any hoster and their customers, so ensuring continuous safety is incredibly important. cPanel & WHM provide several automation tools to help, including: 

• Server Monitoring: Use WHM’s “Service Status” and “Process Manager” to monitor server performance and automate alerts for any issues. 
• Security Updates: Automate security updates and patches using WHM’s “Update Preferences” feature. 
• Resource Allocation: Automate resource allocation and management using WHM’s “Resource Monitor” to ensure optimal server performance. 

5. Customer Support Automation 

Providing excellent customer support is essential for retaining customers: any business will be judged by how their customers can interact with it, and how well they find their queries and concerns taken care of. Having great tools is, of course, an important part of the process, but having a great attitude with how you manage and solve customer concerns and problems is the key to standing out in a saturated market. cPanel & WHM offer tools to automate and streamline support processes: 

• Support Ticket System: Integrate WHMCS with a support ticket system to automate ticket creation, assignment, and tracking. 
• Knowledge Base: Create a comprehensive knowledge base within WHMCS to provide customers with self-help resources and reduce support requests. 
• Automated Responses: Use predefined responses and automation rules to handle common support queries quickly and efficiently. 

Benefit From Future Innovation 

To maximize the benefits of automation, it’s essential to follow a set of important rules on best practices, including: 

1. Plan and Prioritize 

Identify the most time-consuming and repetitive tasks in your hosting business and prioritize them for automation. Start with tasks that have the highest impact on efficiency and customer satisfaction. 

2. Use Reliable Tools 

Choose reliable automation tools that integrate seamlessly with cPanel & WHM. WHMCS is a popular choice for billing and support automation, while tools like JetBackup can enhance backup automation.  

Another important aspect of this is not being afraid to add more tools as your business grows. Integrating new tools to deal with new challenges with your existing ones if key to accelerating growth and ensuring your customers are happy.  

3. Monitor and Optimize 

Regularly monitor the performance of your automated processes and adjust as needed. Use WHM’s monitoring tools to track server performance and resource usage.  

4. Train Your Team 

Ensure your team is well-trained in using cPanel & WHM’s different automation features. Provide ongoing training and support to help them adapt to new tools and processes, as well as ensuring you’re optimizing their performance, giving them the tools they need to succeed.  

5. Maintain Security 

Automation can introduce security risks if not implemented correctly. Ensure you and your team are following security best practices, such as using strong passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, and keeping software up to date. It’s important that team members are kept up to date with the latest security must-dos, and that they know about the importance of a robust security protocol.  

6. Gather Feedback 

Regularly gather feedback from your customers and team to identify areas for improvement. Use this feedback to refine your automation processes and enhance customer satisfaction. This might seem simple, but you’d be surprised at how often businesses suffer when they don’t listen to their clients.  

How to Get Started with Hosting Automation 

If you’re just starting out, you don’t need to automate everything at once. These are the basics to consider: 

• Set Up WHMCS: Connect your WHMCS installation with your WHM/cPanel servers. WHMCS will handle customer sign-ups, package creation, domain registrations, and billing automatically. 
• Automate Backups: Use cPanel’s built-in backup system or add a plugin to schedule daily or weekly backups for all accounts. This gives peace of mind to you and your customers. 
• Enable Auto Updates: Turn on automatic updates for cPanel & WHM so your server stays secure with the latest patches — no manual updating required. 
• Gradually Automate More: As you get comfortable, you can expand automation with extra plugins for security scanning, spam protection, or advanced resource monitoring. 
• Add Monitoring Tools: Install basic server monitoring tools or plugins that alert you if your server goes down or resources run low. Many are beginner-friendly and free or low-cost. 

Conclusion 

Scaling your hosting business requires efficient management and customer support processes, and is likely to be an ongoing operation. By leveraging the automation features in cPanel & WHM, you can streamline operations, reduce manual workload, and improve customer satisfaction. Implementing best practices for automation will help you achieve seamless scalability and position your hosting business for long-term success. 

If you’d like to learn more about how automation can help your business thrive, please get in touch!  

FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions 

The post Scaling Your Hosting Business: Automation Tips with cPanel & WHM  appeared first on cPanel.

Unfortunately you’ve discovered the vast range of web hosting platforms out there; it’s no surprise, as the web hosting market has significantly grown year after year, with projected revenue valued at approximately $192.8 billion in 2025.

Choosing a web hosting platform can feel almost overwhelming, with so many different options and plans available. You can find yourself spending hours comparing offers, reading reviews, and combing through terms and conditions. However, there are several key aspects you should keep in mind when choosing a hosting platform, that will help you determine whether it’s the best fit for you.

Factors to Consider When Choosing a Hosting Platform 

Although every source may suggest different factors to consider, a general consensus persists that some of the main considerations of a hosting platform are server hardware, bandwidth and storage, security, and customer support. Dive in with us to explore the key role these factors play in choosing a hosting platform, and also discover some more that are, in our experience, just as vital.

1. Hardware

Both the performance and stability of your website are influenced by the server hardware. Make sure your hosting provider uses the latest components, like SSDs, powerful CPUs, and sufficient RAM. Modern servers with up-to-date technology can handle more traffic and provide faster load times, which is vital for both user experience and SEO. 

2. Uptime 

Server uptime is crucial. Most providers promise 99.9% uptime, meaning they promise operation servers almost all the time. However, you should dig deeper and verify their actual uptime performance, as uptime guarantees sometimes come with exclusions or limitations. High uptime makes sure your website stays online and accessible for your users. Providers like Hostinger and Bluehost are often recognized for their uptime reliability, but this performance can vary depending on factors like location and server load. Checking customer reviews and third-party uptime monitoring reports can offer some of the best insight into their actual performance. 

3. Bandwidth and Storage 

Modern hosting plans usually offer enough bandwidth and storage for most websites. However, if you run a media-heavy site or manage multiple websites, make sure to carefully review the terms of any ‘unlimited’ plans which usually refer to ‘unmetered’ usage and may come with restrictions, e.g. fair use policies or throttling during periods of high demand. You should always verify the fine print to ensure your specific needs, such as media-heavy content or high traffic, will be fully supported. 

4. Shared Web Hosting with cPanel 

For many users, shared web hosting with cPanel is an ideal choice. It’s easy to use, budget-friendly, and packed with fantastic features to manage websites, such as one-click app installations, database management, and email configuration. Look for providers that offer reliable shared cPanel web hosting, to simplify your website management.  

5. Security Features 

Cyber threats are evolving rapidly, making strong security more important than ever. Key features to look for in web hosting include firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPS), and DDoS protection.  

