If you run a more populated shared hosting server, sooner or later you’ll have received complaints about the dreaded park wrapper errors in cPanel that occur when a user tries to add a parked or addon domain to their cPanel. The errors may look like this:

Error from domain wrapper: domain.com is owned by another user.

Error from domain wrapper: Domain already exists, it was not added.

I’ve never really been able to attribute that error to a specific action, but my assumption is that it occurs as a result of the end user not completely removing the domain from their cPanel (i.e. hitting esc or closing the browser during removal), therefore not allowing cPanel to remove the domain’s entries to allow that domain to be re-added when certain security settings are enabled in WHM > Tweak Settings.

The easy solution to the first error is to enable the option for users to add domains owned by other users via WHM > Tweak Settings. But this is a very bad idea as it essentially allows users to repoint domains that you’re already hosting.

If you’re attempting to re-add a domain to a cPanel account and are getting one of the above errors, first check that the error needs to be corrected. Meaning, make sure that the domain in question isn’t already set up elsewhere. If it is, you would need to remove it from that account before being able to add it to another.

If the error is actually occurring due to an improperly removed domain, follow the below steps until you are able to add the domain back to the server:

1. run /scripts/killdns <domain> on the server to remove the DNS records from the DNS cluster
2. do grep -r <domain> /var/cpanel/users to see if it exists in a user file, and if so, delete the entry and run /scripts/updateuserdomains, make sure it’s remove from /etc/userdomains
3. grep -r <domain> /var/cpanel/userdata to see if the domain appears in a user’s template. If so, remove any files based on the domain name (including .cache files), and remove any subdomain/parked/addon domain entries for that domain from the ‘main’ file located in that user’s folder (i.e. /var/cpanel/templates/username/main), then /scripts/rebuildhttpconf to remove it from httpd.conf .

This should allow you to re-add the domain name to the user’s cPanel without getting the park wrapper error.

DNS clustering is part of setting up a server environment. cPanel has built-in support for DNS clustering to make it easy to deploy centralized nameservers, or have multiple nameservers receive DNS zone updates from one server. This article will help you understand setting up and managing a DNS cluster from command line.

Setting up a Cluster

From the remote nameserver:

You generally don’t need to do anything other than enable clustering in WHM. You want the client servers to sync TO this server, not from it. Most of the time, the remote server will be your primary nameserver running cPanel DNSONLY.

This error has been bugging me for over a year now:
touch: cannot touch `/aquota.user': Permission denied

This generally occurs when performing any function where the quota system is being modified, such as changing an account’s quota, suspending/unsuspended an account, or running one of cPanel’s quota scripts. First, check the permissions of /aquota.user (or the actual quota file being referenced in the error):

lsattr /aquota.user

It should ideally return this output:

------------- /aquota.user

If you see an ‘i’ in there though, it means that for some reason the quota file has been made immutable, and therefore cannot be modified by the system. You can remove the immutable flag by running:

chattr -ia /aquota.user

That should correct the problem, and allow you to proceed with the account function you were trying to perform.

Server and network monitoring can be crucial to a host’s success. I mean, how embarrassing is it when your customers are aware of downtime before you are? You don’t have to pay big bucks or spend loads of time setting up monitoring for your server. We’ve compiled a list of free monitoring solutions you can use to guarantee minimal downtime for your users, and show customers how reliable your service is!

I’m sure that most of you have been to the point where one or more of your servers start to fill up as you get more customers. The server’s performing just fine, but there’s one problem…you’re out of disk space! Here are a few simple tricks to freeing up disk space on your cPanel server to help maximize your server’s potential.

1) Delete user cPanel and Fantastsico backups

If you have the backup feature in cPanel enabled, chances are your users are storing the backups on the server instead of downloading and removing them. On larger servers, this can account for a lot of disk space usage. You may want to consider warning your users ahead of time that backups will automatically be removed from the server after a certain period of time or on certain dates.  You can mass-delete all user cPanel backups on the server with this command:

for user in `/bin/ls -A /var/cpanel/users` ; do rm -fv /home/$user/backup-*$user.tar.gz ; done

To remove Fantastico backups:

rm -rfv /home/*/fantastico_backups

2) Move your backups offsite

Similarly to above, if you’re using the cPanel Backup System and are storing your backups locally on the server, you could be using twice as much space as you need to. Consider mounting a backup server to your hosting server and storing the backups there (there is an option to mount external media in WHM > Configure Backups) or using an alternate method of backing up your server that doesn’t involve storing the backups locally. While local backups may be convenient at times, they tend to be useless when a server failure occurs.

