The cPanel home screen provides access to all of your cPanel functions.
You can reach the cPanel home screen from anywhere in the interface by clicking the Home button (
) at the top left corner of the screen, or the Home link at the bottom of the screen. From the Home screen, you can reach any of cPanel's features.
You can change the order in which the feature-related boxes, such as Mail and Files, appear on your home screen. This can be useful for organizing the cPanel interface to better suit your needs. To change the location of a box:
- Click and hold the box's heading bar.
- Drag it to its new location.
The information boxes can also be minimized or “hidden” by clicking the icon in the top right corner of the heading bar.
To hide a feature box:
- Click the arrow at the top right side of the box. This will collapse it into a heading bar.
Clicking the Help button (or the Help link at the bottom of the screen) opens a pop-up window with information regarding the feature you have accessed within the cPanel interface. The contents of the Help menu change, depending on where you are in the interface.
Help should be consulted any time you have trouble using a feature in cPanel. The Help link offers 3 options at all times:
- Video Tutorials — Click to view a list of the video tutorials available from cPanel.
Note: You will not hear sound while viewing the videos. - Full Interface Documentation — Click to access this documentation.
- Contact Customer Support — Click to access a form for contacting customer support. You can also click the Contact link at the bottom of the page.
Note: This documentation may also be found by clicking the Documentation link at the bottom of every cPanel screen.
Logout
The Logout button (
) at the top right corner of the main screen, and the Logout link at the bottom of the screen, allow you to log out of your cPanel account.
Note: Be sure to click Logout after accessing your cPanel account from any computer where access is shared.
Trademarks
To view information about trademarked names used within the cPanel interface, click Trademarks at the bottom of the screen.
Switch Theme
The theme is the framework of the cPanel interface. If your web host allows, you may switch your cPanel interface to a different theme. What themes are available to you depends on your web host’s configuration.
Note: x is a deprecated theme. We recommend that you use a theme based on x3, as it is the most up-to-date.
Switch Account
If you are the administrator of more than 1 account, and if your web host enables this feature, a Switch Account drop-down menu appears at the top of your cPanel interface. This lets you manage the domain of another account by selecting it from the menu.
Notices
If your web host has an important message to communicate, it will appear in a box marked Notices, above the Find feature.
Find
The Find function can help you quickly locate a feature of cPanel. Simply type a keyword into the Find box on the left side of the screen. The menus on the right will automatically filter to show the results, as seen in the screenshot below.
To show all features of cPanel, click the ‘X’ button to the right of the Find text box.
The Find feature filters your available options.
Frequently Accessed Areas
Under the Frequently Accessed Areas heading, the 4 most accessed functions of cPanel are linked for your convenience. This menu is subject to change during operation as features are used more or less often.
The Stats Menu
The Stats menu shows exactly how much of your hosting account’s resources have been used. For example, it tells you the number of FTP accounts, email accounts, and databases you have left on your current hosting plan. This is important for monitoring your resource usage and can help you decide when it’s time to upgrade your hosting plan.
- Click expand stats to see all of this data.
- Click collapse stats to view only the first 5 stats.
The full Stats menu displays the following information:
- Main Domain — The primary domain on your account.
- Home Directory — The folder, located on your web server, in which your website’s folders and files reside.
- Last login from — The IP address from which you last accessed your cPanel account.
- Disk Space Usage — The amount of disk space that your account occupies on your web server in Megabytes. This number appears next to the amount of disk space your account is allocated.
- Monthly Bandwidth Transfer — The amount of data transferred to and from your account for the month to date in Megabytes. This number appears next to the total monthly bandwidth your account is allocated.
- Note: You may notice discrepancies between information WHM provides and the information log processing program (such as AWStats, Webalizer, or Analog) provide. To learn more about this, read our documentation about bandwidth discrepancies.
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- Email Accounts —The number of email accounts associated with your website, out of the total number allowed.
- Subdomains — The number of subdomains associated with your account, out of the total number allowed.
