How to setup Service Manager in WHM?

WHM's Service Manager allows you to enable, disable, and monitor the various services and daemons running on your server. This includes core services like Apache, MySQL, and Exim, as well as cPanel-specific background processes managed by the tailwatchd daemon. Properly configuring the Service Manager helps ensure your server runs only the services you need, improving both performance and security.

Step 1: Log in to WHM

Open your browser and navigate to https://your-server-ip:2087. Log in with your root credentials.

Step 2: Open the Service Manager

Navigate to Home » Service Configuration » Service Manager in the left-hand sidebar.

Step 3: Understand the Interface

The Service Manager displays a list of services, each with two checkboxes:

• Enabled — Whether the service starts automatically when the server boots and is allowed to run.
• Monitor — Whether the ChkServd driver watches the service and attempts to restart it if it fails. You must enable a service before you can monitor it.

Step 4: Configure Your Services

Review the list and configure each service as needed:

• Apache (httpd) — Essential for serving websites. Keep enabled and monitored.
• Exim (exim) — Required for sending and receiving email. Enable if your server handles mail.
• MySQL/MariaDB (mysqld) — Required for database-driven applications. Keep enabled and monitored.
• Pure-FTPD (pure-ftpd) — Required for FTP access. Enable if your users need FTP.
• Named (named) — Required for DNS resolution. Keep enabled on DNS servers.
• cPhulkd — cPanel's brute-force protection daemon. Recommended to keep enabled and monitored.
• Spamd — SpamAssassin daemon. Enable if you use spam filtering.
• Dovecot (dovecot) — IMAP/POP3 server. Enable if your server handles email.

Step 5: Configure TailWatch Drivers

Scroll down to the tailwatchd section to configure background processing drivers:

• ChkServd — Monitors and restarts services listed in the Service Manager. Sends failure and recovery alerts to the contact email configured in WHM » Server Configuration » Basic WebHost Manager Setup.
• Eximstats — Tracks Exim mail statistics, maintains email bandwidth logs, and powers the Mail Delivery Reports interface.
• JailManager — Manages jailshell environments. Only relevant if you use cPanel's jailed Apache feature.
• ModSecurityLog — Processes ModSecurity audit logs when ModSecurity is enabled.

Select the Enabled checkbox next to each driver you need, then click Save.

Step 6: Save Changes

Click the Save button at the bottom of the page to apply all changes.

Important Notes

• The services displayed depend on your Server Profile (WHM » Server Configuration » Server Profile).
• Disabling a monitored service will stop monitoring it. Disabling an enabled service will prevent it from starting on boot.
• If a monitored service fails, ChkServd will attempt to restart it automatically and send an alert.
• Changes to monitoring take effect immediately. Changes to enabled/disabled status take effect on next restart or reboot.

Troubleshooting

• Service keeps restarting and failing: Check the service logs for errors. For Apache, check /usr/local/apache/logs/error_log. For Exim, check /var/log/exim/mainlog.
• No alert emails received: Verify your contact email in WHM » Server Configuration » Basic WebHost Manager Setup.
• A service is missing from the list: Ensure the required software is installed and your server profile includes it.

For official documentation, see the cPanel Service Manager guide.