Create a New Account

Overview

The Create a New Account interface allows you to create new cPanel or WHM accounts.

cPanel & WHM supports several types of users with multiple levels of permissions:

• The root user can create or modify any account and possesses access to all of cPanel & WHM’s features.

• Resellers can create and manage the cPanel accounts that they own and can access both the cPanel and WHM interfaces. The root user specifies the privileges for these accounts. For example, you can modify access to only allow resellers to suspend or unsuspend the accounts that they manage.

• cPanel users can access the cPanel interface and have access to manage most aspects of a website. The root user and the reseller who owns the cPanel account can specify the account’s privileges.

Domain Information

The Domain Information section defines basic settings for a user’s account.

All accounts require the following information:

• Domain — The domain name for the account (for example, example.com).

  Important:

  • You can create a user to represent a subdomain of a domain that you own. For example, if you own the example.com domain, you could assign the username.example.com subdomain to a new account for the username user.

  • You cannot create a separate account for the www. subdomain. The system automatically removes the www. subdomain from the account name.

• Username — The username for the new account.

  • The username must be unique and contain 16 characters or fewer.

  • The username must contain only lower-case letters and numbers.

  • The username cannot start with a number or the test string.

  • The username’s first eight characters must be unique if you plan to use MySQL® or PostgreSQL®. This prevents issues with database prefixing and account transfers. This restriction does not apply to servers that run MariaDB®.

    Note:

    You can disable database prefixing by selecting Off for the Require a username prefix on names of new databases and database users setting in the SQL section of WHM’s Tweak Settings interface (WHM >> Home >> Server Configuration >> Tweak Settings).

  • For more information, read our Reserved, Invalid, and Misconfigured Usernames documentation.

• Password — The password for the new account.

• Re-type Password — The password you entered in the previous textbox.

• Strength — This tells you the strength of your password. Click Password Generator to generate a strong password.

  • The system evaluates the password that you enter on a scale of 100 points. 0 indicates a weak password, while 100 indicates a very secure password. Some hosting providers require a minimum password strength.

  • A green password strength meter means that the password is equal to or greater than the required password strength.

  • For more information, read our How to Determine Password Strength documentation.

• Email — The contact email address for the new account.

SSL certificates

When you create an add-on, parked, or main domain or subdomain, the system attempts to secure it with an existing certificate. If none exist, the system generates a self-signed certificate. If you enable AutoSSL for the account that owns the new domain, the system adds a request for an AutoSSL certificate. The system will install it when it becomes available.

UID and GID settings

The /etc/login.defs file contains the system accounts’ UID settings. We do not support customizing the /etc/login.defs file with new settings. cPanel & WHM uses the following UID conventions:

• On servers that run AlmaLinux 8, CentOS 7 and 8, CloudLinux™ 7 and 8, or RHEL 7, the system creates new system UIDs and GIDs with a number between 201 and 999. The system also creates new account UIDs and GIDs with a number between 1000 and 60000.

• On all other supported operating systems, the system creates new account and system UIDs and GIDs with a number between 0 and 500.

Package

The Package section allows you to assign a package to a new account. A package defines the account’s limitations. For example, a package can determine how much disk space the new account can use or how much data the account can transfer. Some hosting providers use the term “domain templates” to describe this concept.

• Choose a Package — Allows you to assign an existing package. To view the package’s configuration hold your cursor over the magnifying glass icon ().

• Select package options manually — Allows you to edit package settings manually. The following additional checkbox and sections will appear:

  • The Save Manual Settings as a Package checkbox.

  • The Manual Resource Options section.

  • Additional checkboxes in the Settings section.

  • The Package Extensions section, if you selected a package that uses package extensions from the Choose a Package menu.

• Save manual settings as a Package — Saves your manually-selected settings as a new package. If you select this, the Package Name and Feature List checkbox will appear.

• Package Name — Names the new package you wish to create.

  Important:

  You must enter a package name in this text box.

• Feature List — Allows you to select a feature list. Feature lists define which features are available to users. To edit or create a feature list, use WHM’s Feature Manager interface (WHM >> Home >> Packages >> Feature Manager).