SSL certificates are crucial for encrypting data, ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of information exchanged between users and your site. Hosting providers like SiteGround and A2 Hosting are known for offering solid security features such as free SSL certificates, proactive threat detection, and strong DDoS protection. 

6. Customer Support 

Reliable customer support is crucial for smooth website management. Make sure that your hosting provider offers 24/7 support through options such as live chat, phone, and email. Fast, knowledgeable, and helpful customer service is important for resolving any issues quickly and efficiently.  

7. Scalability 

Choose a provider that lets you easily upgrade or scale resources as your website grows. This means more disk space, bandwidth, and processing power without causing significant downtime or the need for complex migrations. Providers like Bluehost and Hostwinds offer flexible plans that grow with your business, aim to minimize downtime, and make the process as seamless as possible, especially for their higher-tier plans. 

8. Green Hosting 

Environmental awareness and sustainability are increasingly important in the hosting industry. Many hosting providers are investing in renewable energy and energy-efficient technologies to reduce their environmental impact. Many providers are making strides in sustainability through renewable energy initiatives. 

9. AI-Powered Hosting 

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are changing the hosting industry. Many hosting providers are using AI to improve server resources, predict traffic patterns, and improve security. By using predictive analytics, AI helps predict traffic spikes and adjust resources accordingly, which can lead to better performance and reduced risk of downtime.  

AI can also play a key role in enhancing security by detecting potential threats in real-time and applying automatic fixes. Additionally, by improving efficiency and reducing manual intervention, AI can help lower costs, making hosting services more cost-effective and reliable. 

10. Edge Computing and CDNs 

Edge computing and content delivery networks (CDNs) are also becoming more important in the hosting industry. CDNs mainly focus on delivering content like images and videos from the nearest server, making websites load faster and reducing delays. Edge computing brings data processing closer to the user, which helps make things run more smoothly. Companies like Cloudflare and Amazon AWS are leading the way in these technologies. 

Specialized Hosting Platforms 

Shared vs. Dedicated Hosting 

Shared Hosting: In shared hosting, such as cPanel shared web hosting, multiple websites share a single server using resources like CPU, RAM, and disk space. It’s the most affordable option and works best for smaller websites with less traffic. Shared hosting is great for personal blogs, small business sites, and portfolios. Although its affordability is a great advantage, it can have limits on performance and security because of shared resources. 

Dedicated Hosting: With dedicated hosting, you rent an entire server just for your website. This gives you full control, better performance, and stronger security, making it perfect for large websites with high traffic. Dedicated hosting is best for e-commerce sites, big businesses, and websites that need high security. The benefits include superior performance and full customization, but it comes at a higher cost. 

VPS vs. Bare Metal Hosting 

VPS Hosting: A Virtual Private Server (VPS) provides each website with its own virtual environment on a shared server, with an allocated amount of the server’s resources. It’s a good middle ground between cost and performance, ideal for websites that have outgrown shared hosting. VPS hosting offers better performance, scalability, and security compared to shared hosting. It’s great for medium-sized businesses, e-commerce sites, and websites with moderate traffic. 

Bare Metal Hosting: Bare metal hosting means you get an entire physical server all to yourself. Unlike shared hosting, you don’t share any resources, like CPU, memory, and storage; everything is dedicated to you. This setup ensures high performance, making bare metal servers perfect for resource-heavy tasks like high-traffic websites, database management, and large-scale enterprise applications. The main advantages are top performance, security, and control, but it requires a higher budget and more technical expertise. 

WordPress Hosting 

WordPress hosting is designed to work with WordPress websites. It includes features like one-click WordPress installation, automatic updates, and enhanced security tailored for WordPress. Providers like Bluehost, SiteGround, and WP Engine offer specialized WordPress hosting that ensures reliable performance and robust security, with shared cPanel hosting. This type of hosting is perfect for bloggers, small businesses, and anyone using WordPress as their content management system.  

Get Started with cPanel Shared Hosting Today 

Choosing the right hosting platform is just the first step—now it’s time to get started! If you want an affordable, reliable, and easy-to-use hosting solution, cPanel shared hosting is the way to go. Offered by many hosting providers, its user-friendly control panel, powerful security features, and easy website management mean you can launch and manage your website without any hassle. It’s an excellent choice for small businesses, blogs, and personal websites. 

For those who own their own servers or require more control over their hosting environment, buying a cPanel license is the best option. With a cPanel license, you can easily set up and manage your own shared hosting solution, whether you’re a developer, small business, or hosting provider. 

By getting a license, you receive access to all of cPanel’s powerful features, allowing you to set up, manage, and monitor multiple websites without any hassle.

Once you have your license, you can customize your shared hosting environment to suit your specific needs. cPanel licenses are easy to purchase, and come with straightforward set-up instructions, ensuring that you can get started quickly. You’ll also have assistance every step of the way with our dedicated support team. 

Why Choose cPanel Shared Hosting Licenses? 

From our exploration into different hosting providers, it’s clear that cPanel shared hosting is perfect for those searching for a trusted, inexpensive, and user-friendly option for their website. It features:

• Easy Management: Intuitive cPanel interface for easy control of your websites. 

• High Performance: Fast servers that load your site quickly and keep downtime to a minimum. 

• Affordable Pricing: Cost-effective plans that fit your budget. 

• Scalability: Easily upgrade your resources as your website grows. 

Don’t wait—get started today!

Check out a free trial of cPanel, or buy your cPanel license directly now and experience hassle-free hosting with top-tier support.

The post Choosing the Best Hosting Platform in 2025 appeared first on cPanel.

However, finding affordable cPanel hosting without hidden renewal fees, performance issues, or poor customer support can be a challenge. Many providers attract customers with low introductory prices, only to catch them out with much higher renewal rates. 

In this guide, we’ll share what to look for when choosing a plan or cheap cPanel license, including clear pricing, reliable uptime, and solid customer support, as well as an insight into what could be the best cheap cPanel hosting option for you.  

Key Features of Affordable cPanel Hosting

When considering affordable cPanel hosting, it’s important to focus on key features that ensure both functionality and ease of use while staying within a budget. Some of the most important key features to look for include: 

1. Access to cPanel  

Why it’s important: cPanel is the backbone of managing your hosting account. It provides an intuitive interface to manage your website, domains, emails, files, and databases. Having cPanel access is essential for ease of use, especially for beginners or those who prefer a user-friendly control panel. 

