Sysadmin cPanel changing to account based pricing - huge price increases !

Just read the news that cPanel are changing to account based pricing which is huge news for folks relying on cPanel for shared hosting. 99% of my servers are Centmin Mod LEMP stack based as I don't need cPanel most of the time but I do have like 2-4x cPanel/WHM servers where I do need them as well as to keep my cPanel/WHM knowledge up to date for clients that hire me to do server optimisations for both cPanel/WHM and Centmin Mod LEMP servers. So this change affects me as well - though I usually buy my cPanel licenses from 3rd party and not direct with cPanel. I know @Matt uses cPanel/WHM as well. How many of you will also be affected ? Switching to Centmin Mod ?

From the Store Licensing Guide pdf

Their pricing at Pricing



cPanel discussions on

• twitter cpanel - Twitter Search
• reddit cPanel & WHM News and Notes
• hacker news HN Search powered by Algolia

---

 

Seems these changes for me would be a price increase as I mainly have cPanel VPS licenses at US$14.95/month via buycpanel.com folks. So even the lowest cPanel Admin Cloud license is now US$20/month or ~33.8% price increase and cPanel Pro Cloud license at US$30/month would be 100% price increase ! Looks like alot of web hosts will be affected from discussion at WHT Announcing Account Based Pricing | Web Hosting Talk so web hosts costs go from US$30/month to US$350/month under new pricing ! and another WHT thread at Massive cPanel price rises [merged] | Web Hosting Talk

Though I save heaps due to me using Centmin Mod LEMP stack for my VPS servers instead of cPanel licenses. Rough calculation is I save around US$27,000 per year on old cPanel licence pricing and around US$36,000 - US$54,000 per year on the new cPanel license pricing by using my own Centmin Mod LEMP stack instead Yes over last 8 yrs, using Centmin Mod LEMP stack instead of cPanel/WHM has saved me at least US$200,000 in licensing fees Now you know one of the reasons I invest so much effort and time into developing Centmin Mod LEMP stack for my own needs

 

Looks like Ramnode are affected so announced changes RamNode on Twitter

I know Linode's Managed service addon offers free cPanel licenses too so wonder how they'd respond ?

 

oh the pain i can only imagine Massive cPanel price rises [merged] | Web Hosting Talk

and Massive cPanel price rises [merged] | Web Hosting Talk

 

Looks like I need to work more on my cpanel/WHM to Centmin Mod LEMP stack migration guide https://community.centminmod.com/th...-whm-sites-to-centmin-mod-lemp-servers.11610/

 

yeah it's looking that way.

would DA sell ? though I guess everyone has a price

Guess cPanel's decisions is good news for the competition and alternatives out there. Already have a few of my paying clients who use cPanel/WHM asking me about writing migration scripts to Centmin Mod LEMP stack (going to add zstd compression support to them as well) Exciting times ahead

 

some web hosts have it bad Your Options with the cPanel Price Increase | Steadfast

and from Francisco from BuyVM.net

 

Forums are back online Announcing Account Based Pricing

Hate to be in cPanel folks shoes as they may not have much choice in the matter with pricing dictated from above/Oakley ? Reminds me when I worked at vBulletin when Internet Brands acquired vBulletin and the mess they rolled out for vBulletin 5 - us tech staff didn’t have much say in what management decided for vB 5 but us vB staff took all the hits from angry customers

 

In mean time, one of my paid clients I am working with has hired me do a cpanel to Centmin Mod backup/import script (cpanel-backup.sh) so busy doing the task (separate from usual pkgacct based cpanel backups). Will be benchmark testing for speed and disk space consumed comparing cpanel-backup.sh vs cpanel's pkgacct as cpanel-backup.sh will default to zstd compression for better compression speed as well as better compression ratio = small compressed tar.zst backups

• cpanel-backup.sh will have features from dbbackup.sh including conditional db character set detection & pure innodb database detection for conditional single-transaction options. In Addition, will also have sar cpu, memory and disk usage stats recorded.
• cpanel-backup.sh will support the following compression algorithms, gzip via multi-threaded pigz, xz via multi-threaded pxz and zstd (zstd is the default due to speed and compression ration performance)
• cpanel-backup.sh will support backing up up all cpanel user accounts in same session as well as per cpanel user account backups on command line.
• cpanel-backup.sh will also optionally sending slack channel notifications on successful or failed backup targets i.e. public_html, mail or database backups
• still working on additional error checking/notifications for each stage of backups and other backup targets like logs for folks who need to take their existing logs with them

very early preview of single cpanel user backup for = cpuser1

Code (Text):

