How To Suspend And Unsuspend Accounts In WHM?
An administrator or reseller may need to limit access to a particular hosting account. Web Host Manager gives you central control to turn on, deactivate, and reactivate accounts as per your business requirements.
Suspending an account is a common practice in keeping your server healthy and imposing your billing policies. You can stop a website from running without deleting any data of the user.
Why Suspend an Account?
A hosting account may need to be put on hold because of a number of common reasons. With this feature, you can secure your server resources and make sure that your terms of service are adhered to.
- Bandwidth Overages: The site has consumed more data transfer than what it is planned to consume.
- Billing Problems: The client has not paid their hosting invoice on time.
- Violation of Policy: The user has uploaded prohibited content or has breached your usage agreement.
How to Suspend an Account
In the event of account suspension, the site will be offline, and the user will no longer have access to cPanel, FTP, and SSH. A suspension can be done through the following steps.
- Search by Suspension: Type ‘suspension’ in the top-left search box of WHM and then choose Manage Account Suspension.
- Give a Reason: Enter a brief explanation in the Reason (if suspending) text box. This reminds you of the reason why the account was locked out in the future.
- Choose the Account: Click on the domain or username you want to restrict.
- Execute: Click on the Suspend button.
Unsuspending an Account
When the client sorts out the underlying problem, e.g., paying a bill or cleaning up a script, you can bring them back to service immediately.
- Go back to the Manage Account Suspension screen.
- Name the Account: Suspended accounts will be highlighted in red so that they can be easily identified.
- Reactivate: Choose the account and click the Unsuspend button. The site will be launched instantly.
Customizing the Suspension Page
Visitors see a default system page when they attempt to access a suspended site. You can customize this page with your company logo or contact details.
- Open Template Editor: In WHM, use the search box and type “template” and then click on Web Template Editor.
- Select Account Suspension: Click on the tab ‘Account Suspension’.
- Edit the HTML: You may modify the code within the editor and save it.
- Upload Your Own: In case you have a personal design ready, you can click on ‘Browse’ and find the file on your computer, and then click ‘Upload Template’.
Conclusion
Managing account suspensions is vital to any hosting provider. It provides you with the required control to impose your rules and keep your client data secure. The Web Template Editor even allows you to use a suspension as a business opportunity to create a professional branding.
FAQs
Will the user’s files be deleted when I suspend them?
No, everything, databases, files, and emails are safe on the server. The system just blocks them till you unsuspend the account.
Can I see a list of every account I have suspended?
Yes, you can go to WHM and search for “suspension” and then select List Suspended Accounts to get a dedicated report of all inactive users.
Does a suspended account consume disk space?
Yes, since the files are still stored on the server, the account still consumes disk space.
Can the user still log in to cPanel?
No, the system prevents all attempts to log in to cPanel, FTP, and SSH for any account that is in a suspended state.
How do I automatically unsuspend someone?
Unsuspension timer is not available in Standard WHM. But with a billing system such as WHMCS, it can automatically unsuspend the account as soon as the client pays their invoice.
