Separate Accounts for Subdomains?

jmcg232

Registered
Jun 10, 2016
3
0
1
Illinois
cPanel Access Level
Root Administrator
I need to set up a couple of dev/test servers for freelancers to use. We just switched to WHM/CPanel and I'm a bit confused to say the least about basic Account setup/management. My hosting company said to create a seperate account for each subdomain but not sure that's the most organized way to do things?
 

Jcats

Well-Known Member
PartnerNOC
May 25, 2011
807
160
168
New Jersey
cPanel Access Level
DataCenter Provider
For security purposes it is the best way to do it. You would just create a separate cPanel account for each subdomain.

This stops cross site attacks since having each domain within a single cPanel account means all files are owned by the same linux user which makes it super easy for an attacker to infect other sites within that same account.

Its also good if you want to limit a developer from being able to access other sites within the same cPanel account.

You will need to enable an option in WHM though.. WHM > Tweak Settings > Allow WHM users to create subdomains across accounts

If the domain is the same domain used for your server hostname then you also need to enable > Allow resellers to create accounts with subdomains of the server’s hostname.
 

cPanelMichael

Administrator
Staff member
Apr 11, 2011
47,880
2,261
463
Hello,

You will likely find it's more organized and secure to create a separate account for each subdomain if each subdomain uses it's own separate website or application, as mentioned in the previous post. You can authenticate in cPanel with the root password to see the "Switch Account" feature at the top of the cPanel interface, allowing you to easily switch between accounts.

Thank you.
 

blue928

Member
Feb 7, 2021
5
3
1
United States
cPanel Access Level
Root Administrator
Within an account, subdomains are unlimited (if configured that way). Does having a separate account to represent a subdomain on the same primary domain count against available user licenses? In other words, does sub1.domain.com, sub2.domain.com, and sub3.domain.com use 3 different licensing slots?