cPanel and WHM Setup Service

What does a cPanel and WHM setup include?

A cPanel and WHM setup turns a blank Linux server into a hosting server that can safely hold customer accounts. The install is the short part. The value is in the choices made afterwards.

cPanel expects a clean machine: a supported operating system with nothing else serving websites or mail, a static IP address, a fully qualified hostname and a license bound to that IP. I verify all of that first. Then I run the official installer inside screen or tmux, so a dropped SSH session cannot stop it halfway, and finish the WHM setup wizard.

Which settings do I change on the first day, and why?

I change about a dozen settings on day one, because each is awkward to fix once customers depend on it. The table gives the reason for each.

I do not name a firewall product here on purpose. We choose one together after I see what you already run and what your provider offers. Whichever it is, I close every port the server does not need and, unless resellers must reach WHM, limit port 2087 to known addresses.

How is mail set up so it reaches the inbox?

Mail on cPanel is sent by Exim and stored by Dovecot, and it reaches inboxes when the server proves its identity with matching PTR, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records.

cPanel publishes SPF and DKIM records for domains whose DNS it hosts, and WHM's Email Deliverability page shows whether they are valid. If DNS lives elsewhere, I give you the exact records to paste. I add DMARC at p=none first, read the reports and tighten the policy only after every legitimate sender passes. I also check the IP against public blocklists, since a new address can inherit a bad history. For testing, I send to the large mailbox providers and read the headers for spf=pass, dkim=pass and dmarc=pass. When something is wrong, exim -bpc gives the queue length and /var/log/exim_mainlog gives the reason.

How do I connect the new server to WHMCS?

You connect it by creating an API token in WHM, adding that token to the server record in WHMCS and then restricting who can reach the WHM port.

1. In WHM, open Manage API Tokens and create a token with only the privileges WHMCS needs to create, suspend, unsuspend, terminate and change accounts.
2. In WHMCS, add a server of type cPanel with the hostname, the token in the field WHMCS provides for it, the secure connection enabled and port 2087.
3. Allow the WHMCS server's IP address through the firewall to port 2087 and keep that port closed to everyone else, apart from your own administrator addresses and any resellers who use WHM.
4. Press Test Connection, then push a real order through create, suspend and terminate.

Package names must match between WHM and the WHMCS product, or provisioning fails because the package cannot be found. The WHMCS side is covered in WHMCS installation and setup, and custom automation is under WHMCS API integration.

How do reseller accounts and resource limits work?

A reseller account is a WHM user who creates and manages their own cPanel accounts within limits and privileges that you set. I build reseller packages with an account cap, a disk and bandwidth allowance and a privilege (ACL) list that exposes only what a reseller needs.

Each customer account is capped by its package, and per-domain PHP-FPM settings in MultiPHP Manager, such as maximum children, limit how much CPU and memory one site can claim. Plain cPanel cannot enforce hard CPU, memory and disk I/O limits per account. A commercial isolation product such as CloudLinux is the usual add-on, and whether it is worth the license depends on how many accounts share the machine.

What I leave alone on a cPanel server

I leave generated configuration files alone, I do not install unlicensed software and I do not touch hardware. cPanel regenerates files such as /etc/exim.conf on update, so hand edits vanish. Custom Exim rules go into the Exim Configuration Manager or /etc/exim.conf.local instead. I do not use unlicensed cPanel or nulled WHMCS, and I do not buy your license for you. After the two weeks of support, running the server is your job unless we agree otherwise.

One disclosure: I am CTO at ElySpace, a hosting company, Technical Lead at Fada.cloud and a backend developer for Nuco Cloud, so weigh my views on panels and add-ons with that in mind. A fixed quote follows the scoping call, or I bill $55 to $65 per hour. Natural next steps are server hardening, monitoring and the wider server setup overview.