AdminBolt 1.9.3: Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, Remote Mail Servers and Backup File Import

AdminBolt 1.9.3 is out. It connects your servers to Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud. Hosting accounts' mail can now run on remote mail servers. A cPanel account backup file can be imported straight into an account. White-label branding now covers the whole look of the admin, reseller and client panels. Malware protection gets one page of its own and the panels have a new design.

Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud

Backups > Acronis connects the server to your Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud account. Install the Acronis Backup module in Modules first and create an API client in the Acronis console. In Settings you enter the API client, verify the connection, check the server and enroll it. Create the default plan then sets up a daily protection plan that keeps databases consistent. A plan you already have can be applied instead. You choose its time and retention. Encryption is chosen when you create the plan. Run a backup now shows the backup's progress.

Administrators recover account files, databases, mailboxes, domains or a whole account. A terminated account can be recreated and an account can be downloaded. Server files can be recovered or downloaded. The whole server can go back to a recovery point.

Your customers can help themselves too. Self-service in Settings lets resellers restore the accounts they own and clients restore their own files, databases and mailboxes. Restoring a whole account for clients is a separate option, off by default. Clients also need the Acronis Backup feature in their hosting plan. The hosting plan and the reseller each set how many days back they can go. The Operations Log lists every recovery, download and backup. Notifications report a failed or stale backup, an offline agent and storage that is almost full.

Remote mail servers

The new Email Servers page lets hosting accounts' mail run on a separate server. Add Email Server adds a server and Deploy sets it up as a dedicated mail server. That server needs AlmaLinux 9. On a hub, Use Fleet Node turns a paired node into a mail server for this panel's accounts.

Administrators choose the mail server when they create an account or in Edit Account. Accounts set to Default Mail Server follow the default one. Existing accounts stay on the local mail server. When an account's mail server changes, its MX records that point at this panel's servers move to the new server. So do its mail SRV, mail.<domain> and DKIM records and its mail autodiscovery. External MX records and records you added by hand stay as they are. While a domain uses MailChannels, SpamExperts or Remote email routing, its MX and mail.<domain> records stay as they are too. Existing mailboxes are not moved to the new server.

Each mail server shows its status and View Logs shows its recent mail log. A mail server that accounts still use cannot be deleted. A node that accounts use for mail cannot lose its mail role or be unpaired. Webmail on a hub signs in to mailboxes hosted on mail servers.

Backup file import

A hosting account backup file from a cPanel server can now be imported into a new or an existing account. You do not need access to the old server. Administrators start it with Import a backup file on the Migration page. Resellers find Import a backup under Hosting Management and clients find it under Files.

Imports start once you turn on Allow backup imports in Import settings. Clients also need the Backup import feature in their hosting plan. Both are off until you turn them on.

An interrupted upload resumes where it stopped. Before anything is written, a preview lists the domains, databases, mailboxes, DNS zones, cron jobs, certificates and FTP accounts in the file. It checks them against the plan limits and shows what will happen to each one. An import into an existing account keeps its data unless you choose otherwise. Replaced data is kept in a protection copy. The report gives the result of each item. Try again prepares a new preview for what was not restored.

White-label branding

Branding in General Settings now puts all three panels under your brand. Pick one of the ready-made colour schemes or set your own colours, each with a light and a dark palette. A preview shows your colours as you adjust them. You also choose the corner style and the font. The sidebar width is set for each panel on its own. Your logo fits without cropping.

Branding also sets the favicon in the browser tab, a message above the login form, the footer text and the theme users start in. The new Support tab adds your support URL, email, phone and Terms and Privacy links to the client login page and the client panel footer. Your customers see your brand and your contacts from the moment they sign in.

Malware protection

Health > Security shows which engine guards the server, whether it runs, its licence and whether uploads are scanned in real time. It puts ImunifyAV, Imunify360 and cPGuard side by side. Installing, removing or switching engines is a guided flow that runs one operation at a time. The admin REST API offers the same under /api/admin/security. The CPGuard page also shows the installed cPGuard version and installs updates in the background.

