ServerHub Knowledge Base

cPanel is a well known, most reliable and intuitive commercial control panel for web hosting providers. With it’s rich features that can be used via a powerful graphical user interface to manage all shared, reseller and business hosting services and much more, it is hard to compare any other control panel to cPanel.

With cPanel, also comes the Web Host Manager (WHM), which makes web hosting easier for web admins as well. WHM provides root and reseller level access interface, where users can manage settings related to server administration and account management. While cPanel offers user level access interface to manage a web hosting account on the server.

Prerequisites:

– You’ll need either a Virtual Private Server (VPS) or a Dedicated Bare Metal Server. If you don’t have one already we can help you with either of these.

– Minimum 1 GB RAM (2 GB Recommended)

– Minimum 20 GB Disk Space (40 GB Recommended)

– You’ve installed an SSH client (PuTTy is our terminal of choice).

Step 1: Log on to VPS server.

First, you need to log on to your server.

Step 2: Install Perl.

Install Perl by entering the following command:

yum –y install perl 

Step 3: Download and Install WHM.

Download and run the following WHM installation script:

cd /home && curl -o latest -L https://securedownloads.cpanel.net/latest && sh latest

Step 4: Setting up WHM.

Using your web browser, go to “https://your-server-ip:2087” to access WHM.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you are using “https” to access WHM in your web browser!

When you see the following screen, login with username “root” and your root password.

Read and accept the license agreement on the following screen.

Enter your contact information and valid email address.

Scroll down, specify DNS resolvers and network device (Ethernet port), then proceed to the next step.

Now, you need to choose your nameserver configuration from 4 options. BIND is recommended. If you don’t want to run a DNS server on your local machine, you can choose the “Disabled” option.

Enter nameservers, for example “ns1.mydomain.com” and ns2.mydomain.com,” then add A Entries for your hostname.

Next, you are asked if you want to use file system quotas. The recommended option is “Use file system quotas.” Click on “Finish Setup Wizard.”

You will now see the WHM homepage.

And Alas! You are done. That’s it! You now know how to set up cPanel WHM on your VPS or Dedicated Bare Metal Server.

Now go ahead and start creating accounts.