cPanel Inc.

cPanel Expands Its Technical and Customer Support Offerings

2009-11-17T15:45:57Z

Spurred by continued growth, cPanel has decided to expand its technical support services in three key areas:  

By offering 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week phone support.
By making a new Live Chat feature available on its website, http://www.cpanel.net.
By reorganizing its online discussion forums and providing a technical support analyst to monitor them full-time.

Technical Phone Support Now Available Around the Clock

In the past, cPanel has provided 24-hour technical support mainly via its online, ticket-based system, offering phone support only during daytime business hours. Now, that has changed.

“Our customer base is growing,” explained Technical Support Manager Sean Richards. “It makes sense to expand our support team, so that we can provide our users with help around the clock.”

The increased size of cPanel’s support team has provided customers with other benefits, too. “Adding a number of seasoned veterans and top talent has also allowed expanded support for migrations, bug review, direct API support as well as the direct involvement in many key areas that will be important for 2010,” Richards elaborated.

Phone support costs a nominal per-incident fee, which includes as many calls as needed to resolve the problem.

Customer Service Now Offers Live Chat feature at: http://www.cpanel.net

cPanel has also implemented a Live Chat feature on its website, available to customers during daytime business hours.

This free new service allows anyone visiting the site to send instant messages directly to cPanel’s Customer Service staff. The staff then provide quick, easy answers to customers’ billing and sales questions.

cPanel Community Forums Reorganized and Improved

One of cPanel’s most popular support channels, its discussion forums at http://forums.cpanel.net, has just been overhauled. “Customers will find the new forum layout more useful,” Richards commented. “There’s now a dedicated place for feature requests, and we’ve improved access from mobile devices.” Users of PDAs and smart phones can enjoy this enhancement by accessing the cPanel forums at http://m.forums.cpanel.net.

Additionally, a veteran cPanel Technical Support team member is now dedicated to locating and responding to customer questions and problems in the forums full-time. This will aid users seeking advice about configuring their servers, or help with technical problems, by cutting down on response times.

Thanks for attending cPanel Conference 2009!

2009-10-20T19:26:32Z

If you're active on our forums, you may vote in our poll as we're trying to determine which days of the week work best for attendees. It's a great way for you to influence our planning for cPanel Conference 2010. The poll is located here.

If you didn't attend the 4th annual cPanel Conference this month, you missed out. Attendees enjoyed some serious learning, great hospitality, and an overall fantastic time.

2009 was by far our largest cPanel Conference ever, with over 180 attendees registered. Folks came from places as far away as the Netherlands, India, South Africa, Japan, the UK, Ireland, and Bulgaria. The cPanel Conference was, as it usually is, representative of the webhosting industry: international in scope, friendly, and professional.

The event took place at the Hilton Americas in Houston, Texas. The Hilton was a step up from our past venue and, by all accounts, did not disappoint.

The first day's activities gave everyone a chance to meet up and relax before the start of the Conference and 2 days of nonstop learning. We kicked off the festivities with a networking reception held on the 24th floor of the Hilton. From there, Conference-goers saw commanding
views of downtown Houston, sampled great drinks, and enjoyed the most delicious hors d'oeuvres you can imagine.

From the 24th floor, the action moved to the hotel lobby bar, which Softlayer graciously kept open as long as anyone was willing to hang out.

On Tuesday, the first day of the Conference sessions, we provided breakfast and unlimited amounts of much-needed coffee. Then we kicked off a boatload of advanced technical sessions from the cPanel technical analysts, quality assurance staff, sales personnel, and
developers. Topics ranged from DNS clustering, to cPanel's customer service philosophies, to Enkompass, to the effective use of strace on Linux servers, and everything in between.

Tuesday culminated in a sumptuous feast at the Hilton. The food was excellent, the company was even better, and a lot of good discussions took place. From there, we took the party to Joystix. For those of you who missed it, Joystix is an old-school arcade with a phenomenal
collection of vintage and new video games and pinball machines. As is the cPanel way, we made sure everyone had a great time by means of an open bar and cPcache handouts (more about that below).

