Since our last Development Update we have been hard at work making new and exciting things for you and your customers. Last week we released a TSR security update to all supported versions of cPanel, and we’re expecting cPanel & WHM version 56 will hit our STABLE tier next week. Internally, our development department is divided into 9 different Agile teams, and today I’ll share updates from 7 of them.

ZerØ Cool

Built an EasyApache 4 Developer Distribution platform for external use
- ZerØ Cool built a system that syncs our internal git repos with our github repos, and external OBS instances so partners can distribute EasyApache 4 themselves
Set EasyApache 4 as the default platform new v58 installations, for both vanilla cPanel as well as CloudLinux
- You will still be able to install cPanel with EasyApache 3 using a touchfile
Added Pre–configuration options for EasyApache 4 on fresh installations
Upgraded IonCube for EasyApache 3
Improved the behavior of PHP customizations in EasyApache 4 to more closely match EasyApache 3
- With the move away from SuPHP, we had to find a good way to allow users to load a custom php configuration
Improved and built on the EasyApache 3-to-EasyApache 4 Migration Script

Cobra

Created a plugin to add support for Let’s Encrypt. This plugin is now being BETA tested by a few customers. Support for Let’s Encrypt is the single most requested feature on the feature request site
Added support for an additional mailbox format: Multi-DBox (or MDBox). MDBox is critical for our addition of another highly anticipated request: Remote incremental backups. MDBox will be disabled by default, and we will continue adding additional support in future versions

Honey Badgers

Added a UI in WHM to convert to (and revert from) EasyApache 4 from EasyApache 3
Improved our Apache support for PHP-FPM, including a UI to enable and disable PHP-FPM by domain
Adjusted the provided EasyApache 4 Profiles:
- The historical “Default” profile has been replaced with the RUID profile
- Any profiles that previously defaulted to 5.6 now use 7.0

Code Monkeys

Added a blocker to prevent upgrading to v58 if Perl 5.14 was installed (recall that we upgraded in v56), and removed the ability to install Perl 5.14 after v58
Removed stunnel completely
- This also means that we will always start cPanel on the default ports now. Any custom ports configured in /var/cpanel/cpanel.config likely hasn’t worked in quite a while and no longer will
Updated Munin, which also updated RRDTools libraries as well
QATools updates and additions
Converted Mailman to an RPM, and updated Mailman
Removed Bandmin completely
Converted Roundcube to an RPM

Phoenix

Added the License banners to Paper Lantern
- Previously trial and test banners were displayed in X3, but have not been in Paper Lantern
Added stats sidebar to Paper Lantern
- If you’re curious, you can see what it looks like on the feature request
Upgraded CKEditor to 4.5.8
Improved the customer experience with Site Publisher: we now take a backup of the document root before publishing the new site

Loose Cannon

Upgrade of Internal PHP from PHP 5.4 to PHP 5.6
- This work included reaching out to third party developers, and allowing them early access to the new version for testing

Spider Pigs

Adding PECL/PEAR support for EasyApache 4
Expanded the Addon-Domain-to-Its-Own-Account UI, and added a progress monitor

What’s next?

If you are familiar with our development process, you’ll already know that Version 58’s code cycle is nearing its end. We’re just around the corner from Feature Freeze, with code freeze shortly thereafter. Next week we have our quarterly onsite customer visit (one of my favorite days, personally), and our planning meeting for version 60. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, let me know! Find me on twitter, or email me.