/root/tools/cpanel-backup.sh cpuser1                       

--------------------------------------------------------
cPanel/WHM backup script 0.1
for data migration to Centmin Mod LEMP stack imports
written by George Liu (centminmod.com)
--------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------
list cpanel users
--------------------------------------------------------

cpuser1

--------------------------------------------------------
backup cpanel /home/cpuser1/public_html web root
--------------------------------------------------------

/bin/nice -n 12 /bin/ionice -c2 -n7 tar cpf - public_html | zstd -T2 -f -9 --rsyncable > "/home/backup-accounts/cpuser1/public_html-cpuser1-290619-213454.tar.zst"
slack notification sending
ok

--------------------------------------------------------
backup cpanel /home/cpuser1/mail directory

/bin/nice -n 12 /bin/ionice -c2 -n7 tar cpf - mail | zstd -T2 -f -9 --rsyncable > "/home/backup-accounts/cpuser1/mail-cpuser1-290619-213454.tar.zst"
slack notification sending
ok

--------------------------------------------------------
list cpanel user: cpuser1 mysql databases
--------------------------------------------------------

cpuser1_db1
cpuser1_db2
cpuser1_db3

--------------------------------------------------------
list cpanel user: cpuser1 mysql usernames & grants
--------------------------------------------------------

mysql username: cpuser1_dbuser

Grants for cpuser1_dbuser@localhost
GRANT USAGE ON *.* TO 'cpuser1_dbuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY PASSWORD '*1F315FCA7B4226EFD886026773262F1429508DF3'
GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, INDEX, ALTER, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, LOCK TABLES, EXECUTE, CREATE VIEW, SHOW VIEW, CREATE ROUTINE, ALTER ROUTINE, TRIGGER ON `cpuser1_db1`.* TO 'cpuser1_dbuser'@'localhost'
GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, INDEX, ALTER, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, LOCK TABLES, EXECUTE, CREATE VIEW, SHOW VIEW, CREATE ROUTINE, ALTER ROUTINE, TRIGGER ON `cpuser1_db2`.* TO 'cpuser1_dbuser'@'localhost'
GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, INDEX, ALTER, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, LOCK TABLES, EXECUTE, CREATE VIEW, SHOW VIEW, CREATE ROUTINE, ALTER ROUTINE, TRIGGER ON `cpuser1_db3`.* TO 'cpuser1_dbuser'@'localhost'

replay commands via SSH command line

mysql -e "GRANT USAGE ON *.* TO 'cpuser1_dbuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY PASSWORD '*1F315FCA7B4226EFD886026773262F1429508DF3'" mysql
mysql -e "GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, INDEX, ALTER, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, LOCK TABLES, EXECUTE, CREATE VIEW, SHOW VIEW, CREATE ROUTINE, ALTER ROUTINE, TRIGGER ON cpuser1_db1.* TO 'cpuser1_dbuser'@'localhost'" mysql
mysql -e "GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, INDEX, ALTER, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, LOCK TABLES, EXECUTE, CREATE VIEW, SHOW VIEW, CREATE ROUTINE, ALTER ROUTINE, TRIGGER ON cpuser1_db2.* TO 'cpuser1_dbuser'@'localhost'" mysql
mysql -e "GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP, INDEX, ALTER, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, LOCK TABLES, EXECUTE, CREATE VIEW, SHOW VIEW, CREATE ROUTINE, ALTER ROUTINE, TRIGGER ON cpuser1_db3.* TO 'cpuser1_dbuser'@'localhost'" mysql