2. Free SSL Certificate 

Why it’s important: An SSL certificate is essential for encrypting data between your website and users, ensuring security and boosting trust. It’s also a factor in SEO rankings. Having it for free is a valuable feature in an affordable hosting plan. 

3. Unlimited Bandwidth 

Why it’s important: Websites grow over time, and as they gain traffic, you don’t want to be limited by bandwidth restrictions. Unlimited bandwidth ensures that your site can handle increased traffic without throttling, additional fees, or performance issues. 

4. 24/7 Customer Support 

Why it’s important: Even affordable hosting can come with technical issues, and reliable, accessible customer support is essential. 24/7 support ensures that you can resolve issues quickly, no matter the time of day, which is critical for minimizing downtime and keeping your website running smoothly. 

What Matters Most When Choosing a Cheap cPanel Hosting Plan?

Before diving into the best options, there are some important factors to consider when deciding on a budget-friendly cPanel hosting plan: 

• Transparent Pricing: Many services advertise ultra-low prices but then dramatically increase renewal fees. Look for hosts that offer clear and predictable pricing. 
• Performance & Uptime: Affordable doesn’t have to mean unreliable. Choose a plan with a proven uptime record and fast page load speeds. 
• Essential Features: SSL certificates, daily backups, malware protection, and free email accounts should be included. 
• Payment Flexibility: Some providers offer monthly billing, so you’re not locked into a long-term contract. 
• Customer Support: Even budget-friendly plans should offer dependable support teams that are available 24/7. 

If you browse Reddit’s web hosting discussions, you’ll find that many users recommend looking for reliable customer support as one of the most important factors a web host can provide. Users also recommend researching server locations, compatibility, customer support, whether or not they have cPanel, and the ease of website migration when choosing a hosting provider. Finally, they confirm that: “Every hosting service is different, you’ll have to do your own research to figure out which one suits your needs best”. 

Now, let’s explore the most affordable cPanel hosting solutions that provide you real value for money. 

cPanel Solo: The Most Affordable cPanel License

If you’re looking for the cheapest way to use cPanel, consider cPanel Solo. This license is designed for individuals managing just one website and offers all the essential features of cPanel at a much lower cost than full hosting packages. 

Why Choose cPanel Solo? 

• A budget-friendly solution for freelancers, bloggers, and small business owners. 
• Gives you full control over your hosting environment without needing a reseller or multi-account setup. 
• Access to essential cPanel tools like email management, file control, and security settings. 
• Ideal for those who want a cost-effective, simple hosting experience. 

If you’re looking for a simple, reliable, and affordable way to manage your website, cPanel Solo is the best choice. Get started today and take full control of your hosting environment! 

How to Choose the Best Cheap cPanel Hosting 

When choosing an affordable cPanel hosting solution, keep in mind: 

• Look for transparent pricing to avoid unexpected renewal hikes. 
• Focus on performance and uptime to ensure your website runs smoothly. 
• Make sure customer support is reliable in case you need help. 
• Consider cPanel Solo, designed for use by a single user. It offers unlimited website management, making it an excellent choice for individuals or small businesses looking for an affordable way to manage multiple sites.

By making sure you have all of the information before making your choice, you can get a great deal on cPanel hosting without sacrificing quality.

The post Cheap cPanel Hosting: The Best Affordable Options Available appeared first on cPanel.

What Is “upload_max_filesize” in PHP?

The upload_max_filesize directive is a PHP variable set in the system and local php.ini files and user.ini files. These determine the PHP interpreter’s baseline configuration. As you might expect, upload_max_filesize limits the maximum allowable size of an uploaded file. The PHP default is 2 Megabytes, and you will have to increase it if you want to upload larger files via a PHP web application.

You may also have to adjust other directives, including:

• post_max_size, which must be larger than upload_max_filesize.
• memory_limit, which should be larger than post_max_size.

PHP directive values are expressed in bytes. If you set upload_max_filesize to 1000, the maximum size is 1000 bytes. However, you can also use the shorthand byte values K, M, and G for kilobytes, megabytes, and gigabytes. So, 1000K is 1000 kilobytes and 10G is 10 gigabytes.

How to Increase the PHP Max Upload Size in cPanel?

In cPanel, you can edit PHP directives for locations and domains controlled by your account with the MultiPHP INI Editor, which you will find under Software in the main page menu.

Open the MultiPHP INI editor and select a location from the dropdown.

Scroll to the entry for upload_max_filesize and edit the associated value. Ensure that the value for post_max_size is larger than upload_max_filesize, and click apply at the bottom of the page.

How to Change the PHP Max Upload Size in WHM?

Whereas cPanel allows you to edit PHP directives in local directories, in WHM you can edit directives in the server’s main php.ini file. This affects all accounts using a particular PHP version.

To increase the PHP upload limit in WHM, open MultiPHP INI Editor from the Software section of the sidebar menu. In the dropdown, select a PHP version. PHP versions have independent configurations, so you must edit the max upload variable for all versions you wish to change.

Scroll to upload_max_filesize and edit the adjacent value before clicking Apply at the bottom of the page. Ensure that post_max_size is at least as large.

To learn more about editing PHP directives and what the customizable directives do, take a look at the MultiPHP INI Editor for WHM documentation.

As always, if you have any feedback or comments, please let us know. We are here to help in the best ways we can. You’ll find us on Discord, the cPanel forums, and Reddit. Be sure to also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The post How To Increase the PHP Max Upload Size in cPanel®? appeared first on cPanel.

In this article, we outline a three-step process for changing a server’s shared IP address. Changing the main shared IP is straightforward, but we assume you would like to add a new IP address, change the primary shared hosting address, and migrate existing shared hosting accounts to the new address. You can complete each of these tasks quickly within cPanel & WHM.

To follow along, you need root access to a server managed with cPanel & WHM—we’ll be working in the WHM server administration interface. We’ll focus on IPv4 addresses, but a similar process also works for IPv6 addresses.

How to Add a New IP Address to Your Server

First, you will need to arrange for a new IP address with your hosting provider. They will supply an IP from their available address space and configure their network to connect it to your server. In addition to the IP address, you also need the network’s subnet mask. Subnet masks depend on the network’s configuration, so you may have to ask your hosting provider which to use.

Once you have a new IP address, you can configure your server to use it with WHM’s ‌Add a New IP Address tool, which you will find under IP Functions in the WHM sidebar menu.

For more information about adding a new IP address, see How To Redirect An IP To A Domain & Configure Domain Redirects In cPanel.

