After the last 5 days or so when I couldn’t post as I was really busy outfitting my PC with almost entirely new parts, I’m now on a release candidate version of cPanel 11, after my web host finalised the upgrading from cPanel 10 to 11. That upgrading step denied me a day from posting, but now that it appears settled, my cPanel now shows version cPanel 11.6.0. It is still just a release candidate.
So, now that I’m on a cPanel 11 RC (Release Candidate), what do I notice? Actually, I didn’t notice anything at first. It’s just like using an AMD and an Intel. Maybe when the full upgrade is completed, will I know the difference.
Rather than rattle on about the complete features of cPanel 11, I’ll just talk about my own impressions at this point. For one thing, it didn’t take me long to realize that cPanel 11 is significantly faster than cPanel 10, especially if you are reloading from cache. The home front end interface icons don’t just pop out one by one, the entire page is able to load in just a few seconds.
It appears that most of the improvements are currently underneath it, such as enhanced security features. According to the cPanel guys, denial of service attacks by brute force now look like they are handled much better, by a disabling of authentication for all the cPanel services once an attack is detected. It uses a system called cPHulk that remains transparent to the attacker while the attack is being carried out, thus vital info can be gathered about the attack source and method.
What I was told earlier, was that cPanel 11 uses a separate domain management system, but the current release doesn’t seem to integrate that yet. Addon domains are still treated as subdomains of the main domain. So that is something I’m still waiting for. You can see the difference with cPanel 11 is that you can specify the root of where you want your domain directory to reside in.
Another feature that would be really cool is the Web Disk Access which allows a user to put a shortcut icon on their desktop that links to their hosting account allowing easy access and eliminating the need for FTP altogether. Cool, but it’s still not yet available – still in Beta stage now.
So, as the upgrade will take place in stages, I can only say at this point that I’m really looking forward to the full stable release once all the bugs have been ironed out. Looks set to take the self hosting experience to a new level. If you want to get a look at a working version of cPanel 11, the demo is here.