backup cpanel user's mysql databases
/bin/nice -n 12 /bin/ionice -c2 -n7 mysqldump --default-character-set=utf8 --single-transaction -Q -K --max_allowed_packet=256M --net_buffer_length=65536 --routines --events --triggers --hex-blob "cpuser1_db1" | zstd -T2 -f -9 --rsyncable > "/home/backup-accounts/cpuser1/mysqlbackup-cpuser1_db1-290619-213454.sql.zst"
slack notification sending
ok
/bin/nice -n 12 /bin/ionice -c2 -n7 mysqldump --default-character-set=utf8 --single-transaction -Q -K --max_allowed_packet=256M --net_buffer_length=65536 --routines --events --triggers --hex-blob "cpuser1_db2" | zstd -T2 -f -9 --rsyncable > "/home/backup-accounts/cpuser1/mysqlbackup-cpuser1_db2-290619-213454.sql.zst"
slack notification sending
ok
/bin/nice -n 12 /bin/ionice -c2 -n7 mysqldump --default-character-set=utf8 --single-transaction -Q -K --max_allowed_packet=256M --net_buffer_length=65536 --routines --events --triggers --hex-blob "cpuser1_db3" | zstd -T2 -f -9 --rsyncable > "/home/backup-accounts/cpuser1/mysqlbackup-cpuser1_db3-290619-213454.sql.zst"
slack notification sending
ok
--------------------------------------------------------
List cpuser1 backups at /home/backup-accounts/cpuser1
--------------------------------------------------------
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 119 Jun 29 21:34 public_html-cpuser1-290619-213454.tar.zst
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 112 Jun 29 21:34 mail-cpuser1-290619-213454.tar.zst
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 835 Jun 29 21:34 mysql-grants-290619-213454.log
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 861 Jun 29 21:34 mysql-grants-ssh-290619-213454.log
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 496 Jun 29 21:34 mysqlbackup-cpuser1_db1-290619-213454.sql.zst
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 496 Jun 29 21:34 mysqlbackup-cpuser1_db2-290619-213454.sql.zst
-rw-r--r--. 1 root root 496 Jun 29 21:34 mysqlbackup-cpuser1_db3-290619-213454.sql.zst
--------------------------------------------------------
sar usage stats saved at
/home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_290619-213454
--------------------------------------------------------
read via sar command:

cpu load avg

sar -q -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_290619-213454 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"
09:34:54 PM   runq-sz  plist-sz   ldavg-1   ldavg-5  ldavg-15   blocked
Average:            0       143      0.17      0.06      0.06         0

cpu utilisation

sar -u -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_290619-213454 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"
09:34:54 PM     CPU     %user     %nice   %system   %iowait    %steal     %idle
Average:        all      4.17      0.17      4.67      0.50      0.17     90.32

memory usage

sar -r -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_290619-213454 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"
09:34:54 PM kbmemfree kbmemused  %memused kbbuffers  kbcached  kbcommit   %commit  kbactive   kbinact   kbdirty
Average:       143704    871032     85.84     58012    411489   1251265     60.64    276112    359607       135

disk I/O usage

sar -d -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_290619-213454 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"
09:34:54 PM       DEV       tps  rd_sec/s  wr_sec/s  avgrq-sz  avgqu-sz     await     svctm     %util
Average:     dev253-0      0.67      0.00     56.00     84.00      0.00     12.50      0.00      0.00

--------------------------------------------------------
/root/tools/cpanel-backup.sh run log saved at
/home/backup-accounts/logs/cpanel-backup-290619-213454.log
--------------------------------------------------------
backup completed
--------------------------------------------------------
total cpanel backup time: 3.402 seconds
--------------------------------------------------------

sar recorded usage stats so you can fine tune your backup and compression parameters

Code (Text):

sar usage stats saved at
/home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_290619-213454
--------------------------------------------------------
read via sar command:

cpu load avg

sar -q -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_290619-213454 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"
09:34:54 PM   runq-sz  plist-sz   ldavg-1   ldavg-5  ldavg-15   blocked
Average:            0       143      0.17      0.06      0.06         0

cpu utilisation

sar -u -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_290619-213454 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"
09:34:54 PM     CPU     %user     %nice   %system   %iowait    %steal     %idle
Average:        all      4.17      0.17      4.67      0.50      0.17     90.32

memory usage

sar -r -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_290619-213454 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"
09:34:54 PM kbmemfree kbmemused  %memused kbbuffers  kbcached  kbcommit   %commit  kbactive   kbinact   kbdirty
Average:       143704    871032     85.84     58012    411489   1251265     60.64    276112    359607       135

disk I/O usage

sar -d -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_290619-213454 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"
09:34:54 PM       DEV       tps  rd_sec/s  wr_sec/s  avgrq-sz  avgqu-sz     await     svctm     %util
Average:     dev253-0      0.67      0.00     56.00     84.00      0.00     12.50      0.00      0.00

example cpu load output

Code (Text):

sar -q -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_290619-213454 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"
Linux 3.10.0-957.21.3.el7.x86_64 (hostname)     06/29/2019      _x86_64_        (2 CPU)