With ImunifyAV, files written to a website are now scanned in real time. Installing ImunifyAV sets this up and the upgrade does it where ImunifyAV is already installed. Health > Malware lists every file a malware engine reports, once per account. A file can be moved to quarantine, restored or deleted, one at a time or in bulk, whichever engine found it. Clients get the same on their Security > Malware page when their hosting plan includes it.

Your clients get more of it too. With the cPGuard client plugin on, they open cPGuard under Security > CPGuard. They see only their own account and can restore files from quarantine. The client panel now has a notifications bell and hosting accounts have a contact email. A threat found in an account reaches the client in that bell. An email follows when the account has a contact email. Later detections arrive together in one digest.

Repeated failed mailbox and webmail logins now get the address blocked. When this protection needs attention, Health says what to do. When cPGuard's login protection is on, it also covers panel, webmail and FTP logins.

New installations also turn ModSecurity on from the start. The WordPress block editor saves normally with its rules. Existing servers keep their current setting.

New panel design

All three panels share a calmer, consistent look with a neutral dark theme. The client Home page fits a phone screen. Logs is now one menu entry, with Activity Log as one of its tabs. DNS, Redis instances and Plan limits moved out of General Settings. Old links to those tabs lead to their new place.

General Settings sets the default language for users who have not picked their own and the timezone that dates are shown in. The new Security tab sets the session lifetime and can require two-factor authentication for administrators, resellers or clients. It can also limit the admin panel to a list of IP addresses. A list that would lock you out is refused.

Secondary DNS checks

The panel now checks what each secondary DNS server serves for every zone. Global DNS Zones and Secondary DNS Servers show the result and the time of the last check. A zone that keeps failing raises a Health issue naming the zone, the secondary and the reason.

A server that becomes a secondary DNS server receives every existing zone. The new Send zones action sends them again on demand. Afterwards the panel names each zone that did not arrive and why. A zone deleted on the hub is also removed from the nodes with the Secondary DNS role.

Certificates and backups

Some certificates are not renewed automatically, for example certificates from another authority that came with a migration. They now get expiry reminders. You get them as system notifications and the account owner sees them in the client panel bell. Replace with a free certificate swaps a certificate from another issuer for a free one, one at a time or in bulk. The installed certificate stays in place until the new one is issued.

When an account's backups to a destination start failing, the first failure sends a critical notification by email, webhooks and the admin bell. It names the account, the destination and the error. No alert is sent for a suspended account or while the alert's notification template is switched off. You set when the first reminder comes. More follow while the failures continue. Health lists each account whose backups keep failing until a backup succeeds. Until the first backup has run, the Backups overview shows a short checklist that walks you through the set-up.

Check your addon domain limits

The Addon Domains count of a hosting account no longer includes its main domain. A plan with Addon Domains set to N now lets the client add N domains besides the main one. Existing plan values are not changed, so every plan with a limit allows one more domain than before. Unlimited plans stay unlimited. To keep the previous limit of a plan set above 1, lower its value by one. Do not lower a plan set to 1 to 0, because 0 means unlimited.

Smaller things you may notice

System Updates has a Reboot server action. It is highlighted when the package check says a reboot is due. You confirm by typing reboot and the page reloads once the server is back.

Node.js and Ruby applications run on LiteSpeed Enterprise in Apache drop-in mode. Python applications run there too, with what they need set up from the Runtime Manager (CloudLinux Only). An application's Node.js version can also be used from SSH and the SSH Terminal (CloudLinux Only).

When the panel finds that a site still runs another PHP build after a PHP version change, it rolls the change back. The client Domains page shows whether each domain is served, with the reason and the next step when it is not.

How to update

Upgrades run from the panel. Open Settings, then System Updates under System, check for updates and start 1.9.3 from there. New installs are one command:

curl -sSL https://get.adminbolt.com/install.sh | bash

Tell us how it goes

Tell us how 1.9.3 works for you on Discord or the community forum.