Installing cPanel on Rackspace Cloud Server : Step by Step Guide

Installing cPanel on Rackspace Cloud Server is very easy. By default Rackspace Cloud VPS has no Control Panel. Here is is a guide on how to install cPanel on Rackspace Cloud Server. We have previously published separate guides on how to install WordPress on Rackspace Cloud Server using Shell. However, due to lack of knowledge on UNIX commands, some users (and resellers) loves to have cPanel or Plesk as an Interface to add and manage websites. Most advanced Cloud VPS providers will provide a bland server – the reason is, a bland server will utilize the alloted RAM more efficiently than that with a control panel on the same server. In other words, a WordPress that is installed with 256 MB RAM will outperform a WordPress installation that is using a cPanel or any control panel. The reason is quite obvious – cPanel will also eat some resource. We are writing this guide on Installing cPanel on Rackspace Cloud Server for the novice users. So, every step of this guide on Installing cPanel on Rackspace Cloud Server is quite elaborative.

Resources needed for Installing cPanel on Rackspace Cloud Server

For Installing cPanel on Rackspace Cloud Server, you need an account on The Rackspace Cloud. Login to your account and click the tab named Hosting to expand (on left hand side) and then Click Cloud Servers link :

Then click Add server :

I have used RedHat Enterprise Linux 6.1 in this guide on Installing cPanel on Rackspace, you can use CentOS 6.0, the steps will be the same for both. After this step to choose Operating System, you need to select the size of RAM. You can scale is later as per your need. I have used 30 GB of RAM :

Click the Create Server button for installing the Operating System as the first step for Installing cPanel on Rackspace. With 30GB RAM it will take few seconds to get installed, with 256 MB RAM it will take a bit time. This is quite obvious. After it gets installed, a popup will come like this :

Copy this automatically generated password and paste on some Text Editor like Notepad. Scroll a bit down, you will get the IP address, copy it too :

Paste it too on Notepad.

Registering for cPanel for Installing cPanel on Rackspace

Go to the official website of cPanel and create a new account, then either purchase or use the 15 days free trial version, this is important step for Installing cPanel on Rackspace. We have used a free 15 days trial for this guide for Installing cPanel on Rackspace. You will need that IP address here while ordering :

Its quite easy to register your Server’s IP for Installing cPanel on Rackspace.

Now, you will need a small software named PuTTY. Download and run it. Copy paste your I.P. address on that host name and click Open :

It will ask Login as ? type root and hit Enter. The password is the password you have saved on Notepad before. Test test yum by installing screen by typing :

yum -y install screen

And hit Enter key. It will show the details.  If there is any error you might have to fix it. Now we need to install perl. Type this :

yum -y install perl

Wait it to be completed :

Now we are install Installing cPanel on Rackspace

First step for Installing cPanel on Rackspace will be downloading the WHM installation file. It can be done by typing and hitting Enter key:

wget http://layer1.cpanel.net/latest

It will take few seconds to do. But the next step is the last step, which will take a big time. Type it and hit Enter :

sh latest

All is done for Installing cPanel on Rackspace.

Login to  http://ip-address/whm and begin your cPanel configurations.

Further Note :

As we have done a test guide to show Installing cPanel on Rackspace Cloud Server, we have not used any DNS Records. You need to Edit the DNS info from Rackspace Cloud server Interface (there is a DNS management tab).