cPanel’s ELS and how it affects you
At the end of May 2024, cPanel decided to launch a program for all CentOS 7 servers that were not on a supported operating system. They call this program the Extended Lifecycle Support program with the intent to run from July 1, 2024 to January 1, 2026. While extended support for a product can be seen as a good thing, this comes with some conditions.
- It can not be opted out of.
- You must pay a fee
This fee is planned to increase after January 2025. With cPanel planning to increase their standard license fees this year, it is recommended that everybody move to a supported operating system as to not continue to get charged excess additional fees.
What does this mean for you?
If you’re a KnownHost customer running CentOS 7 on a VPS, Cloud or Dedicated Server then you will be subject to additional license fees as a result of this program being imposed upon you by cPanel. Starting September 2024, the fee is going to be determined by the license tier that you have with us from cPanel.
- cPanel Admin Cloud: $3.00
- cPanel Pro Cloud: $4.25
- cPanel Plus Cloud: $6.00
- cPanel Premier: $7.75
This will be charged as a new service to each account that has an active cPanel license on an EOL Operating System. This fee will be charged for as long as you continue to operate on a server that cPanel does not consider a supported operating system. Once you’ve been moved to a supported operating system, you will not be charged this fee any longer.
What do you need to do?
What happens next depends on what you want to do and what level of management that you’re currently on. If you’re fine with paying the additional fee until you move or upgrade yourself to a supported operating system, great! Nothing needs to be done.
If you’re Managed customer with a VPS, Cloud or Dedicated Server, you will want to reach out to our Support Department by opening a ticket through your My KnownHost dashboard. This ticket will need to be addressed with a title regarding the upgrade of your Managed Server. A support technician will be assigned to your ticket who will then proceed to check and ensure your server hits all the checkboxes to upgrade.
If you’re an Unmanaged customer, you’ll need to purchase a similar VPS, Cloud or Dedicated server to migrate yourself from CentOS 7 to AlmaLinux 8 (or 9, depending on service). It is possible for Cloud and Dedicated servers to utilize cPanel’s Elevate to upgrade from CentOS 7 to AlmaLinux 8. This is, however, only recommended for experienced systems administrators.