09:34:54 PM   runq-sz  plist-sz   ldavg-1   ldavg-5  ldavg-15   blocked
09:34:55 PM         0       144      0.17      0.06      0.06         0
09:34:56 PM         0       143      0.17      0.06      0.06         0
09:34:57 PM         0       143      0.17      0.06      0.06         0
Average:            0       143      0.17      0.06      0.06         0

example cpu utilisation output

Code (Text):

sar -u -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_290619-213454 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"
Linux 3.10.0-957.21.3.el7.x86_64 (hostname)     06/29/2019      _x86_64_        (2 CPU)

09:34:54 PM     CPU     %user     %nice   %system   %iowait    %steal     %idle
09:34:55 PM     all      5.50      0.50      7.00      0.00      0.50     86.50
09:34:56 PM     all      5.05      0.00      5.05      1.52      0.00     88.38
09:34:57 PM     all      1.99      0.00      1.99      0.00      0.00     96.02
Average:        all      4.17      0.17      4.67      0.50      0.17     90.32

example memory utilisation output

Code (Text):

sar -r -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_290619-213454 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"
Linux 3.10.0-957.21.3.el7.x86_64 (hostname)     06/29/2019      _x86_64_        (2 CPU)

09:34:54 PM kbmemfree kbmemused  %memused kbbuffers  kbcached  kbcommit   %commit  kbactive   kbinact   kbdirty
09:34:55 PM    143780    870956     85.83     58012    411472   1254340     60.79    276380    359604        80
09:34:56 PM    143428    871308     85.87     58012    411488   1254340     60.79    276376    359604       152
09:34:57 PM    143904    870832     85.82     58012    411508   1245116     60.35    275580    359612       172
Average:       143704    871032     85.84     58012    411489   1251265     60.64    276112    359607       135

and the slack notifications which are colour coded, green = success and red = failed so visually very easy to see which particular backup target has failed a backup run.



red colour for failed backups



added backup directory and filename to slack notifications



also extended sar system stats for min, average, max and 95% values during backup runs

Code (Text):

--------------------------------------------------------
sar usage stats saved at
/home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_300619-004903
--------------------------------------------------------
read via sar command:

cpu load avg

sar -q -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_300619-004903 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"

12:49:03 AM   runq-sz  plist-sz   ldavg-1   ldavg-5  ldavg-15   blocked
Average:            0       143      0.13      0.05      0.05         0

1min 5min 15min min:
0.12 0.04 0.05
1min 5min 15min avg:
0.13 0.05 0.05
1min 5min 15min max:
0.13 0.05 0.05
1min 5min 15min 95%:
0.13 0.05 0.05

Code (Text):

cpu utilisation

sar -u -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_300619-004903 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"

12:49:03 AM     CPU     %user     %nice   %system   %iowait    %steal     %idle
Average:        all      3.89      0.25      5.02      0.00      0.00     90.84

%user %nice %system $iowait %steal %idle min:
2.51 0.00 3.52 0.00 0.00 85.86
%user %nice %system $iowait %steal %idle avg:
3.89 0.25 5.03 0.00 0.00 90.83
%user %nice %system $iowait %steal %idle max:
6.06 0.50 8.08 0.00 0.00 93.47
%user %nice %system $iowait %steal %idle 95%:
5.68 0.50 7.54 0.00 0.00 93.32

Code (Text):

memory usage

sar -r -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_300619-004903 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"