How to Change Main Shared IP Address

Now that your new IP address is available for use within cPanel & WHM, the next step is to change the main shared IP address. The new address will be used when you create cPanel accounts in the future. Changing the IP address doesn’t migrate existing shared hosting accounts, but we’ll explain how to do that in the next section.

You can change the shared hosting IP address in WHM’s Basic WebHost Manager Setup tool.

In Basic WebHost Manager Setup, scroll to the Basic Config section. The first entry configures the IP address used when creating new virtual hosts for shared hosting accounts. Enter the new address, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click save.

Do not enter an IP address that you have not already added to cPanel with the process we described in the previous section.

Migrate Shared Hosting Accounts to the New IP Address

Migrating cPanel accounts to use the new IP is the most complex of the three stages we’re looking at today. But it’s relatively straightforward with WHM’s IP Migration Wizard. Before we begin, you should be aware that:

• You should not add new cPanel accounts during the migration process. If you do, they may not use the new IP address. It’s better to wait until the migration is complete, after which all newly created accounts will use the correct address.
• The full migration process can take up to 48 hours to complete. The server-side changes happen more quickly, but DNS caches across the internet need time to update.

Before we begin, it’s worth emphasizing that the IP Migration Wizard does not add new IPs to your server. You should follow the instructions in this article’s first section to add the new IP addresses before migrating cPanel accounts.

The IP Migration Wizard will walk you through the migration process step-by-step. You should complete each step and pay close attention to the information the wizard displays, including any error messages.

The IP migration steps are as follows:

1. Enter the new IP address.
2. Confirm the changes. WHM displays a list of current IPs mapped to new IPs so you can verify the accounts and domains that are being migrated. Make sure the planned changes are what you expect. If you confirm and wish to reverse the migration later, you can rerun the IP Migration Wizard, but it may take up to 48 hours to return to the previous configuration. You can also download the translation matrix, a list of domains with their new and old IP addresses.
3. cPanel implements configuration changes. This includes updating Apache, FTP, and cPanel configuration files. The new IP address is activated, but the old address is retained so domains continue to be accessible while DNS records are updated.
4. DNS migration. The DNS zone files are updated. Be sure to note any errors displayed before progressing to the next step.
5. DNS propagation. We recommend that you log out of WHM and wait 48 hours while DNS records propagate. When the waiting period is over, log back in and re-open the IP Migration Wizard. If all is well, it will display a message announcing that the migration is complete.

You have now changed the main IP address used with shared hosting accounts and migrated existing accounts to the new address. If you intend to continue using the old IP address on the server, there is nothing more you need to do. However, if you want to delete the old IP address, you should follow the instructions in the IP Migration Wizard documentation.

If you experience issues connecting to domains using the new IP, ensure that DNS and reverse DNS records are correctly configured. You can check DNS records in WHM’s DNS Zone Manager. You may need to contact your hosting provider for help with reverse DNS configurations.As always, if you have any feedback or comments, please let us know. We are here to help in the best ways we can. You’ll find us on Discord, the cPanel forums, and Reddit. Be sure to also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The post How to Change the Main Shared IP Address on cPanel® appeared first on cPanel.

When you log in with SSH, you must supply authentication credentials. These are usually your cPanel account’s username and password. However, password-based logins are not as secure as we might like. Users often choose easy-to-guess passwords. Even if they don’t, malicious bots will bombard SSH with brute force and dictionary attacks, consuming the server’s resources.

SSH keys are an alternative way to authenticate using public-key cryptography and a pair of cryptographic keys—one public and one private. SSH keys are more secure because they are not vulnerable to guessing attacks. We discussed SSH keys briefly in How To Use PuTTY SSH With cPanel. In this article, we’ll dig a little deeper into how public key cryptography works, show you how to generate public-private key pairs with cPanel, and how to use them to authenticate with SSH.

What is Public Key Cryptography?

Cryptography is the science of secrecy. Cryptographers design secure communication systems, and encryption is their most important tool. Simply put, encryption scrambles messages so they can’t be read. You start with a message called the plaintext and convert it to nonsense, which is called the ciphertext. Decrypting reverses the process, converting ciphertext back into readable plaintext.

Symmetric encryption is the most familiar type. You need two things to encrypt a message: a key and an encryption algorithm. The key is a string of letters and numbers. The algorithm is a set of instructions for combining the key with the plaintext to create the ciphertext. To decrypt the message, you give the same key and the ciphertext to a related algorithm, and it spits out the plaintext. Only someone with the key can decrypt the message.

For symmetric encryption to work, the sender and recipient have to share a secret, the key. But what if you want to encrypt a message where there is no shared secret? This is a common need on the internet. For example, I want to send a secret message to a friend. I can encrypt it, but how do I get the key to them? I can’t just send it over the internet because someone spying on my connection could intercept it and decrypt the message too.

The solution is public-key cryptography, which is also called asymmetric encryption. With public-key cryptography, we use two keys, a public key and a private key. Only the private key can decrypt messages encrypted with the public key. Only the public key can decrypt messages encrypted with the private key.

When I want to send a secret message to my friend, I ask them to send me their public key. I use it to encrypt the message and send them the ciphertext. They use their private key to decrypt it. Provided they keep the private key secret, anyone with the public key can send a message only they can read.

Public key cryptography has two significant consequences. The first is that there are no shared secrets. The second is that the person with the private key can prove who they are by decrypting a message. If I encrypt a message that says “hello” with a person’s public key, and they tell me, “You said hello, ” I can be certain they have the private key. It might not be obvious why that matters yet, but it’s the foundation of online security, including HTTPS encryption and SSH keys.

SSH Keys: SSH Authentication with Public Key Cryptography

SSH key authentication uses the mechanism we just described to verify your identity when you want to log in to your server.

It works like this:

• You create a pair of keys, one public and one private. You upload the public key to the server, and you keep the private key secret on your local computer.
• When you connect to the server with SSH, the client on your computer tells the SSH daemon which public key is yours.
• The server creates a random string of letters and numbers, which it encrypts with your public key and sends to the client.
• The client decrypts the message using the private key. Remember, only your private key can decrypt messages encrypted with your public key.
• The client takes the decrypted message, hashes it, and sends the hash back to the server. A hash is a sort of one-way cryptographic function. The same string always produces the same hash. 
• The server now hashes the original message and compares it to the hash sent by the client. If they match, it proves you have the private key and you are authenticated.

Provided you keep the private key secret, this method of authentication is reliable and secure. It isn’t vulnerable to brute-force and dictionary attacks. It also helps avoid the problems that arise when users think “pa55word” is an ingenious solution to their password management problems. Of course, all bets are off if the private key is stolen, but that’s a limitation of all authentication mechanisms.

