Creating a sub-cPanel account is a very useful tool that you can use, if you want to resell hosting from your server, you want to separate your domains so they can have their own IP addresses, or you want to have the ability to trouble shoot more easily issues that might pop up.
So first you you will need to log into the WHM. Click this link if you do not know how to do that.
Once you are in the WHM you can go to the search bar in the top left and type Create and then choose the Create a New Account option.
Once you are on the Create a New Account page it will show a list of six sections:
Domain Information
In the first section, this is just where you are going to put the domain and the log in information that you (and your customer if you are reselling this account). The Username and Password is what anyone who needs to log directly into this cPanel account will use.
As an aside, to log directly into the sub-cPanel account you will just go to domain.com/cpanel where you replace domain.com with the actual domain for that account, and that will bring up a cpanel log in screen. If the domain is not pointing to your server yet but you need to log into the cpanel then you can use any domain that is pointing to your server followed by /cpanel and log in with the correct credentials. Here’s an example: you create an account for exampledomain.com but it is still pointing to the old host, and your main domain is: maindomain.com you can go to maindomain.com/cpanel and log in with the credentials that were setup for exampledomain.com.
Package
The Package section is where you can set specific limits for the accounts, define what package this account will use. Now if this is the first time that you are making an account then the only package that should be there is one named after you hosting provider (e.g. bluehost, hostmonster, etc.) DO NOT USE THAT PACKAGE! If you do about half of the options in the cPanel will not work. So for Select Options Manually check that box, and now check Save Manual Settings as a Package, only if you want to use the package that you are about to create for any other cPanel accounts you create in the future. I am going to assume that you are going to save this package. Now give your package a name. The Feature List should be set to default.
Manual Resource Options
This section was not here before, but because you selected Select Options Manually now all of the package options are showing. In here this is where you can set the different options for the package (this is really useful if you are reselling hosting and you want to have different packages/price points.) There are only two options that actually need your attention, they are: Disk Space Quota (MB) and Bandwidth Limit (MB). They cannot be left at the default setting of unlimited the reason is because your server does not have unlimited resources to give. Everything else can be, but they don’t have to be, left at their default value.
Settings
The settings are things that you will be able to add to any account whenever you create a new cPanel account. So the first option is Dedicated IP you should only select that if you have an extra dedicated IP address to give. You can always add a dedicated IP address later.
Some reasons why you might want to have a dedicated IP address. First and the most obvious one is if you are running an ecommerce site and want to sell directly from the site, then you will need an SSL and an SSL requires a dedicated IP address. Another reason is to have each of the sub-cPanel accounts send mail from their own IP address. The reason why this is beneficial is because if a user on your server start spamming or gets hacked and starts spamming, and their IP address and domain gets blacklisted that will not affect any of the other domains. Now I’m sure there are other reasons why, but those are the ones I can think of right now.
I would leave Shell Access enabled. You never know when you, or someone else might need to log in via SSH. Leave FrontPage Extensions off. Please, it has been unsupported since 2003. So please don’t use software that is 11 years unsupported. Just leave CGI Access on.
Now if you are using the current version of WHM/cPanel you will have a few different options for the theme. The cPanel default ones are: X3 and paper_lantern. You should also have a mail only variant of X3, that one is only for mail hosting only. You might also have one from your host called something like bluehost, as an example. Generally the ones created by your host are not to be used as sub-cPanel accounts, but those themes are tied into your hosting account and sub-cPanel accounts are not. I recommend paper_lantern, its a lot newer and better looking than X3. For Locale select the language you want.
Reseller Settings
This section is only if you want to give someone the ability to do exactly what you are doing right now… So I would just skip over this section.
DNS Settings
You will want to enable both SPF and DKIM. They are used for email verification. Not for your incoming messages but for all of the out going messages. The receiving server will be able to verify the server and generally won’t have any issues with receiving emails from your server.
The next two options are a little more involved. They are Use the nameservers specified at the Domain’s Registrar. (Ignore locally specified nameservers.) and Overwrite any existing DNS zones for the account.. The only time that you would enable Overwrite any existing DNS zones for the account. is if you had that domain on your server before and you don’t want any residual DNS entries on the server. For Use the nameservers specified at the Domain’s Registrar. (Ignore locally specified nameservers.) You will enable this option only if you setup custom nameservers at the registrar and you want to use those.
Here’s an example for enabling Use the nameservers specified at the Domain’s Registrar. (Ignore locally specified nameservers.) Let’s say you are creating this account for: example.com. At your registrar you set up ns4.example.com and ns8.example.com. So now you want to use those, you would select Use the nameservers specified at the Domain’s Registrar. (Ignore locally specified nameservers.) and when the WHM creates the account for example.com it would create the correct DNS records with those nameservers.
Mail Routing Settings
This is the last option and then you are all done. Mail Routing Settings is for mail and how the server handles it. Automatically Detect is used if you are not sure if the server is going to handle the email or if a third party service like Google Apps is. Local is when you know the server is going to handle it, and Remote is for when you know a third party service is. Backup Mail Exchanger is for when you have a third party service, but you want your server to work as a backup server, so it will automatically set the MX records for your server on a very low priority. So just pick which ever suits your needs.
Just click Create and now you are all done!! Congratulations on your first sub-cPanel account!!
You will now need to point your domain to the account you just created. You can do this two different ways. First you can just point the A record (@), or you can create custom nameservers and point the domain to those. To create custom nameservers follow this Guide.
Once all of the DNS is setup you will then want to access the cpanel. To access it you can go to the domain/cpanel so as an example example.com/cpanel. Now if the domain is not pointing to your server then you can use any other domain that is pointing to your server or the server’s IP. XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/cpanel.