Account Enhancements

Account Enhancements allow you to control whether a cPanel account can access a third-party application, without modifying the account’s package settings. Select the checkbox for each Account Enhancement that you wish to enable for the cPanel account.

If you have not installed any third-party applications that use Account Enhancements, this section will not appear.

Manual Resource Options

The Manual Resource Options section appears when you select the Select package options manually checkbox in the Package section.

You can set the following settings in the Manual Resource Options section:

• Disk Space Quota (MB) — The maximum amount of space on the server’s hard drive for the new account, in megabytes (MB).

• Monthly Bandwidth Limit (MB) — The maximum amount of data that the new account can transfer each month, in megabytes (MB).

• Max FTP Accounts — The maximum number of FTP accounts for the new account.

• Max Email Accounts — The maximum number of email accounts for the new account.

• Max Quota per Email Address (MB) — The maximum size that the account can define when it creates an email account, in megabytes (MB).

  Note:

  When you adjust this value it does not affect existing email accounts.

• Max Mailing Lists — The maximum number of mailing lists for the new account. The Mailman application controls mailing lists.

• Max SQL Databases — The maximum number of each available type of SQL database. For example, if you set this value to 5 and allow MySQL and PostgreSQL databases, the account can create up to five MySQL databases and up to five PostgreSQL databases.

• Max Sub Domains — The maximum number of subdomains that the new account may create.

  Important:

  A value of 0 prevents subdomain creation.

• Max Parked Domains — The maximum number of parked domains (aliases) that the new account may create.

  Important:

  A value of 0 prevents parked domain creation.

• Max Addon Domains — The maximum number of addon domains that the new account may create.

  Important:

  A value of 0 prevents addon domain creation.

• Max Passenger Applications — Enter the maximum number of the account’s Passenger applications.

• Maximum Hourly Email by Domain Relayed — The maximum number of emails that a domain can send per hour. This setting sets the same limit for every domain on the account. For more information, read our How to Set Email Send Limits documentation.

  Important:

  A value of 0 allows unlimited outbound emails.

• Maximum percentage of failed or deferred messages a domain may send per hour — The maximum percentage of failed or deferred messages that a domain can send before your server temporarily blocks outgoing mail from that domain.

  • The system examines outgoing and local mail over the previous hour to determine whether the domain exceeds the limit.

  • When a domain exceeds the limit, it cannot send mail until it no longer exceeds the limit.

Settings

You can set the following settings in this section:

• Dedicated IP — Assigns the new account a static IP address. If you want other accounts to share an IP address you must configure them to use the same IP address. We strongly recommend this setting for reseller accounts.

  Important:

  If you select this when you create a package, you cannot change this setting later.

  • When you select this checkbox, the Select the IP Address menu appears. You can assign an IP address or allow the system to assign an IP address to the account by selecting Auto Assign.

  • Unreserved IP addresses populate this menu. For more information, read our Show Edit Reserved IPs documentation.

• Shell Access — Allows the user access to the server through the command line interface.

• CGI Access — Allows the new account to execute CGI scripts.

• Digest Authentication for Web Disk — Enables Digest Authentication support for Web Disk access over a clear text or unencrypted connection.

  Note:

  • You must enable this if your server uses a self-signed certificate.

  • You must enable this for users with Windows Vista®, Windows® 7, and Windows® 8 operating systems.

• cPanel Theme — Assigns the account’s theme. You can select the default style for new accounts in WHM’s Customization interface (WHM >> Home >> cPanel >> Customization).

• Locale — Assigns the new account’s language.

• Enable Apache SpamAssassin™ — Enables or disables Apache SpamAssassin’s spam filters on the new account.

  Note:

  To deselect this checkbox, you must set the Apache SpamAssassin™: Forced Global ON setting to Off in WHM’s Exim Configuration Manager interface (WHM >> Home >> Service Configuration >> Exim Configuration Manager).

• Enable Spam Box — Enables or disables spam box filtering for the new account.

  Important:

  The system delivers spam messages to the account’s inbox when you disable this setting. You must enable Apache SpamAssassin to use this feature.

Mail Routing Settings

These settings allow you to specify how to route mail for the new account.

