Potential Issues with Merging cPanel Accounts

Here we will cover what to do when running into issues with merging cPanel accounts.

If you have multiple cPanel accounts and would like to merge these accounts, the method described in How to Submit a Request for the Merge of Multiple cPanel Accounts allows you to request assistance with this process.

While we are glad to assist in this process, merging cPanel accounts is not a native function of cPanel and may produce undesired results.

The following items should be taken into consideration as a precaution prior to attempting a cPanel Merge, either on your own or with our assistance.

Related Articles

Submit a Request to Merge Multiple cPanel Accounts
Transfer cPanel Accounts with WHM Transfer Tool
Remove cPanel Account in WHM

Potential Security Risks with Hosting Multiple Sites in a Single cPanel

1. The more domains that are running under one cPanel account, the greater the risk of cross-site attacks
2. A single compromised or hacked website has the potential to become a gateway to the files of additional domains on the same cPanel
   1. This allows the attacker potential access to all domain(s), email(s), and other account data within that cPanel account

What is Affected by Combining cPanel Accounts

1. The individual cPanel users and accounts will no longer be accessible
2. Any development or staging sites that used a temporary URL referencing the previous cPanel username will no longer work
   EXAMPLE: vps12345.inmotionhosting.com/~userna5. userna5 being one of the cPanel usernames for an account to be merged.
   
   1. Those sites will need to be manually updated (e.g. in WordPress, by updating the site URL and performing a search/replace)
3. If your site references any hard-coded paths that include the cPanel username, those would be impacted and will need to be updated
4. Any FTP accounts associated with the previous cPanel username will no longer exist
   1. You will need to recreate FTP accounts for the associated sites as needed
5. Additional new FTP Accounts and DNS Zone entries will be created under the primary cPanel account as a result of combining accounts
6. We recommend not merging a cPanel account that has a Dedicated IP address
   1. Only one IP address can be assigned to a single cPanel account
7. As the number of websites, databases, and emails increases under one cPanel account, your disk quota limit will need to be adjusted accordingly
8. Custom cron jobs and PHP scripts will need to be reviewed and, in some cases, recreated after the cPanel Merge is completed
9. New databases and database usernames will need to be created and associated with the corresponding configuration files after the merge

Precautionary Steps to Take

1. Ensure that you have a full data backup prior to beginning or requesting a cPanel merge
   1. If you need a backup of your website file(s) and database(s), you can do so by following the steps in Full and partial backups in cPanel
2. Before proceeding, it is also recommended to verify that the primary cPanel account has ample resources (such as addon/subdomain, disk quota, and slots for email accounts and MySQL databases) allocated to host all the websites
3. Shared Reseller Hosting specific steps (R-1000S, R-2000S, R-3000S)
   
   1. For users of our Shared Reseller Hosting, merging multiple cPanel accounts together will mean that more websites will be sharing a finite amount of resources allocated to each cPanel account
   2. Hosting numerous sites in one cPanel may lower performance across all of the websites as a cPanel user nears allocated limits

Moving Forward with Merging cPanel Accounts

1. If you wish to do this on your own, it can be done manually
2. If you want our Website Transfer Team to merge them for you, please submit a request for them to do so
   NOTE: The website transfer team, also known as InMotion Solutions, is a paid support team, and there will likely be a fee associated with the transfer. The team will provide you with a quote before any work is done.