Feature lists in WHM

Last updated: 19 April 2021

What options are available in a cPanel account depends on what features are enabled for the account. As a reseller, you can create different feature lists and apply your lists to individual cPanel accounts. For instance, you can have a separate feature lists for email-only hosting plans.

Why use feature lists

If your customers use their account for both their website and email then you probably don’t have to create a custom feature list. The default feature set enables pretty much everything that can be enabled. Custom lists are mainly useful if you have custom hosting plans. For instance, an email-only plan doesn’t need to include cPanel’s file manager or databases interface.

Feature lists are also useful if you want to disable certain features. For instance, if you build your websites in Drupal then it makes sense to disable WordPress-specific features. Or, if you don’t use addon domains then you may as well disable the feature. In short, you can use feature lists to unclutter cPanel accounts.

The Feature Manager

Because feature sets are applied to hosting packages it makes sense to create feature sets before you create packages. There is no need to do things in that order – everything can be tweaked afterwards.

You can create a new feature list via Packages » Feature Manager » Add a new feature list. First, you need to give the list a name and click Add Feature List. Next, you need to select the features you want to enable. There are few important things to note:

• Your username is automatically prepended to feature list. In the below image I used the name “web” for the new list. As my username is “example” the name automatically becomes “example_web”.
• Some features are disabled and can’t be enabled. This are all features that are disabled globally on the server. If there is a specific feature you need, please submit a ticket and we can probably enable it for you.
• The list is quite long and not all the features are obvious. In most cases, the best strategy for deciding the features you want is to start by enabling everything. You can then remove those features you definitely don’t want.

Image: the Feature Manager.

Features overview

As said, what features to enable mainly depends on the hosting package. An email-only package needs fewer features than a web hosting package, and a DNS-only package can have a very minimal set of features. That said, there are a couple of features you always want to enable:

• Contact Information lets users change the email address for cPanel notifications. The email address is used to for instance notify a user that their account is running low on disk space or bandwidth. The email address is never used for marketing / advertising.
• Password & Security lets users reset their cPanel password.
• Two-Factor Authentication lets users set up multi-factor authentication for the cPanel account.
• Bandwidth shows the amount of traffic to and from the server per month (in gigabytes). Website, FTP and email traffic all count towards the bandwidth usage, so you want to enable this feature even if the feature list is designed for email only.
• Resource Usage is a CloudLinux feature that can help identify any issues with the resource usage on an account.
• Change Language is used to change the language of the interface. We can add a language if your preferred language isn’t available.
• Change Style lets user change the cPanel theme. There are a few pre-defined themes to choose from, including a “dark” and “retro” theme.

DNS features

Most other features are fairly self-explanatory. There are a few gotchas though. For instance, there are two items for managing DNS: Zone Editor (A, CNAME) and Zone Editor (AAAA, CAA, SRV, TXT). Both enable the Zone Editor, but the former option limits it to the most basic DNS records. You typically want to enable both features.

Let’s Encrypt

You can manage Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates by enabling AutoSSL and SSL Host Installer. This gives cPanel users access to the SSL/TLS Status interface. The page lists all domains on their account, including subdomains and aliases, and for each domain you can see if a valid Let’s Encrypt SSL is installed. Users can also run AutoSSL to install an SSL certificate for one or more domains.

WordPress features

WordPress is very popular, and there are various WordPress managers that let you install and manage WordPress websites via cPanel. cPanel is pushing the WordPress Toolkit, which is quite modern and intuitive. However, some basic functionality is disabled – they really want you to upgrade to the paid-for “DeLuxe” version. The Softaculous WordPress Manager doesn’t look as fancy but is fully functional.

Other articles

This article is part of a series about reseller hosting:

• About reseller hosting
• WHM overview for resellers
• Feature lists in WHM
• Creating packages in WHM
• Creating cPanel accounts in WHM
• Managing cPanel accounts in WHM
• Managing DNS zones in WHM
• Customising cPanel accounts