cPanel

About cPanel

cPanel/WHM is a popular and widely used web hosting control panel. Learn more about cPanel/WHM on their website at http://www.cpanel.net/.

Supported Features

Management Features

This module supports the following management features within the client area:

• Change cPanel Password
• View Disk and Bandwidth usage

Installing cPanel

To install the cPanel module, visit [Settings] > [Company] > [Modules] > Available, and click the "Install" button for cPanel.

A message will be displayed, indicating that the module was successfully installed. Then click the "Add Server" button.

Enter the details for your cPanel/WHM server.

After filling out these options, click "Add Server" to add your cPanel/WHM server.

Server Groups

Server groups are useful for categorizing cPanel servers. When creating a Package, a specific server, or a server group may be selected for provisioning. Blesta will automatically select a cPanel server to provision with when a server group is chosen.

To add a server group, from the cPanel overview at  [Settings] > [Company] > [Modules] > cPanel, click "Add Server Group", then enter the details.

Configurable Options Overview

This module supports configurable options which may server settings in cPanel.

Creating Configurable Options

The following steps describe how to create configurable options. This section describes the following:

1. Creating a Configurable Option Group
2. Creating Configurable Options, and assigning them to the Group (repeat this step as necessary to create all Configurable Options required)

Creating an Option Group

To create a Configurable Option Group, visit [Packages] > Options, and click the "Create Group" button.

After filling out these options, click the "Create Group" button to create the Option Group.

Creating a Configurable Option

To create a Configurable Option, visit [Packages] > Options, and click the "Create Option" button.

After filling out these options, click the "Create Package Option" button to create the Option. Repeat as necessary to create all of the configurable options you wish to make available to the client during checkout.

Creating Packages

Packages define the pricing, welcome email, module and more. Packages can be assigned to Package Groups, and added to Order Forms. To create a Package, visit [Packages] > Browse, and click the "Create Package" button.

Creating a Package consists of several sections:

Basic

The Basic section consists of the following options:

Module Options

The Module Options section consists of the following options, which are specific to cPanel:

Pricing

Click the "Add Additional Price" to add more pricing options. It's common for people to create 1 Month, 3 Month, 6 Month, and 1 Year price options. There are many possible combinations.

Welcome Email

The "Tags" section describes tags that may be used in the welcome email. The welcome email content is inserted into the "Service Creation" email template under [Settings] > [Company] > [Emails] > Service Creation. Only details unique to this service should be entered into the welcome email section for the package.

Sample Email

This sample email could be used in the Package Welcome Email section to help you get started. Be sure to enter content for your welcome email in both the HTML and Text sections.

Your cPanel account is now active, details below:

Domain: {service.cpanel_domain}
Username: {service.cpanel_username}
Password: {service.cpanel_password}

To log into cPanel please visit https://{module.host_name}:2083.
Please update your name servers as soon as possible to the following:

{% for name_server in module.name_servers %}
Name server: {name_server}{% endfor %}

Thank you for your business!

When creating or editing a package that uses this module, the following tags will be available:

stdClass Object
(
    [host_name] => domain.com
    [name_servers] => Array
        (
            [0] => ns1.domain.com
            [1] => ns2.domain.com
		)
 )

stdClass Object
(
    [id] => 32
    [id_format] => {num}
    [id_value] => 12
    [module_id] => 4
    [name] => Package Name
    [description] => Package Text Description
    [description_html] => <h1>Package HTML Description</h1>
    [qty] => 3
    [module_row] => 6
    [module_group] => 
    [taxable] => 0
    [status] => active
    [company_id] => 1
    [id_code] => 12
    [email_content] => Array
        (
            [0] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [lang] => en_us
                    [html] => <p>Welcome email html</p>
                    [text] => Welcome email text
                )
        )

    [pricing] => Array
        (
            [0] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [id] => 43
                    [term] => 123
                    [period] => day
                    [price] => 3.0000
                    [setup_fee] => 0.0000
                    [cancel_fee] => 0.0000
                    [currency] => AUD
                )

            [1] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [id] => 42
                    [term] => 0
                    [period] => onetime
                    [price] => 2.0000
                    [setup_fee] => 0.0000
                    [cancel_fee] => 0.0000
                    [currency] => USD
                )

        )

    [meta] => stdClass Object
        (
            [package] => Bronze
            [type] => standard
        )

    [groups] => Array
        (
            [0] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [id] => 2
                    [name] => Standard Group
                    [type] => standard
                )

        )

