"cheap" WHM/cPanel license experience reddit / selfhosted ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ichasecorals · 2023-10-16 05:25 I have 3 offical licenses hosted for myself and managing other clients' web hosting account. I have some down time so I wanted to test for myself about these services that claim they offer very cheap cPanel license service and see if it is really legit. The service I testes was license.monster. Although some of the items are listed in their FAQ, some are hidden or berried somewhere else in their documentation. Long story short, they are a scam. So buyer beware. Pros: \- easy install \- easy subscription purchase ​ Cons: \- they charge IP changes and they do not state it on their FAQ \- they take at least 24hrs to answer a simple support question \- they refuse to refund even if you subscribed more than 1mo of subscription \- once they cancel your account, you have no option to contact support to address billing issue \- cannot use cPanel SSL feature \- they do not understand English \- they are a chinese single owner shop \- the install binary is questionable \- the installer forces cpanel to allow questionable binaries to be executed even though you have already disabled the feature ---------------------------------------------------------------------- roman5588 · 2023-10-16 06:02 Yep, dangers of using a pirated copy of cPanel! Maybe good for personal use as a hobby but no way would I use in production. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ichasecorals · 2023-10-16 06:18 I would even be weary for homelab. The binary can execute anything through port 80 or 443. I've locked down SSH, mail, whm, and cpanel access from my Omada SDN firewall, and all web requests go through nginx proxy manager. Only allowing http/s, dns, and whm/cpanel licensing ports through. Installed CFS, chkrootkit, rkhunter, chkrootkit and run chron every 24hrs. It still lingers in the back of your mind what the binary is doing when you're not looking. these people have total control of what ever they installed after your executed the installer. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- roman5588 · 2023-10-16 06:27 It will likely be hit and miss but I’m sure it works for many people around the world. Biggest risk is what happens if the mob shuts down and you have to reinstall or correctly licence the server in a hurry. Seen this burn which was thought once credible hosts who used nulled out licences. CPanel also have public tools to check licence status by IP which is a big risk if operating commercially. If you are evaluating it I would be interested to know your long term experiences and if your monitoring solution picks up anything unusual. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- slowmail · 2023-10-16 07:16 I would probably reach out to the WHM/Cpanel team, and ask them if this is an authorized reseller. If the team replies that they are, then well and good. But if they tell you that they aren't, I would not use them. Especially if you're a business, with paying clients. If it's for a personal/hobby site for friends and family, I'll just explore various free and/or open source panels. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ichasecorals · 2023-10-16 07:55 I’m sure they aren’t. Cpanel unlimited domains for vps and metal that cheap is too good to be true. I run CloudPanel VM with Mailcow on a separate VM for development on my homelab before i sync up to CP on DigitalOcean servers. I just did this as a learning experience, though it cost me $10 for 2mo of their service. I only used a month and they refused to refund half of that. Even though i have not used the second month. They claim it is used. I will process a charge back and see how that goes. That should be interesting. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ichasecorals · 2023-10-16 08:01 If someone does rely on this service, i would use WHM system and domain backup. Very easy and takes a lot less time to restore. I’ve already burned my public homelab IP for this test. So that’s that. I was only able to test for a month before they started upselling for other services like IP change and their own SSL configuration, no reply about their “proprietary” installer. That ultimately tells me this isn’t going to work out. Even on a homelab. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrR_tm · 2023-10-16 09:24 Now test cpanel alternatives... for science.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ichasecorals · 2023-10-16 09:27 Free alternatives? No need. I’ve been using CloudPanel and Mailcow for years without issues. No one has to be a rocket scientist to get both running reliably. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrR_tm · 2023-10-16 09:55 I was thinking more feature wise as I haven't looked into alternatives in many years, CloudPanel is a new one to me so thanks for that ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ichasecorals · 2023-10-16 09:58 It’s very simple and secure and geared for loading speed. It doesn’t have mail features. I don’t see a point in running a mail server on the same machine as hosting. They have a demo. You should give it a try and see for yourself. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MrR_tm · 2023-10-16 10:10 Will do, last I used personally was web/cloudmin so will see how it compares