How to Generate Public and Private Keys with cPanel

To use SSH keys, you need a key pair. There are several ways to create key pairs, but one of the easiest is cPanel’s SSH Access tool, which you’ll find in the Security section of cPanel’s main menu.

1. Open SSH Access and click Manage SSH Keys.
2. Click Generate New Key.
3. Enter a name for your keys, or you can create a key pair with the default name “id_rsa.”
4. Enter a password for an additional layer of security. Be sure to copy the password and store it safely. It won’t be displayed again, and it can’t be recovered.
5. Click Generate Key at the bottom of the page.

The next step is authorizing the public key so you can use it for SSH authentication.

1. Return to the Manage SSH Keys interface, as described above.
2. Find the key you just created under Public Keys.
3. Click Manage and then Authorize on the next page.

Finally, we have to download the private key to our local machine (see below for Microsoft Windows^® and PuTTY instructions).

1. Once again, go to the Manage SSH Keys tool.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the page, where you’ll find your Private Keys.
3. Click View/Download next to the new private key.
4. Click the Download Key beneath the text box that displays the key.

The private key is downloaded to your browser’s default download folder. You should move it from there to a safe location. If you would like to make it the default key for your local computer’s user, move the file to the following directory on Mac and Linux, replacing “username” with your local computer’s username.

/home/username/.ssh

If you use PuTTY on Windows, you must first convert the private key to PuTTY’s native PPK format.

1. Navigate to your private keys in cPanel as described above and scroll to the bottom of the page.
2. Enter the passphrase associated with your key.
3. Click the Convert button, and then Download Key.
4. You can now select the PPK file when connecting to your server with PuTTY, as we outlined in How To Use PuTTY SSH With cPanel.

Log in To cPanel Servers with SSH Keys

If you have followed the walkthrough, you now have an authorized public key in place on your server. The private key is stored on your local machine. To use the keys, you simply tell SSH where to find the private key when you open a connection.

On Linux and Mac, the terminal command to initiate an SSH connection is:

ssh -i path_to_private_key username@example.com

Replace “path_to_private_key” with the location of your new private key. You could omit this option if you stored the key file in the .ssh folder as your default.

SSH keys make your server more secure. They prevent poor password choices from exposing your server and its users to unnecessary risk. To further enhance security, server administrators may want to prevent users from logging in with passwords altogether with the SSH Password Authorization Tweak in WHM’s Security Center.

As always, if you have any feedback or comments, please let us know. We are here to help in the best ways we can. You’ll find us on Discord, the cPanel forums, and Reddit. Be sure to also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The post Secure Your cPanel Server With SSH Keys And Public Key Cryptography appeared first on cPanel.

There are many reasons you might want to clone websites on your cPanel server. Because the copies are identical to an existing website, cloning helps deploy testing and staging sites. It’s also a quick way to set up a new site using the old one as a baseline configuration. Site owners often use cloned sites to give designers and developers access to a working environment that behaves like the live environment. 

Cloning can be done on the command line, but it’s time-consuming, and it’s easy to make a mistake. cPanel & WHM automates the more error-prone steps, so you can quickly clone sites based on content management systems and eCommerce applications. 

This article looks at two strategies for cloning sites on your cPanel-managed server:

1. A generic cloning process that works for most CMS or eCommerce sites, although we will use WordPress as an example. 
2. A WordPress-specific process within WP Toolkit, which makes cloning a one-click task by automating copying and site configuration. 

We’ll start with the quickest and most convenient way to clone a WordPress site in WP Toolkit before exploring a more manual process that will also work with other content management systems. 

Cloning a WordPress Site with WP Toolkit

Open WP Toolkit and expand the detail view for the site you would like to clone. Click the Clone tool in the site’s dashboard. 

When the clone tool opens, select a subdomain and a path to clone the site to. If they don’t exist, WP Toolkit creates them for you. When you’re finished, click Start at the bottom of the page. 

WP Toolkit automatically copies the site, creates a new database and database user, configures the site to use the database, and creates a new subdomain if necessary. Once it’s done, you access the cloned site as usual. 

You can learn more about WP Toolkit’s sophisticated cloning and copying features in How to Deploy a WordPress Staging Site With cPanel or explore more of WP Toolkit’s many WordPress management features. 

How to Manually Clone a Website with cPanel

Content management systems—including WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal—are composed of two main asset types. The first is PHP code files and static files such as images, JavaScript files, and CSS. The second is information stored in the site’s database—page content, configuration settings, user information, and so on. 

To clone a site, we have to copy both, so the process looks like this:

1. Create a new folder and copy the site’s files into it. 
2. Export the original site’s database, create a new database for the clone, and import the data into it. 
3. Configure the clone to work with the new database. 

Let’s see how we’d use this process to clone a WordPress site.  We’re going to focus on cloning a site into a new directory rather than a subdomain. 

Create a Folder and Copy the Site’s Files

We can create a folder for the site’s clone and copy the files in File Manager, which you can open from the Files section of cPanel’s main page menu.

1. Select the directory containing the WordPress site you want to clone. 
2. Click Copy in the toolbar and enter a name for the new directory. To keep things simple, we’ll clone the site into a directory under public_html so that you can access it from a URL such as “example.com/wordpress_two.” 

File Manager copies the directory and all of its contents, giving you an exact duplicate of the original site’s files. 

Clone the Site’s Database

Cloning the database is a little more complicated than copying files, but it’s straightforward with cPanel’s MySQL tools. 

First, we create a new database. 

• Open MySQL Databases, which you’ll find under Databases the main page menu. 
• Enter a name for the new database under Create New Database and click the Create Database button. 

Next, we export the original database.  We’ll use phpMyAdmin, which is also under Databases in the cPanel menu. 

1. Select the original database in the sidebar.
2. Select the Export tab and make sure the Quick export method is selected. The custom method lets you change database export options, but we’ll stick with the defaults. 
3. Click Go.  

This “dumps” the database, downloading an SQL file to your local machine with the information needed to recreate the original site’s database. That’s what we’re going to do next, also using phpMyAdmin. 

1. Select the new database (the one we created in the previous section).
2. Click the Import tab. 
3. In the File to import section, click Choose File and browse to the SQL file you just downloaded. 
4. Click the Go button at the bottom of the page.

The last step in this section is to give the database a user with a password. You can use an existing database user, but we’ll add a new user and give them a unique password. 

In cPanel, navigate to the MySQL Databases page. Scroll to the Add New User section. 

