Terminal missing in WHM

[David Amos]

I need to access the terminal to update curl on my CentOS distribution. However, I cannot locate the terminal in WHM, and do not have root access from my cPanel user account.

According to the docs, the terminal should be located in Home > Server Configuration, but I do not see it.

I have tried accessing with my root password from Putty on Windows 10, but cannot seem to get access their either with SSH.

Any help is appreciated, thanks.

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hi David,

The Terminal feature was added to the product in cPanel & WHM version 72:

The in-browser terminal application
cPanel & WHM's new in-browser terminal application provides direct command-line access within a cPanel & WHM session. This faster and easier successor replaces the Java-powered SSHTerm application that we removed in cPanel & WHM version 11.50.

• WHM users can access this feature in WHM's Terminal interface (WHM >> Home >> Server Configuration >> Terminal).
• cPanel users can access this feature in cPanel's Terminal interface (cPanel >> Home >> Advanced >> Terminal).
• Server administrators can enable the terminal application for cPanel users with the SSH Access & Terminal setting in WHM's Feature Manager interface (WHM >> Home >> Packages >> Feature Manager).
• Server administrators can create the /var/cpanel/disable_whm_terminal_ui touch file to disable the terminal application for WHM users. This includes both resellers with root access and the root user. The system does not create this file by default.

Can you check which cPanel & WHM version is installed on your system? You'll find it in the upper-right portion of the WHM user interface.

I have tried accessing with my root password from Putty on Windows 10, but cannot seem to get access their either with SSH.

Do you receive a specific error message when attempting to access the server using a SSH client such as Putty?

Thank you.

 

[David Amos]

Hello,

I am using v74.0.5. I can access the Terminal through my cPanel user, but not through WHM as root.

With regards to the touch file, would I be able to see the existence of this file when logged in as a cPanel user? because there is I do not see that file in the `/var/cpanel/` directory when running `ls -a`.

In putty I just get a "Connection refused" error. I created a SSH key pair with Puttygen and uploaded my public key as root in WHM and authorized it, and am using the corresponding private key to connect.

Thanks,

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hi David,

With regards to the touch file, would I be able to see the existence of this file when logged in as a cPanel user? because there is I do not see that file in the `/var/cpanel/` directory when running `ls -a`.

It does seem like it's the touch file that's preventing the feature from appearing. You won't be able to access the /var/cpanel/ directory to remove it as a cPanel user. Instead, you'll have to access the server via SSH as root using a client such as Putty first.

In putty I just get a "Connection refused" error. I created a SSH key pair with Puttygen and uploaded my public key as root in WHM and authorized it, and am using the corresponding private key to connect.

Do you use a firewall management utility such as CSF? If so, make sure your SSH port (22 by default) isn't blocked in your firewall rules. If it's not, one available solution is to start a temporary instance of SSH using the SafeSSHRestart Autofixer. Here's an example of the URL you would enter once logged into WHM:

https://IP:2087/cpsess12345678/scripts2/doautofixer?autofix=safesshrestart

You would replace "IP" with the server's IP address and the session number with what's displayed in your address bar after logging in to WHM. Note that this is simply a temporary instance of SSH that will run on a different port (23 by default if SSH is already running on port 22), so you can login and determine what's wrong with the standard SSH service. Once the temporary instance of SSH is running, you can go through the steps on the following resource to configure SSH to your own preferences:

Tutorial - Interested in increasing the security of your server? Read this. (sshd hardening)

Thank you.