3) Delete cPanel File Manager temp files

When users upload files in File Manager within cPanel, File Manager creates a temp file that may or may not get removed upon upload. You can remove these files using this command:

rm -fv /home/*/tmp/Cpanel_*

4) Move or archive logs

Most of the server’s logs are stored in /var/log, which can get rather large on more populated servers. You can change the length of time and frequency of the log rotation in /etc/logrotate.conf, and enable compression to save additional space (at the expense of CPU when the logs are being gzipped). If you want older logs, consider creating a cron job to periodically transfer them to a backup or log server so they aren’t taking up space on your hosting server.

5) Remove cPanel update archives

Cpanel and EasyApache updates tend to leave behind files that you probably don’t need. The following can be deleted or moved to a backup server to free up a little bit of space:

/usr/local/apache.backup*

/home/cpeasyapache (actual name may vary depending on cpanel version)

6) Clean up Yum files

Yum updates leave package cache files on the server. You can clean up all unneeded yum files by running:

yum clean all

7) Remove pure-ftp partials

When your users upload files to the server via FTP when your server runs pureFTP as an FTP daemon, the FTP server creates temporary files starting with .pureftpd-upload* that get renamed the the actual filename when the upload completes. If the upload doesn’t complete, these files are left on the server. You can find and delete these by running:

locate .pureftpd-upload | xargs rm -fv

*If you don’t run an updatedb regularly, you might want to do so before running this command

8) Decrease the reserved disk space

By default, Linux reserves 5% of the disk space from each partition for the root user, so root can still log in even if the disk is full. You may have noticed when running a df that you may be using 900GB out of a 1TB drive, but only have 50GB available…that’s because the other 50GB is reserved.

For larger drives, you really don’t need the whole 5%. I would recommend setting this value down to 2500 blocks so you can utilize more of the disk space. You can do this with tune2fs:

tune2fs -r 2500 /dev/sda1

You’ll want to probably man the tune2fs command before you use it for other options on setting the reserved space for your partitions.

9) Remove unneeded accounts

If you have a larger churn rate you probably have some user accounts laying around on your server that you don’t need. Check out WHM > List Suspended Accounts (or ls /var/cpanel/suspended) and look for suspended accounts that you may be able to remove from the server to free up space. You can terminate accounts in WHM > Terminate an Account or using the command /scripts/killacct <user> <y/n> (y/n indicating whether to save the DNS records)

10) Check for contrabands

As a hosting provider you should have a Terms of Service that specifically tells your customers what they can (or rather cannot) store on your server. Most hosts have specific rules about the hosting of non-website-related backups and copyrighted material, but don’t pro actively scan their servers for it.  It wouldn’t hurt to run a few locate commands to find common files associated with copyright violations, like .mp3, .avi, .exe, etc, and have your customers remove them from the server. I once cleared over 300Gb of space on a server just by having customers remove contraband files from the server. On top of that, you’re also preserving the integrity of your business from a legal standpoint.

11) Consider a larger server

Some of your customers may have a legitimate need for large amount of disk space, and therefore you may be unable to keep the disk space usage on your server at a reasonable level. A lot of hosting providers have alternate servers that are more “low key” but have huge disk storage volumes to accommodate customers that have larger sites. You might want to consider investing in a server that will be less populated and only the users that occupy a large amount of space.

