cPanel

cPanel is the industry-standard web hosting control panel used by hosting providers and website owners worldwide. It provides a graphical interface for managing websites, email accounts, databases, DNS, FTP, and more. WHM (Web Host Manager) is the server-level administration interface that sits above cPanel.

Software included

Component	Version
cPanel & WHM	Latest stable (release tier)
Ubuntu	24.04 LTS

Getting started

1. Connect to WHM

cPanel licenses are IP-based and are activated when you access WHM for the first time from the VM’s public IP. Open a browser and navigate to:

https://<your-vm-ip>:2087

Field	Value
Username	`root`
Password	Your VM’s root password

2. Complete the WHM setup wizard

The WHM setup wizard runs on first login. It will prompt you to:

Accept the license agreement
Enter a contact email address
Configure nameservers
Set up IP addresses and networking
Choose default packages

Work through the wizard before creating any hosting accounts.

3. Create your first cPanel account

In WHM, go to Account Functions → Create a New Account to set up a hosting account. Each account gets its own cPanel interface accessible at:

https://<your-vm-ip>:2083

Port reference

Interface	Port	Protocol
WHM (admin)	2087	HTTPS
WHM (admin)	2086	HTTP
cPanel (user)	2083	HTTPS
cPanel (user)	2082	HTTP
Webmail	2096	HTTPS
FTP	21	FTP
HTTP	80	HTTP
HTTPS	443	HTTPS
SSH	22	SSH
SMTP	25, 587	SMTP
IMAP	143, 993	IMAP
POP3	110, 995	POP3

Managing cPanel & WHM

cPanel and WHM manage their own services internally. Use WHM for all server-level changes. The cpanel command suite is available from SSH:

# Check cPanel service status
sudo /usr/local/cpanel/scripts/check_cpanel_rpms --fix

# Restart cPanel services
sudo /scripts/restartsrv_cpsrvd

# View the cPanel error log
sudo tail -f /usr/local/cpanel/logs/error_log

Security

cPanel manages its own firewall (CSF/LFD) independently of UFW. UFW is disabled in favour of cPanel’s firewall management during installation.