September was a busy month here at cPanel, and lots has happened since last month’s development update. Between putting the finishing touches on version 60 (due out next month), and preparing for next week’s cPanel conference in Portland, Oregon there has been all kinds of buzzing. Let’s talk about where we’re at!

Coming in version 60

Version 60 is just around the corner, and will likely hit the CURRENT tier in early October. Last month I talked a little bit about three of the new features that are included in version 60: DNSSEC, PowerDNS and SNI support for cPanel’s services, but there’s a whole lot more to version 60.

PHP-FPM Management

PHP-FPM is an incredibly fast PHP handler that has been available to EasyApache 4 users for quite a while, but required additional manual configuration on the command line. In version 60 we’re adding the ability to manage PHP-FPM and the userpools in WHM without having to manually configure anything! Just enable PHP-FPM in your EasyApache 4 profile, then go to the MultiPHP interface in WHM to manage your users.

Next month PHP-FPM will get its own blog post discussing all of the details of our implementation, since there are so many options. I can’t wait to share!

Migrate to EasyApache 4 in WHM

You have been able to migrate to EasyApache 4 for more than a year, but in version 60 we’re making it even easier by adding an interface to WHM. To enable the interface in version 60 you will need to either be on the EDGE or CURRENT tiers. If you would like to see this interface but are running on the RELEASE or STABLE tiers, you can enable the interface by running this command:

You will then see the migration interface in your WHM sidebar, and you can give it a shot there! I want to mention that a lot of edge-case problems have cropped up with customized installations, so definitely take a look at the ‘Current Status of EasyApache 4‘ documentation to see if now is a good time to migrate for you!

Paper Lantern Style Management

With version 60 we’re no longer shipping our legacy theme X3, and will only be shipping Paper Lantern. It makes perfect sense, then, that we’re adding a style management interface! In WHM you will now be able to manage your cPanel styles with ease, including setting a default for all of your users and uploading a new style! Users can still choose their own style in cPanel, and won’t be effected by you adjusting the default if they’ve already chosen their preferred style.

You will also be able to download existing styles, which give you an extremely easy starting point for creating your own!

In case you are still using X3, I wanted to answer a few FAQs

• End-user accounts which are set to X3 before updating to version 60 from versions newer than 54 will remain set to X3 after the update. They’ll even be able to continue to log in and use X3.
• Files for X3 in /usr/local/cpanel/base/frontend/x3 will not be modified during an update to v60, and we currently have no plans to remove those files. It is safe to delete these files manually in v60 and later, once you have migrated users to Paper Lantern.
  
• If administrators would like to migrate end-users from X3 to Paper Lantern (with the retro style) they can run /scripts/pl_update_users to do that automatically.  This script will only modify end-user accounts still assigned to X3.  
  • This script has existed since v54, but we understand that end-users have requested to return to X3 from the retro style and administrators may have obliged.  We don’t currently have plans to automatically re-run this conversion during future updates.
• Brand new installations of cPanel v60 will not have X3 installed, and will not be available for later installation from cPanel. We have also removed references to X3 from our version 60 documentation.
• If you are upgrading to version 60 and would like to retain X3 as a theme available for your users, you will be required to fork X3 by copying the files into a new theme folder. However, cPanel will consider this fork of X3 to be third-party unsupported code, and may cease to function in future versions of cPanel & WHM.
  
• Though x3 and x3-based themes may still work in version 60 and up cPanel will not provide support for x3 or any x3-based theme, and we make no guarantees for future functionality. 

cPanel & WHM cloud images

Our team has been hard at work to make it easier to create and manage your cPanel & WHM AWS servers. Though we do have an AWS AMI, the image is currently built with an End of Life version of cPanel & WHM, and you then have to upgrade to a supported version. The current AMI was built through a largely manual process, and that process was not at all sustainable. Over the last year we have improved the process, automating as much as possible. Our aim is to automatically generate a new AMI whenever a new version of cPanel & WHM goes to the RELEASE tier. We are working on similar capabilities for OpenStack and KVM based systems, including Google Cloud.

Are you interested in any of this? Definitely send me an email. We want to start getting feedback from a small group of invested users, and I want you to be part of that group.

Deprecations!

To make it easier for you to see what’s being deprecated and when support will be removed, we’ve updated our documentation to include a cPanel & WHM Deprecation Plan. Here’s a brief overview of what’s changing in version 60:

• Support for NSD and MyDNS are now deprecated. Removal of support is not yet scheduled.
• Support for MySQL versions 5.1 or older are now deprecated. Removal of support scheduled for version 62.
• Support for EasyApache 3 is now deprecated. Removal of support scheduled for version 62.

Keep in touch!

Version 60 could go to the CURRENT tier as early as next week! If you want to make sure you know when it goes to CURRENT, or keep up to date on any of our other product developments, make sure you subscribe to our Product and Security Notifications mailing list, and follow us! We try to make sure we are where you are, so you’ll find us on twitter and Facebook. You can also subscribe to our subreddit, and we’ve even made a quiet return to Google+. Are you somewhere else, or would you like to see updates in a different way? Let me know below, or send me an email.

See you next week for the cPanel conference in Portland!