Post-Joystix, R1Soft was generous enough to hold their own after-hours networking event at Pub Fiction, which was just a short cab ride away. This event lasted until the wee hours of Wednesday morning. It was a great opportunity for networking with industry peers.

Informative exhibitor sessions were another way that the cPanel Conference 2009 set itself apart from other conferences. We only allowed exhibitor talks that provided useful information and relevant topics, rather than a sales pitch. The sessions were well-attended, as folks presented material that our attendees found genuinely useful.

Throughout the event, everyone who attended sessions was paid with cPcache, the official currency of the cPanel Conference. cPcache was spendable at the cPanel Gift Shop at the registration desk, and allowed attendees to purchase all manner of cPanel-branded goodies,
from messenger bags to Callaway sunglasses and Fossil sport watches. It was a great way for Conference-goers to get some seriously cool (and more importantly, useful) cPanel schwag.

After the event, we asked attendees what they liked, what they didn't like, and what they would like to see next year. As always, we plan on acting on the desires of our customers and will make sure that cPanel Conference 2010 is just as great as, if not better than, 2009!

cPanel would like to close by thanking all the exhibitors at the Conference for their participation. Our sincere gratitude goes out to:

The WHIR, Microsoft, Layered Tech, The Planet, R1Soft, ServerTune,
Softlayer, Trustwave, CentOS, OpenSRS, Commtouch, Bobcares, Spam
Experts, SingleHop, Comodo, Codero, HostDime, Soholaunch, VPS.net,
GlobalSign, and NetDepot.

You can find all the conference session slides here.

cPanel Security Advisory: CVE 2008-2043

2009-10-14T23:37:18Z

Summary

cPanel 11.25.0 provides mechanisms to prevent Cross Site Request Forgery attacks.

Security Rating

This update has been rated as having an Important security rating by the cPanel Security team.

Description

All versions of cPanel prior to version 11.25.0 are vulnerable to cross site request forgery attacks. Cross-site request forgery, often abbreviated as CSRF or XSRF, exploits the trust a website has in a user's browser. By exploiting that trust a malicious user can execute unauthorized commands on a website.

Solution

cPanel 11 users should upgrade to version 11.25.0 which contain mechanisms to prevent these types of attacks. To insure full protection, the following options in Tweak Settings are strongly recommended to be enabled:

Require security tokens for all interfaces. This will greatly improve the security of cPanel and WHM against XSRF attacks, but may break integration with other systems, login applications, billing software and third party themes.
Validate the IP addresses used in all cookie based logins. This will limit the ability of attackers who capture cPanel session cookies to use them in an exploit of the cPanel or WebHost Manager interfaces. For this setting to have maximum effectiveness, proxydomains should also be disabled.
Disable Http Authentication for cPanel/WebMail/WHM Logins (forces cookie authentication.) This will help prevent certain types of XSRF attacks that rely on cached Http Auth credentials.

In addition it is recommended the following Tweak Settings be disabled:

Add proxy VirtualHost to httpd.conf to automatically redirect unconfigured cpanel, webmail, webdisk and whm subdomains to the correct port (requires mod_rewrite and mod_proxy)
Automatically create cpanel, webmail, webdisk and whm proxy subdomain DNS entries for new accounts. When this is initially enabled it will add appropriate proxy subdomain DNS entries to all existing accounts. (Use /scripts/proxydomains to reconfigure the DNS entries manually)

References

cPanel 11.25 Tech Bulletin: updated bandwidth tracking requirements

2009-10-09T22:51:54Z

In cPanel 11.25 we have made a few feature improvements to the bandwidth tracking system built into WHM and cPanel. While these new features grants you a much more accurate and granular view of client bandwidth usage, customers with inadequately sized /var partitions may run into issues related to partition size and disk space consumption.

It should also be noted that the creation of these files occurs during the first upcp that results in an upgrade to 11.25 and can require significantly more time than normal upgrades.

