Author Archives: AndrewT

Behind the Scenes: Infrastructure Updates

It has been a little quiet here on our blog lately, but rest assured — we’ve been anything but idle behind the scenes. We wanted to take a moment to share a quick update on what’s been happening and some of the improvements we’ve made over the past several months.

Network & Infrastructure Updates

Last month, we completed a migration of our offsite DNS cluster. This change was part of a larger effort to strengthen the reliability and performance of our overall hosting environment.

Additionally, several other services — including our website, client portal, monitoring system, and offsite backups — have also been relocated. Previously, both our primary hosting location in Dallas and our offsite services in Atlanta shared the same upstream provider. To improve network diversity and resilience, we’ve moved our offsite services from Atlanta to a new upstream provider in Chicago.

This change helps further distribute our infrastructure across multiple providers and regions.

Software & Platform Maintenance

As always, keeping systems current and secure remains an ongoing priority. Our team continues to test and deploy software updates across our hosting platform.

While cPanel updates have slowed a bit this year, there have still been a couple noteworthy changes. This includes the addition of a temporary domain functionality and the removal of PHP Composer from the default installation (we now maintain our own instance).

Looking ahead, we’re keeping a close eye on the upcoming cPanel 132 release, which will introduce Dovecot 2.4. We’ll be monitoring this transition carefully to ensure a smooth experience for all customers.

Continuing to Improve

We’re committed to providing a hosting platform that’s both stable and forward-looking. These updates are part of our ongoing effort to improve performance, security, and network diversity — all while maintaining the high level of reliability our clients expect.

As always, we appreciate your continued trust and support.

PHP 8.4 Now Available

We’re pleased to announce that PHP 8.4 is now available on all of our servers. You can easily change the PHP version per cPanel account via the “Select PHP Version” section in cPanel.

PHP 8.4 comes with numerous improvements and new features such as:

The full change log for version 8.4 can be found on PHP’s website here and the migration guide is also available. Please consult these for a detailed list of new features and backward incompatible changes. For third party applications, it’s best to confirm that they support PHP 8.4 before making the switch. However, if you run into any issues you can quickly and easily revert back to your prior version.

Please note that only a limited number of extensions are currently available for PHP 8.4. We will continue to make new ones available as soon as they are offered. We now offer secure versions of PHP 5.6 through 8.4 which are all easily selectable from within cPanel. Version 8.2 is now the default for all new cPanel accounts while existing accounts will continue to retain their prior settings.

cPanel Teams – Enabling Multi-User cPanel Access

A frequent question from clients over the past 20 years has been “How do I grant someone else access to my cPanel?” and up until recently there hasn’t been a solution other than providing the individual with the cPanel account’s login information. This is where cPanel’s relatively new Manage Team feature steps in and allows you to create team users within cPanel, granting them a selection of privileges to the cPanel account.

To get started, you’ll first need to create a feature list within WHM with the “Manage Team” feature enabled. To avoid confusion for clients that don’t require this functionality, we do not enable it by default. You can then edit your packages to use this feature list where necessary. After this is completed, you’ll notice that the left menu of cPanel now has a “Manage Team” link.

Upon selecting the “Manage Team” menu item, you’ll be presented with a list of your current team users along with options to create users and view the audit log. As you can see below, this demo account has one user present with the “Database” role selected. You can also see when the user was created and when they most recently logged in. Continue reading →

Server Upgrades Completed, CPU & RAM Limits Increased

Over the past several months, we have been diligently working to upgrade all of our hosting servers and we’re happy to report that these have all been completed. These upgrades bring significant hardware and software upgrades to every client, details of which can be found in our previous blog post.

The servers themselves received significant increases in RAM, processing power and storage performance. Most notably, all client data is now stored exclusively on new NVMe storage arrays which are already proving to be very beneficial.

With these additional hardware resources now available, we’re excited to announce that CPU and RAM limits have been doubled for all cPanel accounts. This means that instead of cPanel LVE limits being set to 1 CPU core and 1GB of RAM, these are now set to 2 CPU cores and 2GB of RAM. While the majority of accounts don’t come close to needing these additional resources, we’ve seen the positive impact this has had on some busier sites dealing with traffic spikes and abusive bots.

We hope you find these upgrades to be helpful and, as always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if we can be of any assistance!

Upcoming Changes: PHP 5.4, 5.5 Removal & MariaDB 10.6

Over the next few months, we will once again be revamping all of our hosting servers. We’re excited to deploy hardware upgrades across the board, including additional processing cores and RAM as well as NVMe SSD storage arrays. One of our goals has always been to provide the best performance possible and these upgrades will enable us to continue doing so.

We’ll also be making the switch from CloudLinux 7, which will reach end of life soon, to CloudLinux 9. This will make for some meaningful upgrades to a lot of core system software and libraries such as OpenSSL. We’ve been eagerly awaiting cPanel’s official support of CloudLinux 9 to move forward and have already deployed it and AlmaLinux 9 across all of our internal systems with great success. While the operating system upgrade doesn’t have a significant impact to hosted accounts, there are a couple of related changes that you should be aware of.

 

PHP 5.4 & 5.5 Removal

CloudLinux 9 no longer supports PHP 5.4 and PHP 5.5 so these will no longer be available for you to use. All accounts still using these very old versions will be switched to PHP 5.6 before servers are upgraded. We encourage you to use PHP 8.1 or newer wherever possible. As always, you can continue to select your desired PHP version via the “Select PHP Version” section of cPanel.

