Installing cPanel and WHM in your Server # 3

Basic Information: Default Themes and Directories

You can set up a default cPanel theme and a default home directory for all your accounts.

The Default cPanel Theme setting allows you to specify which theme you want all new accounts to use by default. This setting can be changed at the time of account setup. (See Chapters 5 and 6 for more on working with accounts.) Oddly, this item is not a drop-down box of choices. You need to manually type in the name of the default theme as it appears in the List Installed cPanel Themes item in the Themes section of WHM (see Chapter 9 in this book, or Chapter 12 in cPanel: User Guide and Tutorial, ISBN-1-904811-92-2, Packt Publishing for more about cPanel themes). The default is x, which is cPanel Inc.'s own theme, updated automatically with cPanel, so it generally will offer access to new features and content before third-party themes, which may take a while to update. If you don't know what to choose, x (X-Skin) is a good default choice.

The Default Home Directory is the name of the directory where you would like to store cPanel users' accounts including their mail, web, and FTP-related files. Typically, the default entry of /home is fine. If you have more than one hard drive or prefer that users' home directories get stored elsewhere, enter the directory name here prefixed with a forward slash (/). Entering a name here will not create that directory; it will be up to you to do so. /home is automatically created on all cPanel servers. Also, this is just the default directory. If you have more than one home directory, you can switch accounts manually between directories at any time. However, it is generally not a good idea to move an account to a different home directory unless you absolutely have to do so. This is because some web scripts require specifying the absolute path on the server to some content and if you switch the user from /home to /home2, those scripts will break until the user edits them.

The Home Directory Prefix lets WHM know what directories are home directories by specifying part of the name that every home directory will contain. This item should not contain a forward slash. The default is home and that is fine under most circumstances. Keep in mind that whatever you type here will act as a wildcard selector, matching any directory with those letters in it. For example, if the prefix is home then a directory with the name home2 or homersimpson is considered a possible location for additional user accounts. If you don't put any value in this box, WHM won't look for other home directories. This item cannot be more than a single value.

Basic Setup: User IDs and Networking

These basic settings are related to networking.

Minimum UID allows you to set a number under which new Linux users will not create new user accounts. In Linux, every new account and group gets assigned a unique number. Don't type anything into this box unless you know what you are doing because setting this number too low will cause very serious problems on your server.

Main Shared Virtual Host IP will be automatically set to the first IP address set up on this server. You can switch it to any other IP address bound to this server if you wish. Don't try to set the IP address to 127.0.0.1 (localhost) or any IP address not publicly bound to this server or no one will be able to access the accounts you set up. The main shared IP address is the one on which all new accounts that do not have a dedicated IP address specified will be bound to. You may not set this to more than one IP address. If you want resellers to use a different IP address for their shared accounts, you can set that up in the Reseller Center (see Chapter 6 for more about reseller accounts).

The Alternate Main Ethernet Device item allows you to specify which Ethernet controller is the public one (the one connected to the Internet). You can leave this blank if you wish, but if you try to add additional IP addresses to this server and that process fails even though you've entered it correctly, you probably need a different interface listed here. Most common are eth0, eth0:1, and eth1, but you should ask your host NOC what interface you should be using.

Basic Setup: Hostname, Nameservers, and DNS Values

The basic setup of WHM has options to set up the server's current hostname and up to four default nameserver.

Hostname displays your server's hostname. People who are new to the world of dedicated servers are often confused about the concept of a hostname. A hostname is a unique name for the server itself. When set up properly, you can access your server via one of its bound IP addresses or the hostname. A hostname always looks like a subdomain or what is more properly called a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). That is, it has three parts like this: servername.domain.com. It should be a real domain, something that you personally own or have control over. It should also never match the name of an existing subdomain in that domain. You could call your server powerful.myhostingcompany.com so long as you own the myhostingcompany.com domain name. You won't be able to use "powerful" as a subdomain, though, so choose carefully. (Learn more about DNS management in Chapter 7.)

When the hostname is set up properly, you will be able to access WHM using the server hostname rather than the main IP address if you prefer. You should make sure that the hostname properly resolves to this server. This means that you will have to set up an A record in the DNS zone for the domain name you are using for the server hostname. Note, changing the hostname in this area doesn't actually reset the real server hostname; you will need to do that by using the Hostname feature under the Network Setup section of WHM once installation is finished.