The notice for this change was in our release notes for 11.25 which can be found at http://docs.cpanel.net/twiki/pub/AllDocumentation/ReleaseNotes/1125releasenotes.pdf

Change: Bandwidth graph RRD files are split off for each individual service per domain and subdomain and stored in /var/cpanel/bandwidth/ .

Potential Issue: On some machines, depending on the partitioning schema and the number of domains on a server, there may be a disk space issue. This will only effect customers with large numbers of domains and a relatively small /var/ partition, i.e., 8-10G. In these situations, the /var/ partition may become full.

Workaround: For the time being, if you are affected by this issue, we are suggesting the following temporary fixes.

Disabling Bandwidth Stats Generation: ‘touch /etc/rrdtooldisable ’ . This will disable generation of the rrdfiles altogether. Removing this file will result in the graphs being generated again.

Symlinking /var/cpanel/bandwidth to a partition with more space.

mkdir /home/bwtmp; tar -czvf /root/cp-bandwidth-backup.tar.gz /var/cpanel/bandwidth

mv /var/cpanel/bandwidth/* /home/bwtmp/; rm -rf /var/cpanel/bandwidth

ln -s /home/bwtmp /var/cpanel/bandwidth

The above command will create a /home/bwtemp directory, copy the contents of /var/cpanel/bandwidth to it, create a backup in /root/cp-bandwidth-backup.tar.gz, and then symlink the old directory to the new one where there should be more diskspace.

If you have issues executing the fix for this change, please submit a ticket via https://tickets.cpanel.net and we will assist you with this fix.

Now Hosting Humans by SoftLayer!

2009-09-25T15:17:10Z

If by chance you convinced your boss that the cPanel Conference 2009 was more than 3 days of entertainment, we have some bad news! SoftLayer has announced they will host another event October 5th following the Networking event & reception from 7PM-10PM. This event will be held at the Hilton and the details are below.

* This event is open to all attendees of the cPanel Conference!

While Mr. Fun (an imaginary cPanel friend) will be floating around the conference we would also like to take this opportunity to remind you that in addition to 5 "special" events the cPanel Conference will also be packed with two full days of hard core learning, opportunities to network your business, and exclusive content from developers, technical analysts, and vendors.

To register or learn more about the cPanel Conference, please point your browser to: http://conference.cpanel.net.

Follow SoftLayer via Twitter
http://twitter.com/SoftLayer_News

Follow Events of the cPanel Conference
http://twitter.com/cpanelconf/

About SoftLayer
Founded in 2005, SoftLayer provides global, on-demand data center and hosting services from facilities across the U.S. We leverage best-in-class connectivity and technology to innovate industry-leading, fully automated solutions that empower enterprises with complete access, control, security, and scalability. With this insightful strategy and our peerless technical execution, we have created the truly virtual data center—and made traditional hosting and managed/unmanaged services obsolete.

The Continuous Drink Party® (CDP) by R1Soft!

2009-09-17T15:05:03Z

On Tuesday, October 6, R1Soft will host The Continuous Drink Party® (CDP) in conjunction with the cPanel Conference. So, after you've filled your head with knowledge, your belly with great food, and your imagination with the great games at the Joystix arcade event, you can party at Pub Fiction, courtesy of R1Soft.

The Continuous Drink Party® (CDP)
Location: Pub Fiction (http://www.pubfiction.com)
Address: Midtown, 2303 Smith St, Houston, TX 77006-2313
Hours: 10:00PM - 1:00AM
Click Here for Map

How to attend The Continuous Drink Party® (CDP)?

RSVP via: http://events.linkedin.com/Continuous-Drink-Party-R-CDP-by-R1Soft/pub/127887 and stop by the R1Soft booth for final details!