- Parked Domains — The number of parked domains associated with your account, out of the total number allowed.
- Addon Domains — The number of addon domains associated with your account, out of the total number allowed.
- Ftp Accounts — The number of FTP accounts associated with your website, out of the total number allowed.
- SQL Databases — The number of SQL databases associated with your website, out of the total number allowed.
- Mailing Lists — The number of mailing lists associated with your website, out of the total number allowed.
- Hosting package — The name of the web hosting plan to which you have subscribed.
- Server Name — The name of your web server.
- cPanel Version — The version of cPanel currently running on your server.
- cPanel Build — The build of cPanel currently running on your server.
- Theme — The version of the cPanel interface layout currently being used.
- Apache version — The version of the Apache software running on your web server.
- PHP version — The version of the PHP scripting language currently installed on your server. This information may be useful for installing PHP scripts.
- MySQL version — The version of the MySQL database software currently installed on your server. This information may be useful for installing MySQL databases on your website.
- Architecture — The type of microprocessor powering the web server.
- Operating system — The software running on the web server, which allows the server to operate.
- Shared Ip Address/Dedicated Ip Address — If your domain is assigned a dedicated IP, this field displays that IP address. If your domain is assigned to a shared IP, this field displays that IP address, which is potentially shared among multiple accounts on the web host’s server.
- Path to sendmail — The location of the sendmail program on your web server. This is useful if, for example, you create a script that lets visitors send you email using a form on your website.
- Path to PERL — The location of the Perl interpreter on your web server. This information is necessary for writing Perl scripts.
- Kernel version — The version of your web server’s kernel, which is the central operating system component, allowing the server’s software to communicate with its hardware.
- cPanel Pro — The version of the cPanel pro software currently running on your web server.
The Server Status Page
The Stats menu also provides a link that displays the status of the available services. Clicking the link at the bottom of the Stats menu opens a new page displaying whether a particular service is working or not. An example of the Server Status page can be viewed in the screenshot below.
Server Status Information Box
- A green circle means that the service is running.
- A yellow circle means that it is busy or, in the case of disk space, almost full.
- A red circle indicates a problem with the service, or a full disk.
Services listed on this page may include:
- cpsrvd: The cPanel service daemon. This service runs the cPanel interface.
- imap: An email protocol for mail retrieval.
- httpd: The Apache webserver’s daemon. This daemon is responsible for serving web pages to your visitors.
- named: The DNS server. This service is required for your domains to appear on the Internet.
- Server Load: Your server’s current CPU load. If this is red, your server is experiencing performance issues.
- Memory Used: The amount of RAM being used on your server, shown as a percentage.
- Swap Used: The amount of swap memory being used, shown as a percentage. Swap memory is memory used on your hard drive in place of RAM. Swap memory usage occurs during a RAM shortage.
- Disk /$volume: Amount of hard disk space being used, shown in percentage form. If this appears red, delete old or unused files.
Note: With the exception of the Disk service, you should contact your web host if you are experiencing problems with any of these services.
The Preference Links
The preference links are a set of 5 links located at the bottom of the Home screen. These links change the basic display preferences of cPanel’s interface. An example of the links can be viewed in the screenshot below.
The Preference Links
- Lite/Full Graphics — Toggles display of the header and footer graphics, allowing for reduced memory demands and load times.
- Hide/Show Icons — Toggles display of the icons contained in the boxes between displaying only hyperlinks, or both icons and hyperlinks. Hiding icons will further reduce memory demands and load times.
- Reset All Interface Settings — Resets any changes made to the interface and return it to its default.
- Note: This will not reset the current theme.
-
- Reveal All Boxes — Reveals any menu boxes that have been hidden.
- Note: Boxes can be hidden by clicking the arrow icon in the top right-hand corner of the heading bar. Hidden boxes appear in “window-shade” format as a simple heading bar.
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- Reset Box Order — Returns the order of boxes to cPanel’s default setting if the order has been changed.
