For cPanel & WHM version 62
Overview
Before you install cPanel & WHM or cPanel DNSONLY, make certain that your system meets all of our minimum requirements for new installations.
Warning:
These requirements are the minimum requirements. A server that meets only these requirements may not function properly, especially when the server runs certain high demand functions.
License
If you do not already own a license for cPanel & WHM, you must obtain one for your IP address before you attempt the installation. Each cPanel & WHM server requires its own license. To obtain a cPanel & WHM license, visit the cPanel Store.
Warning:
You cannot transfer a single cPanel & WHM license across multiple servers. This action may cause cPanel, Inc. to lock your license. For more information, read our Legal Agreements documentation.
Notes:
- The cPanel Store offers 15-day test licenses at no cost.
- If no one has ever licensed your IP address before, you will automatically receive a trial license for your IP address.
- You do not need a license to install cPanel DNSONLY.
Networking requirements
Component | Minimum requirement |
---|---|
Hostname | A registered fully-qualified hostname that does not match any of your server's domains and resolves to a valid IPv4 or IPv6 address. |
IP addresses |
|
Ethernet device | A properly-configured Ethernet device with a static IP address and fully-qualified hostname. You cannot use an IP address that a DHCP service dynamically assigns to your server. |
Firewalls | You must disable OS firewalls before you run the cPanel & WHM installation. When the installation process finishes, configure your firewall with a third-party client. We recommend that you use APF or CSF. Important: Red Hat® Enterprise Linux (RHEL), CloudLinux™, CentOS, and Amazon Linux distributions allow you to disable the firewall for the operating system’s installation configuration. We strongly recommend that you use this method. |
Utilities | You must disable NetworkManager before you run the cPanel & WHM installation. The Network Manager service automates the network's settings and disrupts connections to the IP addresses that reside in the Warning:
|
Hardware requirements
Operating system | OS version | Processor | RAM | Disk Space | Architecture | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Minimum | Recommended | Minimum | Recommended | ||||
CentOS, CloudLinux, or RHEL | 6 | 226 MHz | 768 MB | 1 GB | 20 GB | 40 GB | 64-bit |
7 | 1 GB | 2 GB | |||||
Amazon Linux Warning: We only support Amazon Linux on the official cPanel & WHM AMI. | All versions. | 768 MB | 1 GB | 64-bit |
Hardware considerations
When you choose a server, consider the following questions:
- How many sites do you plan to host?
Servers that host a large number of websites with associated email addresses and databases require more processing power, disk space, and RAM.
- What kind of web hosting do you plan to do?
You can run cPanel & WHM with the minimum requirements below, but servers that host videos, music, or high-volume applications require more processing power, disk space, and RAM.
Notes:
- The cPanel & WHM installation and upgrade processes require at least 3 GB of additional disk space for staging purposes.
- Before the installation process begins, the system checks to ensure that your server meets these minimum memory requirements. If your server does not meet these requirements, the installation process will return an error message and then exit.
Operating systems
Note:
cPanel, Inc. supports all of the official production release kernels for these operating systems.
We currently support CentOS versions 6.5 or later.
Notes:
- Installations of cPanel & WHM on CentOS servers must use CentOS version 6.5 or later.
- We recommend that you use the
minimal
installer, especially if you choose to install CentOS 7.
We currently support CloudLinux versions 6 and 7.
Note:
For more information about CloudLinux installation, read CloudLinux's Getting Started with CloudLinux OS documentation.
We currently support Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 6 and 7.
Notes:
- Installations of cPanel & WHM on RHEL servers must use RHEL version 6 or higher.
- cPanel, Inc. does not support installation on Red Hat Update Infrastructure (RHUI) systems.
We currently support Amazon Linux.
To install Amazon Linux, follow the instructions in the Amazon Web Services documentation.
Warnings:
- We only support Amazon Linux on the official cPanel & WHM AMI. To find this AMI, navigate to the cPanel & WHM AMI download in the AWS marketplace.
- To install cPanel & WHM in a CloudLinux AMI environment, you must download the CloudLinux AMI. To find this AMI, navigate to the CloudLinux AMI in the AWS marketplace. You cannot convert a cPanel & WHM AMI server to a CloudLinux server.
We strongly recommend that you do not install cPanel & WHM on servers that rely on snapshot data (for example, Amazon EC2 Spot Instances). When these servers revert to use snapshot data, the system detects this action as a uniqueness change. This behavior causes these servers' cPanel & WHM licenses to lock due to the uniqueness changes for that server's cPanel & WHM license. A locked license disables a cPanel & WHM server.
Disable SELinux
If your server runs an operating system from a source other than the cPanel & WHM installer, you must disable SELinux to make your system compatible with cPanel & WHM.
To disable SELinux security features, use one of the following methods:
- Use the graphical interface to disable SELinux while you configure your operating system, and then reboot the server.