Follow R1Soft via Twitter for up to the minute updates!
http://twitter.com/R1SoftCDPBackup

Follow Events of the cPanel Conference for up to the minute updates!
http://twitter.com/cpanelconf

Speaking of which, if you haven't yet registered for the cPanel Conference, what are you waiting for? As always, the Conference promises knowledge, networking and, of course, good times -- thanks in part to R1Soft.

To register or learn more about the cPanel Conference, please point your browser to: http://conference.cpanel.net

P.S. Don't forget, registration closes September 25th. If you want to get in on the action, register TODAY!

About R1Soft.
R1Soft makes the only Continuous Data Protection® (CDP) backup software for Windows, Linux, and MySQL Servers. R1Soft CDP provides backup, restore, and disaster recovery for over 100,000 mission-critical Windows and Linux servers around the world. Their mission is to make the number one selling backup software in the world at a price everyone can afford.

cPanel/WHM 11.25 EDGE Now Available

2009-09-15T13:31:14Z

cPanel/WHM is published in four builds:

EDGE - The latest build, with the newest features and least testing. We do not recommend running this build on a production web server.
CURRENT - More mature and tested than EDGE.
RELEASE - The preferred build for a production server, as it is generally current enough to contain the latest fixes and new features.
STABLE - For conservative web hosts who do not wish to run the latest release.

Exciting news! We just published the latest version of our Linux web hosting software — cPanel/WHM 11.25 — to the EDGE build.*

While cPanel/WHM was already famous for its ease of use and reliability, version 11.25 offers several improvments, including:

Usability enhancements

Quicker access from mobile devices, due to fewer authentication requests from the server.
IMAP IDLE support for mobile devices, allowing near real-time mail delivery from Dovecot mail servers.
Streamlined cPanel interfaces, such as Email Accounts and MX Entry.
An overhauled language system that provides greater accuracy and language compatibility, with less memory consumption.

More info on usability enhancements.

Security features

Session tokens and blank referer checks, to help prevent cross-site request forgery.
Better cPHulk reliability, for improved protection against brute force attacks.

More info on security features.

Efficiency improvements

Lower memory consumption during synchronization of DNS clusters.
Quicker restart processes for both the Apache web server and the BIND nameserver.
Quicker load times for the cPanel home page.

More info on efficiency improvements.

And those are just a few of the upgrades you get with 11.25! For more detailed information, take a look at our cPanel/WHM 11.25 website.

For technical details, see our version 11.25 release notes.

Note: As of version 11.25, cPanel will discontinue support for the x and x2 themes. During installation of 11.25, current users of the x and x2 themes will automatically be switched to the up-to-date x3 theme, which uses the x branding package.

cPanel Conference Filling Up FAST! Registration closes September 25!

2009-09-09T18:57:12Z

The fourth annual cPanel Conference is filling up fast and if you want to attend you should sign up quick. Exhibitor space is entirely sold out and attendee registrations are the highest we've had to date. This year is looking to be the best yet. We've got more exhibitors, more attendees, and more activities planned. If you're going to make it to one conference in 2009, make sure it's the cPanel Conference!

We are closing registration on September 25. If you wish to attend please sign up today. More information & a link to register can be found at http://conference.cpanel.net

cPanel Security Update: Linux Kernel Vulnerability

2009-09-03T08:48:43Z

Recently, a local vulnerability has been discovered that affects all Linux kernels released since early 2001.

In short, there was a NULL pointer dereference in the kernel, which a user can map at address zero in order to bypass mmap_min_addr. This allows malicious users to execute shell code which, in turn, grants the user a root shell.

This vulnerability is covered in length at the following sites:

http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/36038
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=516949

You can see many other references here:

http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/36038/references

Fix for cPanel Servers

In the tickets we have received so far, an insecure PHP script was almost always remotely exploited to give a hacker the rights of the user owning the site or script. Once that was done, the hacker gained shell access and ran any of a variety of shell exploit scripts available on the Internet.

For the majority of our clients, if yum is working correctly on the server, running the 'yum update' command will, in fact, download and install the new kernel.* However, the server administrator must reboot the server in order for the new kernel to be put in place. This step is essential and should fix the problem for RHEL 3, 4, and 5, Fedora 10 and 11, and CentOS 3, 4, and 5.

