WPJohnny

WordPress Performance Guides and Reviews

CyberPanel OpenLiteSpeed high performance web server for WordPress

38 Comments

Create your own HIGH PERFORMANCE CyberPanel-OpenLiteSpeed web-server in just 10 minutes (with $10).

  • Want your own super fast web server?
  • Don’t want to pay for a control-panel or managed sys-admin support?
  • Want a full-functioning control panel?
  • Want enterprise-grade caching?
  • Want to manage all this (almost) without messing with the command line?

You’ve come to the right place!

1. Get a VPS account

If you want to copy me exactly in this video, go open a Linode account. Here’s my Linode referral link (if you’d like to support).

You can totally choose any other VPS provider you’d like. It doesn’t matter. All will work. I feel Linode will be easiest for newbies because of: A) you get to choose simpler root password initially, and B) you can copy-paste right into Linode’s web console.

If you get another VPS provider, there’s a good chance you’ll have to connect in with a proper SSH program, and get lost figuring out which SSH port to use, etc and etc. If you want to be quick-and-easy, Linode will be a little faster.

2. Create a VPS instance

Choose a STANDARD VPS option. Not one of the CPU or GPU or MEMORY optimized ones. Those are for special application uses and you probably won’t notice much difference for your web server.

If you don’t know which size to get… I recommend the standard $20/month (2CPU-core/4GB-memory). It can handle a million hits easily if your site is not so bloated and you cache properly. You can also get the smaller $5-10/month plans or larger $40-80/month plans. You can also resize your server later on.

Pick the latest version of 64-bit CentOS that you see. Why CentOS and not Ubuntu? CentOS is generally considered more stable and more secure. Ubuntu can be considered as getting updated more often but unfortunately this has downsides of being buggy sometimes or less stable. CentOS is the safe choice, super compatible with everything, and chosen more for web-servers than any other Linux distribution..

Once the server finishes building, make sure you boot. Once it’s running, you can log into it and start install software.

3. Log into SSH/root

  • For everyone that choose Linode, simply launch the console and log into root access.
  • For the folks that chose another VPS, you can figure out an SSH program or just spend extra time typing commands perfectly into the command line without copy-paste function.

4. Install yum updates

You can even skip this step if you want but I like to do it. From the command line (after logging into root), enter yum update and hit ENTER. It will update all your server packages. There will be 2 prompts where it asks if you’re ok with the package sizes, simply press y and hit ENTER to continue. Once yum updates are finished, we can start installing CyberPanel.

5. Install CyberPanel

Enter the command below and hit ENTER:

sh <(curl https://cyberpanel.net/install.sh || wget -O - https://cyberpanel.net/install.sh)

  • NOTE: you can always check the official install page for the exact instructions.
  • When prompted, make sure you pick to install CyberPanel and CyberPanel with OpenLiteSpeed.
  • When prompted to create an admin password, choose whichever option you want.
  • For jsDelivr, I like to choose NO (type n and hit ENTER).
  • For all the object caching options, Memcached/Redis/etc, I choose YES for all (type y and hit ENTER).

CyberPanel installs very quickly. Usually within 10 minutes, which is very fast compared to 30-45 mins for most control panels. Once the installation is completely, you’ll simply enter your server IP and the CyberPanel port 8090 into your web-browser.

  • Example: https://123.123.123.123:8090

From there just log in, and enjoy using CyberPanel! While everything is ready to be used, there are probably some further configurations below.

That’s it?! Does this mean I can run my own web-server forever now?!

Errrr…..ALMOST. It’s a great option to learn, save money, and have fun. But if you have a serious money-making production site, don’t mess around. Pay the money and have it taken care of by experts who have years of experience dealing with all the random issues that show up. There’s no point in trying to save $10-50/month only to lose a bunch of sales or cause yourself so much stress when something goes wrong.

Installing CyberPanel on Vultr (or maybe other VPS):

  • My instructions above aren’t working? You can try my install guide for Vultr below.
  • Log into root.
  • Update yum with this `yum update -y`
  • Then `cd ~`, and then `wget -O installer.sh https://cyberpanel.net/install.sh`
  • Finally `chmod 755 installer.sh` and `sh installer.sh`
  • Then follow the same install steps as above.

Some extra CyberPanel configuration tips

  • If you chose an insecure root password, go create a strong one and change…make one up or generate it.
  • Go to firewall and open TCP port 7080 for LS console.
  • Use the command line to do following tasks: 1) get LS console password and go tweak LS settings, 2) get mySQL root password for phpmyadmin.
  • You CAN but I recommend not using your web server for DNS. Just host your domains with Cloudflare and point them to your server IP. (Can disable DNS service on server.)
  • If you can afford it, I highly HIGHLY recommend getting LiteSpeed Enterprise license. It’s cheap and comes with extra performance, security, and many other benefits (too many to list).
  • More CyberPanel configurations and common fixes

Now would be a great time to learn some basic Linux commands, also server configuration and security. Sure you can get by with very minimal and this is about as easy as it gets but you definitely will need to know more in the long run especially when issues arise or your server gets attacked or overloaded. Etc.

NOTE: for those wondering about the RACK911 Labs security review of CyberPanel’s flaws, they have already been patched. Control panels and pretty much all software will be exposed to security vulnerabilities from time to time. What’s important is that they are fixed immediately.