MariaDB 10.6

Replacing servers also provides us with a great opportunity to upgrade the database server software; so MariaDB will be upgraded from 10.5 to 10.6. For most users, this will not be a noticeable change unless you’re planning to use new functionality that the upgrade will provide. Please make sure that your scripts are kept updated as usual and you won’t run into any issues.

 

All clients can expect to receive a notification with further details as soon as their server’s upgrade is scheduled. If you have any questions meanwhile, please submit a ticket and we’ll be happy to answer them.

PHP 8.3 Now Available

We’re pleased to announce that PHP 8.3 is now available on all of our servers. You can easily change the PHP version per cPanel account via the “Select PHP Version” option in cPanel.

PHP 8.3 comes with numerous improvements and new features such as:

The full change log for version 8.3 can be found on PHP’s website here and the migration guide is also available. Please consult these for a detailed list of new features and backward incompatible changes. For third party applications, it’s best to confirm that they support PHP 8.3 before making the switch. However, if you run into any issues you can quickly and easily revert back to your prior version.

Please note that only a limited number of extensions are currently available for PHP 8.3. We will continue to make new ones available as soon as they are offered. We now offer secure versions of PHP 5.4 through 8.3 which are all easily selectable from within cPanel. Version 8.1 is now the default for all new cPanel accounts while existing accounts will continue to retain their prior settings.

Gmail SPF and DKIM Authentication

Over the past few months, some clients have reported issues with Gmail not accepting their emails due to a lack of SPF and DKIM records configured on their domain. When this happens you’ll receive a bounce message similar to this:

host gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com [142.250.114.27]
SMTP error from remote mail server after end of data:
550-5.7.26 This mail is unauthenticated, which poses a security risk to the
550-5.7.26 sender and Gmail users, and has been blocked. The sender must
550-5.7.26 authenticate with at least one of SPF or DKIM. For this message,
550-5.7.26 DKIM checks did not pass and SPF check for [example.com] did
550-5.7.26 not pass with ip: [ip-address]. The sender should visit
550-5.7.26 https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126#authentication for
550 5.7.26 instructions on setting up authentication.

This primarily occurs for a few different reasons:

  • The cPanel account is very old and does not have an SPF or DKIM record configured.
  • The SPF and DKIM records were incorrectly modified.
  • The domain does not utilize our DNS and thus the records have to be manually added at the DNS host.

If you host your domain’s email with us, this can be addressed via the Email Deliverability section of cPanel. Once navigating to that section you’ll see a screen similar to below.

If the “Repair” option is available, simply select it and the necessary records will automatically be created on the domain. This should resolve your issue as soon as these changes propagate within a few hours.

If the “Repair” option is disabled as shown above, this usually indicates that the domain is not using our DNS. As such, you’ll need to either reconfigure the domain to use our DNS or manually setup the records at the domain’s DNS host. Upon selecting “Manage”, you’ll be provided with the needed DKIM and SPF record to setup at your DNS host.

Lastly, if the domain’s email is not hosted by us, you’ll need to obtain the necessary DKIM and SPF records from your email provider. These records will need to be added to the domain’s DNS zone at the DNS host. If we host the domain’s DNS, this can be done via the cPanel or WHM zone editor.

If you find yourself stuck or needing assistance at any point, please do not hesitate to submit a ticket. We’re happy to help in any capacity that we can.

PHP 8.2 Now Available

We’re pleased to announce that PHP 8.2 (8.2.2) is now available on all of our servers. You can easily change the PHP version per cPanel account via the “Select PHP Version” option in cPanel.

PHP 8.2 comes with numerous improvements and new features such as:

The full change log for version 8.2 can be found on PHP’s website here and the migration guide is also available. Please consult these for a detailed list of new features and backward incompatible changes. For third party applications, it’s best to confirm that they support PHP 8.2 before making the switch. However, if you run into any issues you can quickly and easily revert back to your prior version.

We now offer secure versions of PHP 5.4 through 8.2 which are all easily selectable from within cPanel. Version 8.0 remains the default for all new cPanel accounts while existing accounts will continue to retain their prior settings.

cPanel 106 Changes

While there aren’t any significant changes in cPanel 106, we did want to quickly highlight a few changes that you might notice or find helpful.

Customizable Favorites in WHM

The Top Tools section has been replaced with a Favorites section that you can customize to more prominently show the features that you use the most.

Server and username data added to top navigation

The username, hostname, OS, cPanel & WHM version, and load average details have returned to the top navigation bar in WHM.

Empty Junk Button in RoundCube

An Empty Junk button has been added to Roundcube. This button allows you to remove all the messages in the Junk folder at once.

Password Required to Update Contact Email Address

For security, you must now provide your password to change your cPanel contact email address.

Removed the Addon Domains, Alias Domains and Subdomains sections

These sections have been removed from the Jupiter cPanel theme. All of this functionality has long been consolidated under the Domains section / interface so this is just a removal of redundant pages.

cPanel 104 Roundcube Updates

cPanel 104 has introduced a couple of useful changes to the Roundcube webmail client. First, it now has a dark mode that is easily toggled via the icon in the lower left corner. You can see what both of these modes look like below.

You can now also train SpamAssassin directly from within the Roundcube webmail client. When selecting any email outside of the Junk folder, you have the option to select “Junk” which will move the email to your Junk folder and submit it to SpamAssassin for local spam training.

Similarly, if you select an email in your Junk folder, you’ll have the option to select “Not Junk”. This will move the email to your inbox and submit it to SpamAssassin for local ham (not spam) training.

If at any point you make a mistake, you can simply locate the email and select the opposite action.