Cpanel 11.24 comes with an Autofixer that allows you to fix common problems that may prevent access to certain parts of your system. The autofixer can be envoked two ways:

/scripts/autorepair <script name>

or in WHM:

https://example.com:2087/scripts2/doautofixer?autofix=test
https://your.server.ip.here:2087/scripts2/autofixer (and enter the name of the script)

The script argument would be the name of the script you are running through the autofixer. You can find a list of autofixer scripts here:

http://httpupdate.cpanel.net/autofixer/

So for instance, if you wanted to repair a broken SSH configuration and you can’t access SSH on your server, there is a script called ‘safesshrestart‘ in the autofixer repository that you can run:

https://example.com:2087/scripts2/doautofixer?autofix=safesshrestart

Alternatively, you can pass the script through /scripts/autorepair.

Commonly used autofixers (taken from the cPanel Documentation)

• test — Test autofixer on your system, nothing gets changed.
• bsdbindfix — Resolve port issue with BIND 9.
• compresszlibfix — Fix for compress zlib error.
• dbdmysql — DBD::mysql fix for older version of Red Hat (i.e. 7.3).
• fpindexfile — Fix for FrontPage index.
• iptablesflush — Flush iptables rules from WHM if you are firewalled from SSH access.
• libxml64fix — Fix for libXML on 64-bit systems.
• resellerresourceacctounts — Fix for reseller resource accounts.
• safesshrestart — Restores SSH Config and restarts SSH, should you be locked out.
• vfilterfix — Restores /etc/vfilters files.
• yumduprpmfix — This script will attempt to locate and resolve any duplicate RPMs.

Anyone running a shared hosting server is probably now accustomed to dealing with constant complaints about blacklisting. It’s exim’s default setup on a cPanel server to use the shared IP of the server to send email, which means that all your clients on one server are sending out email on the same IP.  All it takes is for one spammer to send out a mailing list or one customer to get hacked and run a Darkmailer script, and suddenly everyone on your server seems to be complaining about getting their mail bounced.

You can change the server’s IP address for sending email. Assuming you already have an IP set up on your server with a valid PTR, you probably already saw on the cPanel forums or some other location that you can simply change the interface lines in your /etc/exim.conf file and restart exim:

remote_smtp:
driver = smtp
interface = ${if exists {/etc/mailips}{${lookup{$sender_address_domain}lsearch*{/etc/mailips}{$value}{}}}{}}
helo_data = ${if exists {/etc/mailhelo}{${lookup{$sender_address_domain}lsearch*{/etc/mailhelo}{$value}{$primary_hostname}}}{$primary_hostname}}

dk_remote_smtp:
driver = smtp
interface = ${if exists {/etc/mailips}{${lookup{$sender_address_domain}lsearch*{/etc/mailips}{$value}{}}}{}}
helo_data = ${if exists {/etc/mailhelo}{${lookup{$sender_address_domain}lsearch*{/etc/mailhelo}{$value}{$primary_hostname}}}{$primary_hostname}}
dk_private_key = "/var/cpanel/domain_keys/private/${dk_domain}"
dk_canon = nofws
dk_selector = default

In the above example, all you’d do is comment out the interface lines and replace them with:

interface = xx.xx.xx.xx

However, this tends to be a band-aid fix, as a cPanel update or any change made in WHM’s Exim Configuration Editor will regenerate the Exim config and overwrite your change. To make this more permanent, you’ll want to use the /etc/mailips file.

To set this up initially, go into WHM > Exim Configuration and enable this option:

** Send outgoing mail from the ip that matches the domain name in /etc/mailips (*: IP can be added to the file to change the main outgoing interface) [?]

Or, in /etc/exim.conf.localopts, add/change this line:

per_domain_mailips=1

Then run

/scripts/buildeximconf
service exim restart

*The /etc/mailips file should be root:exim, chmod 440  if it doesn’t already exist.

chattr +i /etc/mailips

Now for actually changing the IP:

Changing the IP Globally

If you want everyone on the server to send out on the same IP, just add the following to /etc/mailips:

*: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Then add the IP and it’s matching PTR to /etc/mail_reverse_dns:

xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx hostname.tld

This will tell Exim to use that IP for any sender on the server.

