Installation & activation

Upload the server module, the addon and the hook file into your WHMCS root, activate, and add a license key. ImpulseCpanel sells hosting accounts on cPanel & WHM servers you already run and license — there is no VPS to provision and no control panel to install.

Time: ~10 min · Requires: WHMCS 9.0+ · Core: 1.61.19+

1. Prerequisites

You register cPanel & WHM servers you already operate rather than provisioning any, so the prerequisites are a working WHMCS + Core install plus at least one server.

• WHMCS 9.0 or later, with ImpulseCore’s cron runner scheduled: the module’s usage sync, health checks and alerts run on it.
• PHP 8.2 / 8.3 / 8.4 with ionCube Loader 13+ — the module’s PHP is ionCube-encoded, so the loader must be present before activation.
• ImpulseCore 1.61.19+ — the shared Impulse addon. ImpulseCpanel depends on it for licensing, the cron runner, project membership, the audit log, the admin and client-area kits, and the shared Email Delivery service. Install and activate impulsecore before activating ImpulseCpanel.
• A cPanel & WHM server you already run and license, with its WHM API port (2087 unless you changed it) reachable from your WHMCS server.
• A WHM API token with full access, for root (or a root-equivalent user), on each server — Registering a cPanel/WHM server shows how to create one.
• A license key — an ICPNL- key. Your WHMCS install’s domain is recorded the first time the key is validated; you don’t enter it anywhere.

Verify ionCube first

Run php -m | grep -i ionCube with the PHP binary your WHMCS uses: /opt/plesk/php/8.3/bin/php on Plesk, /opt/cpanel/ea-php83/root/usr/bin/php on cPanel, or /usr/bin/php (whatever which php returns) on a plain Linux server. No output means the loader is missing — enable it under Tools & Settings → PHP Settings on Plesk or in WHM’s PHP extension settings on cPanel, or install the loader from ioncube.com and add its zend_extension line to php.ini.

2. Upload the files

Download the release from your license in the Impulse Software portal and extract it into the WHMCS root. You should end up with the two module directories and the hook file:

whmcs/
├── modules/
│   ├── servers/impulsecpanel/          ← Server module (cPanel & WHM API client, provisioning, client area)
│   └── addons/impulsecpanel_addon/     ← Operator admin UI and scheduled tasks
└── includes/hooks/impulsecpanel_hooks.php

The new files need the same owner and group as the rest of your WHMCS files — on Plesk that’s the subscription user, on cPanel the account’s cPanel user, and on a plain Linux server typically www-data. If you extracted them as root, copy the ownership of the existing directories from the WHMCS root:

chown -R --reference=modules/servers modules/servers/impulsecpanel
chown -R --reference=modules/addons modules/addons/impulsecpanel_addon
chown --reference=includes/hooks includes/hooks/impulsecpanel_hooks.php

The Imunify status reporter in modules/servers/impulsecpanel/reporter/ is the one part that isn’t encoded: it runs on your cPanel server’s own PHP, which needs no ionCube loader. You install it on a server only if you want the malware dashboard.

The release holds the module only, with no documentation bundle: these pages are its documentation, and ImpulseCpanel → Diagnostics → Help links to them.

3. Activate the addon

1. Log in to WHMCS Admin.
2. Go to System Settings → Addon Modules.
3. Find ImpulseCpanel in the list and click Activate.
4. Set Access Control → Full Administrator (or whichever admin role(s) should see the addon).
5. Click Save Changes, then open Addons → ImpulseCpanel.

What activation does

Activation creates the module’s tables, registers the module with ImpulseCore and registers its four scheduled tasks — provision, usage_sync, health_version_poll and alert_detection — with ImpulseCore’s cron runner. The addon has no settings on the WHMCS Addon Modules page: everything is configured inside Addons → ImpulseCpanel.

If ImpulseCore isn’t ready

WHMCS reports the addon as activated either way, so read the activation message. If ImpulseCore is older than 1.61.19, it says ImpulseCore registration failed and names the version ImpulseCpanel needs. If ImpulseCore isn’t installed, it says the module wasn’t registered. Until that’s fixed the module’s scheduled tasks don’t run and its admin page refuses every action. Install or update ImpulseCore, then deactivate and reactivate ImpulseCpanel.

Confirm registration in the Core admin: the module should appear in ImpulseCore’s module list (as Managed Web Hosting (cPanel)) and its four tasks should show as registered.

4. Enter your license key

Licensing is centralized in ImpulseCore — you don’t enter the key in the module itself.

1. Obtain your ICPNL- key from the Impulse Software portal.
2. Enter it in ImpulseCore → Modules & Licensing → Licenses for impulsecpanel and click Save. Core validates it against the licensing server and caches the result.
3. Open ImpulseCpanel → Diagnostics → License — it shows the status, tier and enabled features, with Manage license in ImpulseCore linking back to Core’s Licenses tab.

No key, no new accounts

Without a valid key, WHMCS’s Create command refuses to make new accounts (ImpulseCpanel license key required), Link Existing Account and Repair account relations refuse to link existing ones, and every client-area feature that a plan feature controls stays off — customers keep the Overview, the Websites tab (without its PHP version setting), the control-panel sign-in, and ImpulseCore’s Security and Maintenance tabs. Accounts that already exist keep running, and suspend, unsuspend and terminate still work.

Core caches the license with a grace window, so a brief licensing-server outage doesn’t interrupt anything. See Licensing for expiry, grace and moving to a new server.

5. Where to go next

With the module activated and licensed, the remaining setup is all in the addon UI:

• Register a cPanel/WHM server — create a WHM API token, add the server and test it.
• Define plans & wire WHMCS products — map plans to WHM packages, pick their features and point a product at them.
• Review the client area — what your customers can do, and which settings control it.

Once a server, a plan and a product are in place, place one test order and walk suspend → unsuspend → terminate to prove the lifecycle end to end before you sell.

6. Upgrading

Upload the new release over the old files the same way — both module directories and the hook file — and leave the addon active.

Update ImpulseCore before a release that needs it

ImpulseCpanel needs ImpulseCore 1.61.19 or later, and a later release may need a newer one. Update ImpulseCore first, then upload the module. If you upload a release that needs a newer ImpulseCore, ImpulseCore holds it back: its Modules and Overview tabs show an Update ImpulseCore notice naming the version needed, and the release’s new scheduled tasks and hooks aren’t installed. Updating ImpulseCore then finishes the upgrade — you don’t need to reactivate ImpulseCpanel.

If your PHP opcache doesn’t revalidate files (opcache.validate_timestamps=0), reset it or restart PHP-FPM for the pool that serves WHMCS after uploading, or the old code keeps running. The Imunify status reporter on your servers isn’t touched by an upgrade; it changes only when you run its installer again.