The Primary, Secondary, Third, and Fourth Nameserver items all do the same basic thing: Set up the nameservers that this server will use by default. You must define at least two, and you can optionally set up to four. Type the name of the nameservers you want to use in the appropriate boxes (ns1.domain.com, ns2.domain.com, etc.) and then click the Assign IP Address button next to each entry, one at a time. This should assign the nameserver an IP address from your server (unless it is already set up to point to another IP address). The box that pops up will display the nameserver's assigned IP address. Once it does that, you can close it and click the Add an A Entry for this Nameserver button, and WHM will set up a DNS zone if needed for this IP address or add an A record to an existing domain on the server if needed. You will need to log into your registrar for the nameservers you want to use and point these nameserver addresses to the IP addresses that WHM just displayed for each one. How you set this up at your registrar differs, so you should discuss the matter with your domain registrar if you are unclear what to do.

This is followed by DNS related Time to Live values.

Domain Time to Live (TTL) defines how much time (in seconds) DNS servers will cache the domain host lookup information before checking for changes and re-caching it. The default value is OK, but shorter times will cause the local DNS server to check for changes more often. Shorter values may also increase the load on the local DNS server process, since it must re-cache information more often. If you're not certain what value would be good, leave this set to the default value. All new accounts created will use this domain TTL value when the DNS zone is set up.

Nameserver Time to Live controls the default setting in seconds that nameserver values will be cached.

Master Nameserver is a depreciated setting that will probably be removed altogether at some point. It allows you to set up a master and slave relationship between multiple DNS servers. Don't bother with this feature. If you want to use a separate master nameserver (instead of one DNS server for each server you own), you will want to use the DNS Clustering feature in WHM's Cluster/Remote Access section. See Chapter 7 for more about DNS clustering.

Basic Setup: CGI and Apache Logging

In WHM you can enable or disable an alias for cgi-bin scripts. You can also change the style in which you receive your Apache logs.

The CGI Script Alias setting allows you to set the default for cgi-bin directory creation. If this item is set to y, then every new domain and subdomain will have a cgi-bin directory created so the user can use CGI scripts (like Perl scripts). Setting this to n will turn off the CGI feature by default for new accounts. You can change this setting for each account you set up.

The Apache Access Log setting can be set to combined or access. This changes what is reported in Apache raw logs. Generally, you'll probably want the added information that combined provides.

After making the necessary changes remember to click Save.

After you have finished working with the basic cPanel and WHM settings, click the Next button in the WHM sidebar to continue to the next installation step. Don't forget to come back to the Basic cPanel/WHM Setup later if you've skipped any important settings.

WHM Setup: Disk Quota Setup

This will start a process on the server that will set up disk quotas on the server so that WHM can keep track of how much disk space each user is using. This process may take a while.

Thankfully, you don't have to watch the display until the process is finished if you don't want to. You can click Next in the sidebar at any time, and the quota setup will be completed in the background while you work. Just don't reboot the server in the middle of this process.

WHM Setup: Nameserver Setup

Now you can choose to set up the local DNS server on this server. cPanel uses a program called Bind to serve DNS information about the domains on this server. Generally, you will want to set up the nameserver process.

This should not take long. Once finished, click Next Step in the WHM sidebar to continue with setup.

WHM Setup: DNS Resolvers

Now you will want to specify at least two off-server, working DNS servers. Typically, your host NOC can provide you with this information. If you don't have anything else, you can set this to two IP addresses from your own server. However, for security reasons (which we will discuss in Chapter 3) this isn't a good idea, and it is thus best if you can avoid it.

Specify at least two different IPs and then save the changes and click Next Step in the sidebar to continue with setup.

WHM Setup: Setting the MySQL Root Password

Since every cPanel server comes with MySQL (a database server) set up, you will need to set a root (master) password. Don't confuse the root user password with the MySQL root password. They are, and should always be entirely different. It is unlikely you will ever need to remember this password unless you plan to connect to the MySQL as root. Even if you do decide to do so later, you can change the MySQL root password again at any time. Make it long and random. Include upper and lower case letters and numbers, but do try to stay away from extended characters and symbols, or phpMyAdmin may not be able to connect to the MySQL server.

Type the password into the box, save the changes and then click Finish in the sidebar to finish the installation process. Congratulations on the successful setup of your server!

Summary

In this chapter, you've learned how to download and install cPanel on your server. You have also learned how to finish the installation by configuring some settings in WHM. In particular, you've configured how your server will contact you in case of problems. You now know how to set up what default themes and directories WHM and cPanel will use, and also know about minimum user IDs and basic networking interfaces.

You have learned about the server hostname, configured nameserver values and basic DNS settings, and also defined how CGI and Apache logging are handled. In addition, we have seen how to set up initial disk space quota tracking on your server, start the nameserver process (Bind), configure the DNS resolvers, and set the root MySQL password for your server.

You've finished the basic setup of your server, but there is still more work to be done before you can move paying customers onto your server.

 

Installing cPanel and WHM inyour Server # 1

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You should now have access to your dedicated or VPS server. Depending on the policies of the company you obtain your server from, it may already have cPanel and WHM … Full story

 

Installing cPanel and WHM in your Server # 2