    [package] => Bronze
    [type] => standard
)

stdClass Object
(
    [id] => 124
    [parent_service_id] => 
    [id_format] => {num}
    [id_value] => 119
    [pricing_id] => 42
    [client_id] => 3
    [module_row_id] => 6
    [coupon_id] => 
    [qty] => 1
    [status] => active
    [date_added] => 2013-03-07 18:57:45
    [date_renews] => 
    [date_last_renewed] => 
    [date_suspended] => 
    [date_canceled] => 
    [id_code] => 119
    [fields] => Array
        (
            [0] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [key] => cpanel_domain
                    [value] => domain.com
                    [serialized] => 0
                    [encrypted] => 0
                )

            [1] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [key] => cpanel_password
                    [value] => password
                    [serialized] => 0
                    [encrypted] => 1
                )

            [2] => stdClass Object
                (
                    [key] => cpanel_username
                    [value] => domainco
                    [serialized] => 0
                    [encrypted] => 0
                )

        )

    [package_pricing] => stdClass Object
        (
            [id] => 42
            [package_id] => 32
            [term] => 0
            [period] => One time
            [price] => 2.0000
            [setup_fee] => 0.0000
            [cancel_fee] => 0.0000
            [currency] => USD
        )

    [package] => stdClass Object
        (
            [id] => 32
            [id_format] => {num}
            [id_value] => 12
            [module_id] => 4
            [name] => Package Name
            [description] => Package Text Description
            [description_html] => <h1>Package HTML Description</h1>
            [qty] => 3
            [module_row] => 6
            [module_group] => 
            [taxable] => 0
            [status] => active
            [company_id] => 1
        )

    [name] => domain.com
    [cpanel_domain] => domain.com
    [cpanel_password] => password
    [cpanel_username] => domainco
)

Displaying Name Servers in the Welcome Email

The {module.name_servers} tag must be iterated over to display the name servers. Email tag usage is elaborated upon on the Customizing Emails page.

Consider an example where the module has two name servers set, named "ns1.domain.com" and "ns2.domain.com". The following can be added to the email template to output the name servers:

{% for name_server in module.name_servers %}
Name server: {name_server}{% endfor %}

The welcome email will display this as:

Name server: ns1.domain.com
Name server: ns2.domain.com

Group Membership

If this is the first Package you are creating with this module, select the "Create a New Group" option, and enter a Group name. If you are adding a subsequent Package and wish for it to be part of the same group, select "Select from Available Groups", and move the group from the right to the left of the multi-select box.

When finished, click "Create Package" to create this package.

Final Steps

The only thing left to do is to add this Package Group to an order form so clients may place orders for your cPanel servers. See Creating an Order Form for more details.

Moving cPanel Accounts

If you need to move one or more cPanel accounts to a new or different server, follow these steps:

1. Use the copy account feature in WHM to move the account to the new server.
2. Make sure the new server has been added to the module under Settings > Company > Modules > cPanel and that the new server and the old server are in the same server group.
3. Update your packages so that they are using this server group if they are not already.
4. Click to "Manage" each affected service, and an option should appear to change the server to another server in the same server group. This option will only appear if the packages are set up to use a server group rather than a specific server.
5. Repeat step 3 until all affected cPanel accounts have been updated to the new server.
6. You may remove the old server from the server group, but you should leave it in the module.
7. You may update the packages to use the new server specifically, rather than the group if you wish. This will remove the option for changing the server when managing a service, but it will remain attached to the correct server.

Importing cPanel Accounts

It's sometimes necessary to add cPanel accounts to Blesta that were created manually in WHM/cPanel, or in another system. To do so, follow these steps for each account:

1. Go to the profile for the client you want to add the cPanel account to [Clients] > [Browse] and click on the client ID, or perform a search.
2. Click Add Service under Account Actions on the left, or click the [+] button in the Services widget.
3. Select the correct Package for the plan you are adding, and Continue.
4. Select the Term, and uncheck the "Send order confirmation" and "Provision using the cPanel module" boxes. You may also wish to select "Do not Invoice" for Invoice method, but this will depend on whether you'd like to create an invoice now or not.
5. Enter the domain name and click "Continue".
6. The service should be added, now click the Manage icon next to the service on the client's profile page.
7. Enter the correct username under the "Username" field, uncheck the "Provision using the cPanel module when activated" option, and save.
8. If you need to sync the renew date to a specific day, click on the Manage link for the service again, and select "Change Renew Date" under the Actions drop down. Set the nex renew date, uncheck the "Prorate" option, and Save.
9. Repeat for each account.

Common Problems

• When I create or edit a Package using the cPanel module, the cPanel Package dropdown is blank. I have confirmed that my credentials are correct, and the module log under Tools > Logs > Module shows the following response from my WHM/cPanel server: {"package":[]}
  • There is reportedly an issue when using a reseller user that will cause the listpkg API call to return an empty set of cPanel Packages if they would cause the reseller account to exceed resource quotas. For example, the number of cPanel accounts, the amount of disk, etc. Ensure that you have not reached any resource limits in WHM/cPanel.