How to Install cPanel & WHM on Ubuntu 20.04

How to Install cPanel WHM on Ubuntu 20.04. Cpanel recently launched support for Ubuntu servers and you can try this on your Ubuntu 20.04. You can use the specific version 98 of cPanel for Ubuntu.

This software is experimental and cannot be used on production environments.

In this guide is tested on Google cloud platform with a virtual machine running Ubuntu 20.04.

Steps to install cPanel and WHM

Create the VM Instance
Verify cPanel & WHM license history and validity
Setup Cloud DNS
Setup Firewall rules
Install cPanel
Set up Hostname on Google Cloud
Agree to Terms and Conditions
Setup Email in WHM
Activate cPanel

Check how to install cPanel on AWS.

Create the VM Instance

Go to Compute Engine >> VM Instances and click Create Instance

In Name provide a name for your Instance

In Region choose the region closest to your visitors.

In Machine Type choose 3.75 GB memory 1vCPU.

In Boot disk click Change and choose Ubuntu 20.04. In Size enter your required size, the minimum should be 40 GB and click Select

In Firewall check both Allow HTTP traffic and Allow HTTPS traffic

Click Create

It will take a while before the VM instance will be available for you

Verify cPanel & WHM license history and validity

Once your VM instance is created you will be provided with an external IP address which is used to license your cPanel. So you need to verify if the IP address has a valid 15-day trial license. So visit verify cPanel license and enter your external IP address and click Verify License. If the IP address does not have a valid license you can restart your VM instance. Then a new IP will be assigned. Then you can check again.

Reserve your IP address

If your IP address has a valid license you can proceed to reserve your IP address by going to VPC Networks >> External IP Addresses reserve your IP address to Static.

Setup Cloud DNS

Please follow this guide to setup Cloud DNS and point your domain to Google Cloud.

Once you have created DNS Zone, you need to create one additional A record for cpanel subdomain in your Cloud DNS.

Click Add record set

In Name enter cpanel

Select Resource Record Type to "A"

IPv4 Address with the IP address of your instance that you have reserved earlier.

Leave everything to default.

Click Create

Now your VM instance is configured and ready to setup Firewall rules for cPanel installation.

Setup Firewall rules

cPanel & WHM uses some ports to manage the server, so you need to create a firewall to provide access to these ports.

Go to VPC Network >> Firewall rules and click Create Firewall rules.

In Name enter cpanel

In Targets select All instances in the network

In Source filter select IP ranges

In Source IP ranges enter 0.0.0.0/0

In Protocols and ports check TCP and enter 2077, 2078, 2082, 2083, 2086, 2087, 2096, 3306, 53. Also check UDP and enter 53.

Click Create.

Install cPanel

Go to Compute Engine >> VM Instances and click the SSH button right next to your instance to open the terminal window in the browser.

Create a configuration file to install the specific cPanel version that supports Ubuntu 20.04.

sudo nano /etc/cpupdate.conf

Add the following to the file.

CPANEL=98

Save the file. This configuration indicates the installer to install the specific version we need.

sudo su
apt update
apt upgrade

Then set the hostname with your domain name. Replace yourdomainname.com with your domain name.

hostname cpanel.yourdomainname.com

Execute the following command to start the installation.

cd /home && curl -o latest -L https://securedownloads.cpanel.net/latest && sh latest

It will take around 30 – 40 min to complete the install. Don’t close the terminal until the setup is completed.

Once the setup is completed, you can set the root password by executing the following command.

passwd

Save your password safely, you will need that to login to your WHM.

Setup WHM

Open your browser and navigate to https://cpanel.yourdomainname.com:2087 . At this point, if the ssl certificate is not installed some browsers show a warning message about HTTPS and don’t allow you to visit the WHM page. In this case, you can use your IP Address instead of the domain name (https://IP_ADDRESS:2087). It will take some time for the SSL certificate to get issued by cPanel.

You may be prompted to create account and enter the verification code sent to your email to activate 15 day trial license.

Once this is done you can login to WHM.

Enter username as root

Enter the password you created by running the passwdcommand.

Now you will be logged into your WHM.

Click Agree to All.

Provide your email address.