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Reader Interactions

38 Comments

  2. What about htaccess?does it support http2,php7.3,gzip,brotli,modsecurity,selinux,softaculous? Anyway to setup openlitespeed as front end reverseproxy and apache as backend?kindly give steps to do?

    Reply

    • All these questions easily answered from the CyberPanel.net website. This is a modern highly-updated control panel and web-server. YES to many relatively standard features like: htaccess, http2/http3, php.7.3, gzip/brotli, mod-security, SElinux. Just FYI, many control panels need SElinux disabled to work properly. Softaculous I don’t believe has an integration for CyberPanel yet BUT CyberPanel already has 1-click installs for WordPress.

      Setting up Apache as backend is currently built-in but not fully available to the public. I think if you beg on the forum and support the cause, they may decide to release it later. I’d much rather wait for that than to try setting it up myself.

      Reply

  3. Hi,
    Could you explain how to do the following please:

    Go to firewall and open TCP port 7080 for LS console.

    Use the command line to do following tasks: 1) get LS console password and go tweak LS settings, 2) get mySQL root password for phpmyadmin.

    Reply

  5. Hi Johnny,

    I am very tempted to move away from shared hosting and use Linode (not sure on the size yet), with CP.

    I was wondering, is this what you’re currently using? I know you use Linode, but do you actually use CP personally?

    Is it safe to use after the RACK911 auditing?

    Also, do you suggest/prefer to use CyberPanel with OpenLiteSpeed for free, or an enterprise plan?

    Reply

    • Hi Joe!

      – Yes, I use CyberPanel for some of my clients on huge production sites.
      – I left a note about Rack911’s security audit…it is safe, and was patched immediately afterwards. Many other panels failed the audit and was patched as well, not only CyberPanel.
      – Of course, I prefer LiteSpeed Enterprise for more features.

      Reply

  6. Hey Johnny, I just discovered your blog and learned about Swift, Cyber panel and Open LiteSpeed and it’s super exciting stuff.

    Do you have any guides or resources for managing sites on Cyberpanel? I set it up on Upcloud today for a dev site and I’m really loving the how fast Litespeed is.

    You mentioned it’s not worth managing yourself, but in general what would be required to keep it running smoothly on a high traffic site?

    Reply

    • Hey Steve, really glad you enjoyed. I plan to make a page with common CyberPanel configurations and fixes. But keep in mind that new issues will always pop up and you’ll need a bit of Linux skills to keep up. It’s a great opportunity to learn how to manage your own web server but not for the feint of heart.

      What’s required to keep a web server running smoothly? Oh boy, there’s no good general answer for that. Deal with server load and plugin conflicts. Deal with hackers and security issues. Doing regular software updates while mitigating downtimes. Act as point of contact for all issues related to all layers of the OSI networking model. Having to take blame for your server when client sites/software fails (even when it’s not your fault). Clean house for messing clients that hog resources (space, memory, CPU, etc). The list goes on and on.

      Reply

  7. Thanks Johnny for your great tutorial . I am confused about how can add my domains to wordpress sites ..
    Would i use Linode DNS manager or use Cyberpanel DNS manager ?
    I am confused ..

    I followed your instructions and It works fine .. and I installed 2 sites using Cyberpanel WordPress One click install .. also how can install SSL for each site ?

    what after that ?

    Reply

  8. The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    libmariadbclient-dev : Depends: libmariadbclient18 (= 1:10.1.44-0ubuntu0.18.04.1) but 1:10.4.12+maria~bionic is to be installed
    E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

    command failed, exiting…
    root@test:~#

    It doesn’t moves forward anymore

    Reply

    • Unfortunately, the license description are designed for server admins and not for regular users. I’m happy to help you. If your traffic is 10 million monthly visits or less, you’ll be fine with 1-core license (or any of the cheaper ones). I would start with the monthly webhost ones to know exactly which plan fits you before before trying the OWNED licenses.

      Reply

      • Hi Thanks, but I do not think you have checked the link I shared.
        The Owner and Owner plus are not the Owned licenses. That is not the question I was asking.
        I do not consider myself a regular user and the “worker” could means a lot of things on a server environment.
        Another point to what I was saying, they have a complicated license system. Any business consultant will tell them that.
        🙂

        Reply

  11. Hi Johnny, great article!

    I have just had cyberpanel installed on Vultr….
    Is it stable over time?
    I mean, I am no programmer so I cant manage it if something goes down.
    Is this a gamble?

    Reply

    • Thanks, Jason. CyberPanel is indeed stable and reliable for production use. The biggest issue I have from time to time are SSL’s not automatically renewing. If you only manage a few sites and you’re on there regularly, it’s not a big deal. But if you have many sites and they belong to clients, you’ll be quite irritated when it happens.

      Reply

  12. Hi Johnny! A few questions

    1 – Is the Digital Ocean 1 click image same as the above configuration?
    check – https://marketplace.digitalocean.com/apps/cyberpanel
    2 – Is Brotli supported only in Litespeed Enterprise?
    3 – I tried installing everything as per your guide on Linode but it seems the Cyberpanel login page just won’t open. I found out that port 8090 was closed so I tried opening it after reading some guides and then it gave a 503 server error. Any idea what’s going on?

    Reply

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