WHM/cPanel DNSONLY overview and setup
cPanel is a webhosting control panel based on Linux, which comes with automation tools, and a graphical interface. cPanel was designed to make it easier to host a website online, by providing direct access to server administrators, resellers and website owners to a variety of applications such as BIND (DNS), Pel, PostgreSQL, MySQL, PHP and Apache, alongside email services such as SMTP, IMAP and POP3. cPanel also offers the option to use a command line and API-based access for developers, software vendors and hosting organizations. WHM is mostly used by resellers and server administrators. The acronym stands for WebHost Manager, and it is a tool used to manage a web server’s hosting accounts. Administrators and resellers have several reasons for using this tool. Resellers are granted access to a smaller set of features, which are determined by the administrator. The administrator will use WHM to upgrade Perl Modules, PHP and Apache as needed. With the cPanel DNSONLY software you are able to run a dedicated physical nameserver. A license is not needed for this version, and it is currently the simplest one available for commercial users.
Installing cPanel DNSONLY
The installation process for cPanel DNSONLY is fairly straightforward:
- To start, you must configure your server to allow traffic through ports 53, 953 and 2087. You can also enable email notifications from the DNSONLY server by opening port 25.
- You then want to run the “cd /home” command in order to open the /home directory.
- For the next step, you must fetch the newest cPanel installation files. These are found on the official servers, and they can be accessed using the “curl -o latest-dnsonly -L https://securedownloads.cpanel.net/latest-dnsonly” command.
- All that’s left is to run the installation files using the command “sh latest-dnsonly”.
Note: Do not forget to add the cPanel DNSONLY server to WHM’s DNS Cluster interface, after the server has been created. The location of the DNS Cluster file is in Home>>Clusters>>DNS Clusters. Contact HOSTAFRICA for more information on WHM/cPanel and how to setup cPanel DNSONLY successfully.
