WHM/cPanel is a great hosting control panel that eases the server administration dramatically. It has a very easy and straightforward interface for everyday use.
However, many people don’t know the difference between WHM and cPanel. So let’s make a brief explanation.
WHM (Web Hosting Manager) is the core program that has administrative access to the back-end of cPanel. With WHM you can create cPanel accounts and set global settings that apply to them or the server. You can also create reseller accounts and offer hosting services to clients or you can use it for your own personal needs.
cPanel, on the other hand, is the website management panel and allows you to create databases, email accounts, FTP users, add-on domains, subdomains etc. Each individual cPanel account controls the settings for that particular account.
According to WHM/cPanel every 6 seconds a domain is created using a cPanel account and every 14.5 seconds a cPanel hosting account is created online. Those are staggering stats that show the usage of WHM/cPanel around the world.
Therefore in this article, we will cover 6 common WHM/cPanel problems that people encounter when using the control panel.
Table of Contents
1. cPanel accounts have unlimited quota
Even though you have specifically set different quota values for your cPanel accounts, they all show unlimited quota settings.
Therefore, log into your server via SSH and execute the below command as root:
# /scripts/fixquotas
2. I cannot log into my cPanel account
Sometimes you are trying to log into your cPanel account via your domain – https://your_domain:2083 or your_domain/cpanel however you cannot open that URL or cannot log in even though you are using the correct username and password.
These issues usually happen when the DNS changes are not propagated completely throughout the Internet. So until they are, you can access your cPanel account at: https://your_LinuxVPS_IP:2083/. Or if you need to access WHM, visit: https://your_LinuxVPS_IP:2087.
There is another mistake that people usually do and that is to try and log into a cPanel account using user@domain.com as username when in fact they need to use the actual cPanel username which is not an email address. In WHM you can see all the created cPanel accounts and their usernames by navigating to: Home »Account Information »List Accounts.
3. The SSL certificate for cPanel on server.example.com will expire in less than 30 days
This warning is displayed via email or when logging into WHM/cPanel on the secure ports and usually is for a self-signed certificate that the server uses. How to solve it? Easy, just log into WHM and go to Home »Service Configuration »Manage Service SSL Certificates. Then click on Reset Certificate in the row for the respective service. Do not do this for SSL certificates purchased from a trusted authority.
4. You do not have permission to create subdomains of the server’s hostname
You want to create a subdomain in the account that has the same domain as your server hostname. And you are doing the regular work that you always do when creating a subdomain. However, you get this error message. Why?
This happens because the subdomain you want to add is a subdomain of the domain in the server’s hostname. To remedy this you need to log into WHM and go to Home »Server Configuration »Tweak Settings. Then locate the following option: “Allow users to park subdomains of the server’s hostname” and set it to on. Then click on Save.
5. Sorry, the domain is already pointed to an IP address that does not appear to use DNS servers associated with this server.
This problem happens when trying to create an addon domain in a cPanel account and that domain is using DNS servers that do not belong to your server. The full message is:
Sorry, the domain is already pointed to an IP address that does not appear to use DNS servers associated with this server. Please transfer the domain to this servers nameservers or have your administrator add one of its nameservers to /etc/ips.remotedns and make the proper A entries on that remote nameserver.
There are two ways to fix this:
- Log into WHM and navigate to Home »IP Functions »Configure Remote Service IPs. Then click on the second tab on the right “Remote Name Server IPs” and enter the domain’s remote DNS server IP address/es. You should enter one address per line. Then click on Save.
- From your WHM go to Tweak settings (Home »Server Configuration »Tweak Settings) and find the “Allow Remote Domains” option. Set it to On and click on Save. However, please note that this is not recommended as per the description say: “Allow creation of parked/addon domains that resolve to other servers (e.g. domain transfers) This can be a major security problem. If you must have it enabled, be sure not to allow users to park common Internet domains.” So if you set this to On, after creating the add-on domain, make sure you set it back to Off.
6. Roundcube database error
When logging into RoundCube you get the following error:
DATABASE ERROR: CONNECTION FAILED! Unable to connect to the database!e Please contact your server-administrator.
To fix this, log into your server via SSH as root and run:
# /usr/local/cpanel/bin/update-roundcube --force
These errors albeit common, can cause problems for the control panel users, wasting their precious time in the process. So we are sure that you will find this article very useful.
Of course, you don’t have to do any of this if you use one of our Optimized CPanel Hosting services, in which case you can simply ask our expert Linux admins to help you regarding any problem or configuration for your WHM/cPanel server. They are available 24×7 and will take care of your request immediately.
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