12:49:03 AM kbmemfree kbmemused  %memused kbbuffers  kbcached  kbcommit   %commit  kbactive   kbinact   kbdirty
Average:       168932    845804     83.35     45649    405203   1252855     60.72    248343    369010       129

kbmemfree kbmemused %memused kbbuffers kbcached kbcommit %commit kbactive kbinact kbdirty min:
167600.00 844016.00 83.18 45648.00 405152.00 1244492.00 60.32 246440.00 369004.00 72.00
kbmemfree kbmemused %memused kbbuffers kbcached kbcommit %commit kbactive kbinact kbdirty avg:
168932.00 845804.00 83.35 45649.00 405203.00 1252855.00 60.72 248343.00 369010.00 129.00
kbmemfree kbmemused %memused kbbuffers kbcached kbcommit %commit kbactive kbinact kbdirty max:
170720.00 847136.00 83.48 45652.00 405240.00 1255660.00 60.86 249144.00 369020.00 168.00
kbmemfree kbmemused %memused kbbuffers kbcached kbcommit %commit kbactive kbinact kbdirty 95%:
170505.80 847058.60 83.47 45651.40 405236.40 1255658.80 60.86 249139.20 369018.20 164.40

Code (Text):

disk I/O usage

sar -d -f /home/backup-accounts/logs/backup_sar_stats_300619-010656 | sed -e "s|$(hostname)|hostname|g"

01:06:56 AM       DEV       tps  rd_sec/s  wr_sec/s  avgrq-sz  avgqu-sz     await     svctm     %util
Average:     dev253-0      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00      0.00

tps rd_sec/s wr_sec/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm %util min:
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
tps rd_sec/s wr_sec/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm %util avg:
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
tps rd_sec/s wr_sec/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm %util max:
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
tps rd_sec/s wr_sec/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz await svctm %util 95%:
0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

lets send sar metrics to Slack channel as well



edit: added compression ratio stats and listing of the domain name linked to the cpanel user for easier identification



cpanel-backup.sh compression algorithm tests for speed and compression ratio sweet spots

Nice thing about sending cpanel-backup.sh notifications and backup stats to Slack is Slack search

Here's backup time and compression ratio for tar compressed backups for real mysql database

via zstd default level 3 compression vs gzip via pigz default level 6 compression - zstd slightly slower backup time but much better compression ratio = smaller compressed backup size



via zstd default level 3 vs xz via pxz level 4 compression - zstd much faster backup time and slightly less compression ratio



via zstd level 9 vs xz via pxz level 4 - zstd way faster backup time than pxz ~1/3rd of the time to backup mysql database but still slightly behind for compression ratio. zstd has 19 normal levels of compression with 3 addition 20-22 ultra levels so you can dial in optimal level for your specific cpanel server hardware/backup targets

 

Yeah this Oakley/cpanel pricing change mess is really bringing back bad memories from my vBulletin work days with Internet Brands takeover of vBulletin. If Oakley is anything like Internet Brands, then they don't really care what cpanel users think of the pricing changes as Oakley folks are in their own head space with their own ideas of what will work for them. No convincing by cpanel customers or cpanel's own staff will change Oakley's mind.

 

cPanel posted a survey from their facebook page apparently Pricing Structure Feedback

 

reply from cPanel on WHT Page 25 | Massive cPanel price rises [merged] | Web Hosting Talk

and wow insight into cPanel partner pricing before/after price increases !

12x times higher prices

 

Indeed, I'm so glad that I put all this time and effort into Centmin Mod to not be held hostage to cPanel/WHM or any other control panel for my own site usage requirements !

The price increases that web hosts/partners are reporting due to cap of 100 accounts and overage costs per account pricing are totally insane. I read that WHMCS billing that cPanel/Oakley also own and web hosts use for billing can't even support cPanel's new proposed per account billing natively ! So web hosts are screwed at both ends !

 

indeed - some web hosts are better off than others if they already offer cPanel alternates and are familiar with them. I wonder how those unfamiliar will handle their respective customers' end technical support issues related to their switched panels? Some web hosts or management providers who are solely just 100% cPanel will have a more difficult time.

Indeed though level of cPanel structure/backup knowledge varies from web host and cPanel end users especially if it's not a cPanel to cPanel migration. I'm still progressing with one of my paid clients cPanel to Centmin Mod importer development - preview of what it will be like centminmod/cpanel-backup

 

Looks like DirectAdmin is changing prices policies with dropping their lifetime license option and a new lite license introduced Pricing changes/updates as of July 1, 2019 (No, we aren't raising our prices)