1. Under Add New User, enter a username and a strong password. 
2. Click Create User, and then return to the MySQL Databases page.
3. Under Add User to Database, select the new user and the database we created in a previous section. 
4. Click Add, select “All Privileges” on the next page, and confirm the changes.

We now have the files and the database copied, but our cloned WordPress site is still configured to use the original site’s database. The next task is to configure the clone to use its own database.

Edit the Cloned Site’s Database and URL Configuration

This step is WordPress-specific, but you will have to do something similar for other content management systems. 

1. Open File Manager and select the new site’s directory. 
2. Select the wp–config.php file. 
3. Click Edit in the toolbar. 

We need to edit several fields in the MySQL settings section of wp–config.php so that WordPress can access and authenticate with the new database. 

1. Enter the new database name in the DB_NAME field.
2. Enter the user we just created in the DB_USER field.
3. Enter the user’s password in DB_PASSWORD. 

While we have wp-config.php open, we can also tell WordPress about its new URL. There are various ways to do this, but the quickest is to add the following lines, with appropriate changes, to the bottom of the file. 

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>define( 'WP_HOME', 'http://example.com/wordpress_two' );</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

<!-- wp:paragraph -->
<p>define( 'WP_SITEURL', 'http://example.com/wordpress_two' );</p>
<!-- /wp:paragraph -->

Don’t forget to click Save Changes when you’re finished. 

All being well, you should be able to load your cloned site at http://your_domain.com/your_subdirectory. If you’ve followed the examples, that will be something like http://example.com/wordpress_two. 

As always, if you have any feedback or comments, please let us know. We are here to help in the best ways we can. You’ll find us on Discord, the cPanel forums, and Reddit. You’ll find us on Discord, the cPanel forums, and Reddit. Be sure to also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The post How To Clone A Website In cPanel® appeared first on cPanel.

If you’d like to see NGINX caching in action, take a look at our recent cPanel LIVE! NGINX broadcast, which includes a configuration walkthrough and performance demonstration. 

This article takes a deeper look at what server-side caching is and why CPanel’s new NGINX caching support is such great news for web hosts and server administrators. We’ll also show you how to install NGINX caching and explore some of the configuration options. 

Server-Side Caching Explained

We use computers in many different ways, whether it’s to host websites, check a calendar, run our banking systems, or steer space vehicles into low-earth orbit. The specifics differ, but the same model underlies everything computers do: they retrieve data from a storage device, process it, and store the results.

It takes time to retrieve and process data, so we want to make it as fast as possible. We also want to make sure we don’t waste resources repeating the same operation. That’s the role of caching. It stores data generated during an expensive operation to be reused later. 

Caching aims to make information retrieval faster while consuming fewer resources. Caching is why your laptop has fast RAM and a slower hard drive—fast but expensive RAM is a cache for cheaper but slower hard drives.  It’s why your browser saves static assets from the sites you visit instead of retrieving them from a distant server over and over again. And it’s why web servers save HTML pages in memory or on disk instead of dynamically generating them each time they are requested.

The internet has several commonly used caching levels. Here are just a few:

• Client-side caching refers to the various resource caches managed by your web browser and operating system. 
• Content distribution networks (CDN) cache web page assets on servers closer to users than the primary hosting server. 
• Server-side caching stores web pages that are dynamically generated on the server. 

We’re focused on the last of these in this article: server-side caching for websites. Modern server-side content management systems and ecommerce stores generate pages dynamically. When your browser requests a web page, a CMS executes code, which makes database requests. The code combines the data with a template to create an HTML page. Without dynamic web pages, we couldn’t personalize page content, but it’s an expensive operation.

A CMS like WordPress^® generates pages dynamically for every request. That’s useful if the pages change, as they might on an ecommerce store’s cart, but it’s wasteful when every user gets the same HTML. It’s faster and more efficient to build the article’s HTML once and send the same data to everyone who visits it. 

There are various ways to achieve server-side caching, but one of the most effective is also the simplest. We swap the web server for a caching proxy. The proxy has three jobs. 

1. It receives web requests and passes them to the web server, which generates the page and sends it back to the proxy, which in turn sends it on to the browser. 
2. It stores the page it received from the web server in a cache.
3. When it next receives a request for the same page, it retrieves it from the cache and sends it directly to the browser without involving the web server.   

The proxy can find and return pages very quickly. It’s much faster than generating the page from scratch, and it consumes fewer server resources. 

Caching with NGINX

NGINX is a web server, reverse proxy, and HTTP cache. It can be used in place of the Apache web server in some scenarios, as explained in NGINX Standalone. But it can also be used as a server-side reverse proxy and cache to accelerate dynamic websites served by Apache.

NGINX is called a reverse proxy because it mediates access to one or more web servers. The clients—web browsers in this case—can’t connect directly to the web server; they have to go via NGINX. This arrangement has two benefits: 

• NGINX sees everything the web server sends out onto the internet, allowing it to cache web pages.
• It can intercept connections to the web server and send cached responses, bypassing the web server entirely. 

In the past, it was challenging to deploy NGINX as a cache for sites hosted on cPanel-managed servers. However, with the NGINX Management tool’s introduction and official support for NGINX caching, it’s straightforward. 

Server-Side Caching with cPanel and NGINX

We recently added new functionality into cPanel & WHM to make it easier to deploy NGINX as a cache on cPanel servers. For cPanel & WHM Version 96, we created the NGINX Manager interface, which can install NGINX caching for all users with a single click.

NGINX Manager also allows administrators to enable or disable NGINX caching globally and on a per-user basis. 

NGINX Caching for cPanel & WHM Version 94

Users of cPanel and WHM Version 94 and other supported versions of cPanel can also take advantage of NGINX caching. To activate it, you will need:

•  Access to the server’s root account.
• Access to WHM with EasyApache 4 installed. 

Select EasyApache 4 from the WHM sidebar menu. Click the Customize button in Currently Installed Packages. 

Click Additional Packages, and activate the switch next to NGINX. 

Click Next at the bottom of the page. On the next page, scroll to the bottom and click Provision. 

WHM will install and configure NGINX, which replaces Apache on the default HTTP ports. It also reconfigures Apache to use non-standard ports, usually 81 and 444. Finally, it activates NGINX caching for all cPanel users with accounts on the server. 

To configure NGINX cache settings,  we have provided a command-line script called ea-nginx with the same functionality as NGINX Manager. You can use ea-nginx to add and remove NGINX users, configure user and system caches, and clear the NGNIX cache. 

