Learn cPanel

cPanel officially launched its podcast series Sunday, August 1, 2010, www.cpanel.net/podcast. The cPanel team added this new multimedia addition to provide listeners with practical instruction for improving their websites.

Every two weeks, Technical Writer Lindsey White will interview cPanel experts and investigate a variety of subjects to help listeners learn more about cPanel products.

The cPanel podcast team will release a new episode on a bi-weekly basis as well as offer information about the next episode via the podcast site. There is a pre-released schedule for the first three podcasts in the series, which includes:

Podcast Overview

• Episode 1- “How to Install WordPress in cPanel”
  • Will go through the basic steps to help answer this commonly asked question
  • This podcast became available August 1, 2010.

• Episode 2- “Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates Demystified”
  • Will explain how SSL certificates can be used to make a website more secure
  • This podcast will be available August 15, 2010

• Episode 3- “Installing Custom Web Applications
  • Will provide listeners with insight into the process of installing web applications in cPanel
  • This podcast will be available September 1, 2010

Podcast episodes will be available via direct download from the cPanel Podcast site. Listeners will also have the option to subscribe via RSS feed or through iTunes.

Listeners may visit http://www.cpanel.net/podcast for more information about the cPanel podcast series.

To add a new email address:

1. Type the email address to be created in the Email field.

• If you manage more than one domain, make sure to select the appropriate domain from the pull-down menu.

2. Type the password in the Password field.
3. Retype the password in the Password (again) field.
* You can click the Password Generator link to have a strong password generated for you.
4. Type the quota in the Mailbox Quota field.

• The quota defines how much hard drive space the account will be allowed to use.
• PICK Important: Due to mail server constraints, quotas cannot be greater than 2048 MB. Quotas exceeding this amount must be unlimited.

5. Click Create Account.

We had a customer who forgot their root password, and within a few tries at different variations, WHM had locked them out. Here’s what we had to do to clear out the IP’s:

Lets “use” the cphulkd database, and see what tables we have

root@w4 [~]# mysql
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 2279778
Server version: 5.0.90-community MySQL Community Edition (GPL)

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql> use cphulkd;

Database changed
mysql> show tables;
+-------------------+
| Tables_in_cphulkd |
+-------------------+
| auths             |
| brutes            |
| good_logins       |
| logins            |
| whitelist         |
+-------------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

So we have auths, brutes, and logins.
The table we are looking for is brutes. This is the table where the blacklisted IPs reside.

mysql> select * from brutes;
+--------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| IP | NOTES | BRUTETIME | EXPTIME |
+--------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
| 24.90.253.66 | 5 login failures attempts to account moo@omg.com (ftp) | 2008-01-07 14:54:02 | 2008-01-07 14:59:02 |
+--------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

So we simply remove the entry.

mysql> delete from brutes where IP='24.90.253.66';
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> 

There you have it! This is most likely the quickest way to remove IP’s that have been locked out.