Changing the IP Per Domain

If you want your users with dedicated IP addresses to be able to use those IPs to send email as well, you can add them to /etc/mailips. cPanel actually now has documentation on how to do this properly:

http://docs.cpanel.net/twiki/bin/view/AllDocumentation/WHMDocs/EximDifferentIps

If you have multiple dedicated IP domains already, I’ve devised a simple loop you can use to populate /etc/mailips automatically:

while read line ; do DOMAIN=`echo -e $line |awk '{print $2}'` && IP=`echo -e $line |awk '{print $1}' |cut -d: -f1` && echo "$DOMAIN: $IP" >> /etc/mailips ;done < /etc/domainips

You’ll always want the wildcard line to be in there to account for any domain not listed in the file, whether it is the main server’s IP or another that you have assigned for email:

*: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

Then:

cp /etc/domainips /etc/mail_reverse_dns

This will set all the existing sites on dedicated IPs to send out mail on those IPs.

PostgreSQL is an open-source database server similar (but different) than MySQL. cPanel has a built-in installer for setting up PostgreSQL easily. Keep in mind that the actual version of PostgreSQL you get depends on your OS version. For instance, CentOS 4 users will likely get version 7, CentOS 5 will get version 8.

First, run the install script from command line

/scripts/installpostgres

Then in WHM under SQL Services >> Postgres Config Choose Install Config. Once the config has been installed set a root password for PostgreSQL (Only Alphanumerics). If you hav a firewall, you may want to open port 5432.

PostgreSQL is installed now, but PHP is not compiled for it, so you’ll need to run EasyApache and enable PHP with PostgreSQL (pgsql) support. You can do this manually, or through WHM. If doing so manually, here is the configure switch (or use with /var/cpanel/easy/apache/custom/rawopts  [info])

--with-pgsql=/usr

Now when you log into cPanel you’ll see a section for PostgreSQL. You’ll probably notice the phpMyAdmin wannabe phpPgAdmin which is the database management tool for Postgres. If  you don’t see this option, make sure it’s enabled in WHM > Feature Manager.

Now edit /var/lib/pgsql/data/postgresql.conf and edit some settings:

port = 5432

Postgres 7:

tcpip_socket = true

Postgres 8:

listen_addresses='*'

Now restart the postgres service:

service postgres restart

Note that if you’re installing PostgreSQL on a server that already has users on it, privileges will not be added by default for those existing users. To add privileges, run this command:

for user in `ls /var/cpanel/users` ; do su $user -c “createuser -S -D -R $i” postgres; done

Lately FTP has been a problem for a lot of hosting providers. Especially since the recent influx of Gumblar-related attacks and FTP exploits, some hosting providers are now considering changing their FTP ports as an added measure of security. If you’re on a cPanel server you have a couple extra steps to go through, but it’s a rather easy change.

Pure-FTP

1) Edit /etc/pure-ftpd.conf and look for the following line:

Bind <addr> <port>

Where <addr> is a publically routable IP.  The default example, 127.0.0.1, will cause the socket to bind locally but then this connection won’t serve externally. <port> is the new port you wish to put the service on.

2) If necessary, add the new FTP port to your server’s firewall

3) Edit /etc/chkserv.d/ftpd and change the port, which is the first comma-separated entry to the right of ‘=’ on the line in the file, to match the port you put the service on.

Finally:

/etc/init.d/pure-ftpd restart
/etc/init.d/cpanel restart (restarts tailwatchd/chkservd)

ProFTP

Edit /etc/proftpd.conf and change:

Port 21

Then make sure to test to make sure FTP is working before notifying your users!

I’ve seen several features of cPanel appear to malfunction, and upon reviewing /usr/local/cpanel/logs/error_log, I’d see something similar to this:

Out of memory during request for 2180 bytes, total sbrk() is 130234368 bytes!

Common places this has been known to occur:

• In Webmail (Horde and Roundcube)  when opening large attachments
• Using cPanel’s perl module installer

You could legitimately be out of RAM, but most likely the cause is cPanel’s internal memory limit. You can raise this in WHM > Tweak Settings:

“The maximum memory a cPanel process can use before it is killed off (in megabytes). Values less than 128 megabytes can not be specified. A value of “0″ will disable the memory limits.”

Or you can adjust the maxmem setting in /var/cpanel/cpanel.config.