For example, to enable NGINX caching for a user, the command is:

/usr/local/cpanel/scripts/ea-nginx cache username --enable

Take a look at the ea-nginx documentation for more information.  

Faster Websites with cPanel and NGINX Caching

If you’re wondering whether NGINX caching is the right choice for your servers, the answer is almost certainly yes. It takes seconds to deploy, and it will significantly improve performance while reducing server load. To learn more about how we implement NGINX caching and a detailed configuration guide, check out the documentation NGINX with Reverse Proxy.

As always, if you have any feedback or comments, please let us know. We are here to help in the best ways we can. You’ll find us on Discord, the cPanel forums, and Reddit. Be sure to also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The post Accelerate cPanel® Web Hosting with NGINX® Caching appeared first on cPanel.

In this article, we’re going to explore four aspects of IP and domain name management:

• Adding a new IP address and redirecting it to a domain.
• Adding a new domain in cPanel.
• Configuring domain redirects in cPanel. 
• Configuring domain forwarding in WHM. 

To finish off, we’ll show you how to flush operating system DNS caches, solving a problem that frustrates many users when they change IP and domain configurations. 

How to Redirect a New IP to a Domain in cPanel

There are several reasons you might add a new IP address to your server. You may want to give a cPanel user or reseller a static IP address or allow a site to operate from a dedicated address. 

To add an IP address to a web server, you need:

1.  Access to its root account; we’ll be working in WHM. 
2. A new IP address from your hosting provider. They will set up their network to associate the IP with the server.

First, we’re going to let cPanel & WHM know about the IP address so it can configure the server and make the IP available for use with websites and other services. 

Navigate to Add a New IP Address under IP Functions in the WHM sidebar menu. 

Enter the new IP address and a subnet mask. If you don’t know which subnet mask to enter, ask your hosting provider. The mask indicates which part of the address is used for the network and which part for devices on that network. It differs depending on the host’s configuration, but every IP on your server should use the same subnet mask. 

Click Submit to finish. If you make a mistake, you can delete the new address in Show or Delete Current IP Addresses. 

Now the address is added, you can associate it with hosting and reseller accounts or individual websites. We’ll show you how to change an existing site’s IP address to the new one. 

Open the List Accounts page from the Account Information submenu.  Choose the account associated with the domain you want to change and click the “+” next to the domain. 

Click the Change IP Address button, and then select the IP we just added from the drop-down menu.

Changing the site’s IP will make it unavailable at its old IP, and should expect it to appear offline for some time. 

How to Add a New Domain to cPanel

Adding a new domain is a more common task than adding an IP address, so let’s look at how you can do it in less than a minute with cPanel. We’re assuming you have already purchased your domain from a registrar and that your account’s DNS servers are correctly configured. You can learn more about DNS server configuration in How to Configure DNS Nameservers with cPanel and The DNS Zone For Beginners.

 First, open the Domains page in cPanel.

Click Create a New Domain.

Enter the domain name and a document root for the site’s files. The default document root is shared between this domain and the account’s main domain, but you can choose any other directory under your home directory. 

Click Submit, and you’re done! You can now go ahead and create your new site. 

Configuring Domain Redirects in cPanel & WHM

We’ve explored redirecting IPs to domains and adding new domains, but what if you want to redirect one domain to another? This is a frequent request when, for example, a brand changes its domain but doesn’t want its old links to break. 

Domain Redirect Codes Explained

Before we get to configuring redirects, it’s helpful to understand the two main types and their impact on browsers and search engines. When a web client requests a redirected page, the server sends a response that includes the page’s new URL and an HTTP status code.  

There are dozens of status codes, but we’re interested in those beginning with “3” because they indicate redirection. Although there are several 3xx codes, most of the time, you’ll choose either 301 or 302. 

• A 301 redirect means the page has moved permanently. It prompts HTTP clients such as browsers and search engine crawlers to update their caches. 
• A 302 redirect means “Found,” but it’s most often used to tell HTTP clients the page has moved temporarily. The page isn’t available at the old URL now, but it might be in the future, so there’s no need to update caches. 

You might be wondering why “Found” is used for “Moved Temporarily,” especially when there is also a 307 Moved Temporarily code that says what it means.  

There is debate in the SEO world about the relative merits of these codes, but the consensus is that 302 should be used when the URL changes temporarily; browsers and web crawlers understand it to mean that, even if it isn’t explicit. A 307 code is, for the most part, interpreted in the same way, but there are fringe cases, so it’s better to stick with 302. 

How to Configure Domain Redirects in cPanel

You can redirect an entire domain or just individual pages, but we’ll focus on redirecting everyone who visits the domain. 

In cPanel, select Redirects from the Domains section of the main page menu. 

On the Redirects page, select Permanent (301) or Temporary (302) from the first dropdown menu. From the second dropdown, choose the domain you wish to redirect. If we were redirecting a page, we’d enter the path in the following field, but we can leave it blank.

Finally, add the new destination domain, including the protocol (https://),/ in the Redirects to field and click Add.  

In the most straightforward case, that’s all you need to do, but there are also options to configure how the “www” subdomain is treated and a Wild Card Redirect option, which will redirect all of a site’s pages to the same URL. 

How to Configure Domain Forwarding in WHM

In most circumstances, you should use cPanel’s domain redirection functionality to create 301 and 302 redirects, but you can also forward domains in WHM. Forwarding is often used to temporarily redirect visitors while a site undergoes maintenance, and it behaves differently from the redirects we’ve already looked at. 

Whereas redirection is carried out on the client—the browser is given the information it needs to load the page—forwarding is a server-side operation; it’s invisible from the browser’s perspective because it’s handled by the server and the domain name system. 

In the WHM sidebar menu, select Setup/Edit Domain Forwarding under Domain Functions.  Click the Click to Create button and then the Set Up Forwarders button.

The Domain Forwarding interface is straightforward. Add the domains you would like to forward in the left column and the destination domain in the right column. When you’re done, click Save Map. 

In addition to setting up the domain forwarder, you must also ensure that the domain resolves to the IP address displayed at the top of the setup page. You can make sure it does by checking and, if necessary, editing the domain’s A record. You can do this in WHM’s DNS Zone Manager, as described in our documentation, or in your domain registrar’s DNS record editor if you are using their nameservers. 

How to Flush Your Operating System’s DNS Cache

When you edit domain records or change IP addresses, you may find that you can no longer access a site on the server. Instead of loading the site’s pages, you get a 404 “Not Found” error. That may be because the DNS record changes haven’t propagated, but it can also be caused by stale entries in your operating system’s DNS cache. 