*Note: If yum install fails with the following message:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/yum", line 29, in ?
...
TypeError: unsubscriptable object

you may be able to resolve the issue, and continue installation, by running the yum clean all command.

Microsoft SPLA Experts on Tour @ cPanel Conference

2009-08-31T14:06:01Z

During the upcoming cPanel Conference, Microsoft® will be conducting a session to address questions about their SPLA (Service Provider License Agreement) and how web hosting providers should use it.

This is important because Microsoft uses the SPLA to guide monthly license pricing on their products. So, as our Windows Server® hosting platform, Enkompass, nears its release, web hosts interested in this offering should turn their attention to the SPLA.

Recent SPLA changes

In July of 2009, Microsoft made some changes that introduced new concepts to the SPLA.

The July, 2009 Services Provider Use Rights (SPUR) introduced Windows Server® licensing based on “outsourcing” and “non-outsourcing” as new licensing definitions, replacing the previous “authenticated” and “anonymous” licenses. As a result, Microsoft now has two-tiered offerings for various editions of Windows Server. Both outsourcing and non-outsourcing are available for:

Windows Server Standard
Windows Server Enterprise
Windows Server Datacenter

There is no change for Windows Server Web Edition in July, 2009; the single available SPLA offering still applies to all the scenarios allowed in the SPUR.

Definition of “outsourcing” for Windows Server

In making this SPLA change, Microsoft has defined “outsourcing” as follows:

Outsourcing is an application or service which a Service Provider manages on behalf of its customer. For purposes of this definition, the managed application or service is:

Used by its customer’s employees, contractors, agents, or vendors, and
Not the Service Provider’s intellectual property.

Important factors to consider when you apply this definition:

The outsourcing definition is based on the application or service provided to a customer, and not how a Service Provider is categorized as an entity.
Apply this definition to each individual server that is involved in delivering the application or service. This can result in scenarios where a Service Provider may have a mix of outsourcing and non-outsourcing servers from which they provide their managed service.
The application or service must meet all portions of the definition to fit the definition.

Have you ever wondered ...

Which version of Windows Server do you need to utilize Active Directory?
What's the difference between Unauthenticated and Authenticated license types?
Are web hosting providers considered outsourcers or non-outsourcers?
What specific licenses will you need to run Enkompass?

If you're coming to the Conference, this session will provide an open forum for getting answers from the experts.

Do you have additional questions about the SPLA? If you're not attending, please feel free to email us (conference@cpanel.net) your questions and we will address them at the conference.

HostingCon 2009 reports impressive 13.8% increase in attendance!

2009-08-24T15:11:47Z

All accounts from this years event indicate the hosting industry is growing strong, and cPanel was on-hand, making a huge impression with a prime front-door position, live Enkompass RC0 demo’s, knowledgeable staff and tempting giveaways.

When asked what the increase in attendence was compared to HostingCon 2008, Beverly Yuellig, iNet Events Manager replied with, "13.8% to be exact".

The new booth took about 12-hours to construct, including walls, graphics, carpet, network and electrical connections. The finished product was well worth the sweat (and bruises) as visitors and exhibitors alike commented on the permanence and strength of cPanel. Stability - and independence, were key take-away messages we wanted to convey at this years event. As consolidation continues within the industry, cPanel remains a strong, independent company dedicated to the web hosting professional. That message was well delivered.

At times, there was standing room only in the booth and surrounding aisles as seen in the images posted at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cpanelevents/. With extra staff in the booth, we were able to offer thorough attention to each visitor. Special thanks to all cPanel customers and visitors who contributed to make this event a success.

HostingCon and cPanel by the numbers:

100 - Number of exhibiting companies at HC 2009
126 - Number of Enkompass RC0 demonstrations
400 - Number of square feet (20x20) in cPanel booth
568 - Number of Enkompass t-shirts distributed
600 - Number of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies served by cPanel. *

*All remaining cookie dough was donated to a local charity :-)

cPanel's 2009 Log Location Poster. Available Now!