Edit the
/etc/selinux/config
file to set theSELINUX
parameter todisabled
, and then reboot the server.
Warning:
- To run cPanel & WHM on your server, SELinux must remain disabled.
- SELinux in enforcing mode does not allow cPanel & WHM to function properly. For more information about SELinux modes, read the SELinux Mode documentation.
- While cPanel & WHM can function with SELinux in permissive mode, we recommend that you do not use it. Permissive mode generates a large number of log entries.
- To check the status of SELinux on your server, run the
sestatus
command. - Do not transfer the SELinux configuration file between computers. It may destroy the file's integrity.
IPv6 kernel support
cPanel & WHM and cPanel DNSONLY require that your kernel includes the ipv6
module, or includes that functionality directly within the kernel.
- If your kernel does not include it in the
ipv6
module, theAF_INET6
address family must also be available. - Most distributed kernels include this support by default. However, some users of custom kernels may experience problems.
Warning:
If your kernel does not include the appropriate IPv6 support, the installation will fail.
Perl installation
Perl must exist on your server before the installation script for cPanel & WHM can run successfully. If Perl does not exist during installation, the cPanel & WHM installer attempts to install Perl via the yum -y install perl
command.
- If you see errors during this step of the installation process, read our Troubleshoot Your Installation documentation.
- For more information about Perl on your server, and which versions of Perl ship with specific operating systems, read our Guide to Perl in cPanel & WHM documentation. cPanel & WHM servers use multiple Perl environments.
Note:
We strongly recommend that you allow your operating system's distribution to control the system Perl installation. Do not customize this Perl installation.
Filesystems
When you install your operating system (OS), we recommend that you use the following filesystems:
- CentOS, CloudLinux, and RHEL 7 — Use the XFS® or
ext4
filesystems. All other supported operating systems — Use an
ext
filesystem (ext3
orext4
).
Note:
We only develop and test cPanel & WHM on filesystems that support flock. Some network filesystems (for example, NFS) may require additional configuration in order to function properly. However, these configurations are difficult to implement successfully and we do not support them.
Partitions
Partition | OS | RAM | Minimum size |
---|---|---|---|
/ | All supported operating systems. | N/A | Grow to fill disk (40 GB recommended, 20 GB minimum). Note: To host a greater number of accounts, allocate more disk space to this partition. |
swap | CentOS, CloudLinux, or RHEL 6 or 7, or Amazon Linux | 2 GB or less | Two times the amount of RAM on the server. |
2 GB to 8 GB | The same as the amount of RAM on the server. | ||
8 GB to 64 GB | Half the amount of RAM on the server. | ||
64 GB or more | 4 GB |
Note:
Additional partitions are beneficial for some servers, especially servers with high email volume. The OS can only access a limited number of files per partition.
Inodes
In Linux, an inode is a filesystem object that contains the owner, permissions, and other important metadata. Every file, image, directory, email, and symbolic link on your server requires an inode.
- On average, files on webservers are usually smaller than on other types of servers. Therefore, we recommend that you allocate more than the default number of inodes on your server's partitions.
- If you install everything on a single partition, the base cPanel & WHM or cPanel DNSONLY installation requires at least 1,000,000 inodes, plus at least 50,000 inodes per cPanel account that you plan to host.
Virtual environments
cPanel products support the following virtual environments:
Virtual environment | Additional restrictions |
KVM | None. Note: If you use a Linux bridge on a KVM server, you may experience problems with multicast routing.
|
Linux Containers | cPanel & WHM requires additional configuration to run inside a Linux Container. For more information, read our Linux Containers and cPanel documentation. |
Linux-VServer | None. |
Microsoft Server® 2008 Hyper-V, Microsoft Server 2012 Hyper-V | cPanel only supports the drivers and configurations that Microsoft provides. |
OpenVZ |
|
Oracle VM VirtualBox, VirtualBox OSE | None. |
SmartOS | cPanel & WHM detects this virtual environment and reports as functional, but we do not officially support it. |
Virtuozzo™ |
|
VMware® Server, VMware ESX Server | None. |
Xen, XenEnterprise™, XenExpress™, XenServer™ | None. |
Compatible browsers
We specifically test cPanel & WHM with certain browsers to ensure compatibility. Other browsers will likely function, but may display differently or experience issues with certain features.
We develop and test cPanel & WHM to function with the latest versions of the following browsers:
- Chrome (Mac®, Windows®, Linux)
- Firefox (Mac, Windows, Linux)
- Internet Explorer (Windows)
- Safari® (Mac)
Mobile versions of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari are also compatible with cPanel & WHM.
Note:
These browsers support some email features. The interfaces in cPanel & WHM will likely function, but you may notice minor defects or inconveniences that relate to specific functionality.
Additional documentation
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