Select one of the following settings:

• Automatically Detect Configuration (recommended) — Automatically detect which setting to use. We recommend this setting.

• Local Mail Exchanger — Accept mail locally for the new domain.

• Backup Mail Exchanger — Configure the server to be a backup mail exchanger for this domain.

• Remote Mail Exchanger — Do not accept mail locally for this domain.

• Mail child node — Select a linked cPanel & WHM mail child node server from the menu to handle the new account’s mail functionality.

  Note:

  • You can only select this setting if an active cPanel & WHM mail child node server link exists on the server.
  • This option is only available for root and resellers with root-level privileges.
    

Package Extensions

If the package that you select contains package extensions, you will see the Package Extensions section. To view package extensions:

1. Select an existing package from the Choose a Package menu.

2. Select the Select Options Manually checkbox to modify the settings for the associated package extensions.

3. Any settings that you can edit will appear below each extension’s name.

Reseller Settings

Resellers sell cPanel accounts that your server hosts. Resellers own the accounts that they create, and can modify these accounts in the WHM interface.

• Make the account a reseller — Makes the account a reseller account.

• Make the account own itself (i.e., the user can modify the account) — Allows resellers to modify their own hosting packages, which include quotas and limits. It also causes the system to log bandwidth to that reseller’s account, rather than to the root account.

DNS Settings

The DNS Settings section allows you to enable the new account’s DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records. You can also configure which nameservers the new account’s domain will use.

• Enable DKIM on this account — DKIM allows the account to associate a domain name with email messages that it sends. The system will attach a digital signature to the header. A recipient’s mail transfer agent will verify the signature through DNS. This allows a recipient to confirm the message came from the account’s listed domain. It also helps reduce the chances that mail filters will mark the account’s message as spam.

  Note:

  This will override the server-wide DKIM setting that you set in WHM’s Tweak Settings interface (WHM >> Home >> Server Configuration >> Tweak Settings).

• Enable SPF on this account — SPF allows a recipient mail server to verify the domain in the From: field of a message. This reduces the chance that a mail recipient’s spam filters will mark a message as spam. The system uses the following record by default:

  v=spf1 +a +mx +ip4:10.0.0.1 ~all

  In this example, 10.0.0.1 represents your IPv4 address.

  Note:

  • The system will not use this record if you assign an IPv6 address to the account in WHM’s Assign IPv6 Address interface (WHM >> Home >> IP Functions >> Assign IPv6 Address).

  • If you add a custom SPF record to this account in WHM’s DNS Zone Manager interface (WHM >> Home >> DNS Functions >> DNS Zone Manager) it will override this setting.

  • This setting will override the server-wide SPF settings that you set in WHM’s Tweak Settings interface (WHM >> Home >> Server Configuration >> Tweak Settings).

• Use the nameservers specified at the Domain’s Registrar. (Ignore locally specified nameservers.) — Allows a different server to host the nameservers for this account. This allows the new account’s domain to begin propagating.

  Note:

  The nameservers that you select for the domain will appear in the Nameservers list.

• Overwrite any existing DNS zones for the account — Checks for existing DNS zones that may conflict with the DNS zones you add. If the system finds a conflict, it will overwrite the existing DNS zone. This allows the new account’s domain to begin propagating.

• Nameservers — This section displays the current nameservers for this account. These allow a visitor to find a domain on the internet. If you select the Use the nameservers specified at the Domain’s Registrar. (Ignore locally specified nameservers.) checkbox, this will display the domain’s registrar nameserver. This displays your server’s nameservers by default.

Write-only DNS server clusters

If you set a server in a DNS cluster to the write-only role, WHM will not check whether a DNS zone exists before you create an account. Because of this, it is possible to create the same domain name on two or more of these servers. If this occurs, the servers will compete for updates to that domain.

Create the account

After you set the settings for the account, click Create to create the account. The interface will display a confirmation message that contains the account’s settings

To log in to the account’s cPanel interface, click Go to cPanel.

Visitor experience

Visitors to the account’s website will see one of the following items:

• The default website page template.

• Custom EasyApache 4 script overrides. For more information, read our Web Template Editor documentation.

• Skeleton pages that you configure to populate the directory.