2009-08-17T22:55:22Z

Have you ever wondered, "Where's the Apache error log?"  
(Answer: Depends which one you want -- there are four.)

Or, does the nameserver log live in usr/ or var/?
 (Answer: var/log/messages.)

If so, then you've surely wished that someone would collate the locations of all the logs on a cPanel server and lay them out in some easy-to-read format. Graphically, say? And you don't want to be bossy, but maybe they could add attractive orange and blue accents, and some grayed-out text as a background?

Wish no more! cPanel's 2009 Log Location Reference is here. It shows the default location of every log file created by cPanel or a cPanel-related service, in an easy-to-read 36" x 48" poster.
Order as many as your technical support team's collective hearts may desire. Their troubleshooting skills, and your customers, will thank you.

Check out http://posters.cpanel.net today and get posters ordered for your technical support department or data center today!

cPanel Conference: Retro Arcade Night!

2009-08-17T14:25:42Z

Ready for the cPanel Conference? It's just around the corner! And if you thought it couldn't get any better, you should know we've lined up another exciting event.

On the evening of October 6, Joystix Games (http://www.joystixamusements.com) will be entertaining our attendees. Joystix is an old-school arcade, with bar and lounge attached, located just a couple blocks from the Conference. And on this night, we're picking up the tab. That's right -- the games AND bar will be free.

But you have to register now! Get free passes to the Joystix fun when you register for the cPanel Conference before September 10. (If you sign up after September 10, you're welcome to join us, but the cost to attend the Joystix party will be $25.)

*If you have already registered you name is automatically on the list.

So you can spend your day filling your head with technical knowledge and your evening unwinding with Pac-Man.

For more information about the cPanel Conference, check out http://conference.cpanel.net.

cPanel Forums Go Mobile!

2009-08-13T21:44:59Z

The cPanel forums (http://forums.cpanel.net) have been upgraded to make them mobile compatible. The new upgrade provides a scalable WML, WCSS style that bridges the gap between mobile devices and the forum software.

WCSS (WAP Cascading Style Sheet or WAP CSS) is the mobile version of cascading style sheet. It is a subset of CSS2 (the cascading style sheet language of the World Wide Web) plus some WAP specific extensions. CSS2 features and properties that are not useful for mobile Internet applications are not included in WAP CSS. WAP CSS is the companion of XHTML Mobile Profile (XHTML MP). Both of them are defined in the WAP 2.0 specification, which was created by the former WAP Forum (now the Open Mobile Alliance).

To access the mobile version of the forums you can visit http://wif.cpanel.net on your mobile device.

Introducing cPanel's Blue Roy Theme!

2009-08-11T13:51:08Z

cPanel always has some background processes running and top secret projects that are in the works. In the past 12-18 months many requests for end user cPanel themes have become a popular request. In April of 2009 cPanel started the process of hunting down a creative individual to launch a new segment in the Design and User Interface Group. In June the quest was over and a new designer named Roy joined the team.

Roy has spent that last 3-4 weeks learning the internal workings of cPanel and mentoring the User Interface group. His first project was to create a free theme just in time for HostingCon. This new theme has been internally named "The Blue R0y" theme. There is not much to the story beyond it had blue and the designer that developed it is named Roy.

In the coming months cPanel will be producing a number of new themes for use in the cPanel Product, providing a new theme design service, and continuing to support a number of hosting organizations that want to brand and provide a new unique look and feel.

We look forward to your feedback and if you download and install this theme and like to let us know it is being used please post your site in this thread.

Must Read Documentation/Installation Instructions: BlueTheme < AllDocumentation < TWiki

Theme Mini-Site: http://www.cpanel.net/themes/ (With Live Demo)

Download: http://forums.cpanel.net/f8/introducing-cpanels-blue-roy-theme-127409.html