[UA-Measurement] cPanel

Wed Nov 18 14:32:04 UTC 2020

Thank you for your insights, Jim. Very helpful.

It seems to me that in light of a strong dependency between webhosting and CMS platforms a study is warranted. This could very well be within CMS Phase 2, or a CMS Phase 1.5 in which we study webhosting products as standalone. We can discuss in our next meeting.

-Dennis

From: UA-Measurement <ua-measurement-bounces at icann.org> on behalf of Jim DeLaHunt <list+uasg at jdlh.com>
Date: Tuesday, October 27, 2020 at 5:18 PM
To: "ua-measurement at icann.org" <ua-measurement at icann.org>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: [UA-Measurement] cPanel

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Dennis:
On 2020-10-27 08:44, Tan Tanaka, Dennis via UA-Measurement wrote:
I recently had a conversation with the chair of the CIS-EE local initiative, Maria Kolesnikova; she mentioned that in her conversations with local hosting providers cPanel is often listed as a roadblock for supporting IDNs and internationalized email address. I quickly looked at cPanel’s website for information about this platform and it is not quite a content management system, rather a platform underneath it (I may be wrong)?

Anyone in the working group with first-hand knowledge of cPanel and its relationship with CMS?; if this type of platform is something different than CMS but relates to the CMS ecosystem, would it make sense to study it from a UA-readiness standpoint?

I encounter cPanel from time to time when modifying websites for small companies, so I can explain a bit about cPanel and how it relates to Content Management Systems (CMS).  I think Emily Taylor's reply is correct and helpful. Let me try to answer your question about the relationship of cPanel and CMS directly.

CMS software runs on top of web server software. When CMS software sends or receives email, it interacts with a mail server (Mail Submission Agent or Mail Delivery Agent or Mail Transport Agent). So, when evaluating the Universal Acceptance of a CMS, it's fair to say that a precondition is that the CMS runs on top of a web server which is UA-ready, and with a mail server which is UA-ready.

There are various ways to set up web servers and mail servers. A large organisation with professional system administrators might set up servers, and load in web server and mail server software, and configure it all directly and in great detail. But a small organisation probably can't do that. They rent a "web server" from a web hosting company. They look to the web host to provide use of a web server and mail server, and a simple way to administer simple functions.

cPanel[1][2] is a software product which web hosting companies install to provide that simple way for people who are renting simple "web servers" to administer web server and mail server functions. The web hosting company configures cPanel to offer choices to the renters, and pass those choices on to the detailed configurations of the underlying web server and mail server software. Web hosting control software like cPanel is definitely not part of the CMS software.

From the point of view of evaluating CMS software, I think it's reasonable to lump a web host's cPanel in with its underlying web server and mail server software and its configuration.  In order for a web host to offer a UA-ready web service or email service, both the underlying software and the administration panel need to be UA-ready. If the web host uses a deployment of cPanel which turns out to not be UA-ready, then the web host is not offering a UA-ready service. Whether the obstacle is at the cPanel level, or the underlying server software level, or at the web host's configuration level, is a secondary issue.

Maybe CMS software can still offer a degree of UA-readiness despite running on an underlying web host which is not UA-ready. Maybe not. That might be an interesting question to evaluate. I'm not sure.

On 2020-10-27 08:44, Tan Tanaka, Dennis via UA-Measurement wrote:
> what are the other site management software platforms?;

There is a list of such products at [3]. It is not complete. For example, I use Dreamhost to host my web servers, and they have their own web hosting control panel software which is not on that list. We could ask experience system administrators which other site management software exists. I suspect there may not be a clear line between packaged systems like cPanel, and the custom system at Dreamhost, and internal tools which a professional sysadmins may set up in a large organisation. This, for me, is another argument to group the control panel with the underlying service, and evaluate the UA-readiness of the combination.

[1] <https://www.cpanel.net/products/<https://secure-web.cisco.com/1azFIvC1T-9LCl-wXuFRXrGucW5Sv4QwySzf1OkCraOFyDn_Ico0eCZUp8yG9veIQDAMTewTpuxKser3MLFPZVUWsH9YWxKprM6kM3meRUKMQeEU0EklPRV4RkpgaPRyjWQKLAraZHOOyiH7qOp6DZMsVaDYSNi5QDE4OaMRFc8X_80AX7NlArRiaUJZPK5vALE5XgBvEHaqVOkenpDkyvHqJEhBgAStjQ6RUaKdoZP2VyX722jRRrZccQ8AzSXbOyZgzTGbfKf306lxxA1VqxsdYYeEvL2d6JftGI_ijMVE/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cpanel.net%2Fproducts%2F>>
[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPanel<https://secure-web.cisco.com/1Q4SpbOENHOTc0lQGzgO2TjhLBsniGL44GBE7sjcNT4XPtmDJAaTRFb4yMRY_sn5za7k3MgikHseuI7dPZx4q7k7I7B_DcA9EqnSodAHKn0vMKCVws8qWMWCwSgWPj2H6YTQF4Wbv5hIMCiwlztXMeXShaNs-FHtpk4OWhSDpmVyMuLvNERpbmKNJhQbvYLUkRTIxroYnk_L5S4S9E33LwK56jrz6pUMEi25eP1IXBQK8tlROTm1d-O2bHCcMO1J1mRVKE9fyR2cTdUrkRQ7s8A/https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FCPanel>>
[3] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_hosting_control_panel<https://secure-web.cisco.com/182UVwhA6aMZd4AQKQLQLXHwU9d1NOPtNqsm6ee8FLVhikNY7pK_8PcvIF57UIDqlj4Z8pD0j2u3WUTX41K8yjHMjzjfwO63wh9RB-enHSaQUxkyIyDzGiPZQ4AccbhwxB1b0bre8uR4GgSIhS7aMEqfRBU9ynV1VowHKCdjBCIrxEa1XjnwR7yLenxA9JJxQjEk4pxAyirP7UYRDHPP-3RtgKUDsinNVz3gK6Dj4-n3hUR9QnCJ9ETfZKeahPyGs_J6Gl2nBv6_0N2_sMd8FvQ/https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWeb_hosting_control_panel>>

Does this answer your question?
        —Jim DeLaHunt, software engineer, Vancouver, Canada

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