DNS records change infrequently, and it takes time to make a request to domain name servers. It’s often quicker to make a DNS request and cache the results for a while. That way, the domain’s IP address can be read from the cache, which is much faster than getting it from a DNS server across the internet.

However, if you make a change and the DNS record no longer matches your cache, you won’t be able to load the site. On most operating systems, it’s straightforward to clear the cache, forcing the OS to get fresh data.

Microsoft^® Windows 10

Launch the command prompt by entering “cmd” in the start menu search box, right-clicking on Command Prompt, and selecting Run as Administrator. Enter the following command:

ipconfig /flushdns 

All being well, you’ll see the message: “Windows IP configuration successfully flushed the DNS Resolver Cache.”

macOS^®

On OS X Yosemite and later, open your preferred terminal emulator or type “terminal” into Spotlight. Enter this command followed by the administrator account’s password.

sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

On older versions of macOS, use the following command instead:

sudo discoveryutil mdnsflushcache

CentOS

Run the following in a terminal window:

systemctl restart dnsmasq.service

See our documentation for information about clearing the DNS cache in other operating systems. 

Straightforward Domain Management with cPanel & WHM

cPanel & WHM makes it easy to handle all aspects of IP address and domain name management, whether it’s adding new IP addresses and domains, redirecting domains, or editing zone files. We’ve only scratched the surface of what’s possible in this article; if you’d like to learn more, check out the feature overview and our comprehensive documentation.

As always, if you have any feedback or comments, please let us know. We are here to help in the best ways we can. You’ll find us on Discord, the cPanel forums, and Reddit. Be sure to also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

The post How To Redirect An IP To A Domain & Configure Domain Redirects In cPanel^® appeared first on cPanel.

Once logged in, you can access the full suite of Linux command-line tools, interact with the cPanel & WHM API utilities, and create scripts that automate admin tasks. In this article, we’ll show you how to log in via SSH with PuTTY SSH, including two ways to authenticate with the server: a username/password combination and the more secure SSH keys. 

What is the PuTTY SSH Client?

The PuTTY SSH client is a collection of GUI tools for managing and interacting with SSH sessions. Its main components are an SSH session manager and a terminal emulator. It also includes a set of helper tools, including an SSH key generator, which we’ll look at later in this article. 

PuTTY is compatible with several operating systems, although it is primarily used on Microsoft Windows^® because, until recently, Windows did not have a built-in SSH client. 

Accessing cPanel Servers via SSH with PuTTY

To follow the walkthrough in this article, you will need to install PuTTY on your local computer. You also need access to a server or hosting account that allows SSH connections, as well as your cPanel account’s username and password. 

Logging in to your hosting account with a username and password is straightforward. Once PuTTY is installed, open it from the Start menu. 

The interface looks complicated, but at the moment we’re only interested in the Hostname and Port fields. In Hostname, enter your server’s domain name or IP address. You can find the IP address in the General Information section of the cPanel sidebar. 

Unless you or your hosting provider changed the server’s SSH port, leave the Port entry on the default 22. 

Click Open at the bottom of the window and PuTTY will attempt to start an encrypted SSH session on your server. If this is the first time you’ve connected, Windows may pop up a dialog asking for permission. You’re safe to proceed if you entered the host details correctly. 

Once the connection is established, PuTTY opens its terminal emulator with a username prompt. Enter your cPanel username, press enter, and then provide your password. 

All being well, the server will authenticate you and you’ll be given a command prompt. If you’re happy to log in with your username and password, that’s all you need to know to access cPanel via PuTTY.

 Read on if you’d like to learn a more secure way to authenticate. 

How To Connect to Your cPanel Server With PuTTY SSH and SSH Keys

SSH keys are an authentication mechanism based on public-key cryptography. The user generates a key pair with a public key and a private key. As the names suggest, you keep the private key secret and upload the public key to the server.  The keys are mathematically intertwined so a cryptographic algorithm built into the SSH server can use the public key to verify ownership of the private key. 

There are several benefits to this approach. SSH keys aren’t vulnerable to brute-force and dictionary attacks; if you keep the private key secret, there is no chance of anyone guessing it. SSH keys can also use a passphrase so that they are even more secure. Unlike a password, the private key is never sent over the internet, so it can’t be snatched as it traverses the network.

SSH keys aren’t perfect: if someone has access to the machine you store the private key on, they can steal it. But they are much more secure than the passwords people usually choose.

Generating SSH Keys with PuTTY

When you installed PuTTY, you also installed the PuTTY Key Generator. Launch it from the Windows menu. It’s another complicated-looking interface, but as before we’re only interested in a couple of the features. 

If you want to use a passphrase with your keys—and you should—enter one in the Key passphrase and Confirm passphrase fields. 

Click the Generate button and PuTTY will ask you to wiggle your mouse around. This seems peculiar, but the mouse’s movement provides random data the software needs to generate keys. When you’re done wiggling, the public key is displayed in the top text field. 

Before we get to the public key, click the Save Private Key button to save the resulting .ppk file with a meaningful name. 

Uploading the Public Key to Your Server

The public key must be made available to the SSH server, and we’re going to do that by adding it to your user account’s authorized_keys file. 

Log in to your cPanel account and open the File Manager, which you’ll find in the Files section of the main page menu. Browse to the .ssh folder, select the authorized_keys file, and click the Edit button in the toolbar. 

Copy the public key from the PuTTY Key Generator and paste it at the bottom of this file; leave an empty line between existing keys and the new one. Click the Save Changes button.

Both keys are where they need to be, so we can now use them to authenticate with the server. But first, we need to tell PuTTY where to find the private key. 

Open PuTTY’s main session interface:

• Enter your server’s domain name or IP address. 
• In the left-hand sidebar, expand the Connection item, then the SSH item, and click Auth. 
• Click the Browse button and select the .ppk file you saved earlier. 
• Click the Open button at the bottom of the window.

PuTTY will now attempt to use the private key to authenticate with the server. It opens the terminal emulator and asks for your username and the passphrase associated with the key (if you used one). If you supply the correct credentials, you’ll be logged in to the server’s command line. 

Finally, you can save the session details in the main interface so that you don’t have to specify a private key and domain name every time you log in. 

PuTTY SSH is a useful tool that became popular when Windows lacked a built-in SSH client. It’s still the most powerful and feature-rich client available for Windows, but Windows 10 now includes a native SSH client. If you don’t need all the bells and whistles that accompany PuTTY, you might want to take the built-in client for a spin. 

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