Hi, there. This is Lawrence Simon, a technical writer on the documentation team at cPanel - the
hosting platform of choice. It's all about the cloud these days. Did you know that you can create
a cPanel & WHM server instance in the cloud? In this video, I'll demonstrate how to launch
a cPanel & WHM server on a Google compute engine instance. We'll perform the following tasks. We'll
log in to Google, we'll configure the instance and launch it, we'll set the root password and the
hostname at the command-line, we'll configure a static IP address, and then, we'll connect to WHM.
The first step is to navigate to the Google Compute Engines website - cloud.google.com.
Click Get started for free. Then log in to Google with your email address and password.
If you don't already have an account at Google, you'll need to sign up for one. After you get
that taken care of or if you've already got an account at Google, select the check box to accept
the Terms of Service. Then click Continue. The payment information interface will appear. Enter
your payment information or confirm the payment information already on your account. I'd prefer
not to include my billing information in this video so I'll skip ahead to the next part, okay?
The Google Cloud Platform interface will appear, and Google will send you a confirmation email.
Now we'll search for the marketplace listing for cPanel & WHM. In the left navigation bar,
click Marketplace. The Marketplace window will appear. Search for cPanel. A list of
products will appear. Click cPanel & WHM on Linux. The cPanel & WHM marketplace profile
will appear. Read the details on this page. It will contain
links to our documentation and other helpful resources. When you're done reading the page,
click Launch On Compute Engine. You must enable billing on your account to proceed.
Click Enable Billing. Wait for the configuring API's message to vanish. It'll take a few minutes.
Okay. We're now ready to create our instance. In the deployment name textbox,
enter a name for the instance. The deployment name can only contain lowercase letters,
numbers, or dashes, and it must start with a lowercase letter and cannot end with a
dash. This step will not set the hostname of the server. It's just a label for the Google
dashboard. We'll set the hostname later. The Zone menu allows you to select the
data center in which to create the server. Google's regional data centers are located
around the world so select one that's either near your location or near your customers.
The minimum requirements of cPanel & WHM on Google Compute Engine are slightly different
than our normal minimum requirements. You'll need at least one gigabyte of RAM and 40 gigabytes of
disk space, but we recommend at least 2 gig of ram and 40 gigabytes of disk space. Then
select the number of CPUs you'll need. Click customize if your instance requires more memory,
a specific CPU style, or to specify the number of CPUs. Let's return to the basic view in
the boot disk section. Select Standard Persistent disk for the boot disk type,
and then set the boot disk size and gigabytes text box to a value of 40 gigabytes or more.
In the networking section, do not make any changes, and then in the firewall section,
we've pre-configured the ports you'll need for basic cPanel & WHM services. However, if you know
of additional ports you'll need to open due to software that you plan to run, you can add those
firewall rules here or you can change them through the Google Cloud dashboard after installation.
These settings control the firewall at Google, not the firewall that will be built into your system.
Click Deploy. The Deployment Manager interface will appear. When the instance is ready,
you'll see a green icon next to the instance name. The right panel will contain helpful information
to get you logged into your server. Let's go ahead and log in. Click SSH. A new window will
appear with a terminal session. Then enter sudo space su space - to get root access.
Run the passwd command. Then enter a new password,
and finally enter that new password again. A confirmation message will appear.
To assign a hostname to the server. Enter the following command `hostname
CTL space set - hostname` and then your desired hostname.
To configure VPS deployments many cloud hosting providers use the D H client command. This command
includes the configuration of the instances hostname, but the DH client command may not
preserve the locally configured hostname. So hosting providers use scripts to work around this
issue. For example, Google Cloud Platform services uses the Google set hostname script. Be sure to
change the hostname to the hostname that you plan to use for your server. I'll put a link to the
documentation with the command, and I'll also put it in the comments of this video, and I'm pasting
in an example of that script for this particular hostname. Okay. Let's close the terminal session.
By default Google assigns ephemeral IP addresses to instances. If you restart your server,
Google may assign a different IP address to it. We need to configure a static IP address. To do that,
let's go to the external IP addresses page. Click Learn more. A help page will appear.
Click Go to the External IP Addresses Page. The External IP Addresses Page will appear.
Then click the arrow next to Ephemeral. A new window will appear. In the name textbox,
enter a name for the IP address. In the description text box,
enter a description for it. And finally, click Reserve. A success message will appear.
Let's return to the deployment to interface, and click the admin URL link. Your browser may
display a few security warnings. Your server starts with the self signed certificate. Later
on you can set up a hostname certificate to secure your server and get rid of those warnings. A login
interface will appear. Then enter the root username and the password that you just set,
and click Log in. A new interface will appear then asks you to agree to our software license.
Go ahead and read it, and then click Agree to All. Another interface will appear that
will ask you for your contact information and the nameservers for your server to use. I'll enter my
email address as the contact. As for the primary nameserver, enter NS1(dot) and the domain name
that you plan to use for the server. I'm using cPaneldemonstration(dot)com. Then for the second
nameserver use NS2(dot) and that domain name. Then click finish. The WHM interface will appear.
Every cPanel & WHM server that's new on a particular IP address comes with a 15
day trial license. You can contact cPanel if you wish to buy a license,
or you can buy one directly from within the WHM interface. If you see a warning about a
new version of cPanel & WHM available, don't worry about that. As part of the installation process,
cPanel & WHM is updating itself as a background task. However if you see a warning about requiring
a reboot to apply software updates, that means that there is a new operating system kernel
available. You can take care of that reboot after you get things set up on your server.
One other important note: by default, Google blocks port 25. cPanel & WHM
uses port 25 to send email, so it's important to configure a relay for
your server if you plan to send email from it. I'll put a link in the show notes for
some helpful resources to get you set up for a relay and configuring your server.
For more information about cPanel - the hosting platform of choice - visit cPanel.com or follow
us on twitter @cpanel. What did you think of this video? Let us know in the comments and for
more helpful videos, subscribe to our cpanel channel. Thank you for watching and enjoy!