NovaCPX — Documentation

NovaCPX is a full-featured open-source Linux web hosting control panel. It replaces cPanel/Plesk with a modern three-tier architecture (Admin → Reseller → End User), runs entirely on your own server, and has no per-account licensing fees.

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Feature Overview

Hosting Management

• Multi-account architecture — Admin, Reseller, and User tiers with strict isolation
• Hosting packages — disk, email, database, FTP, domain, and subdomain quotas per plan
• Per-account PHP version — PHP 7.4, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3 via PHP-FPM pools; custom php.ini overrides
• Wildcard vhost support — Apache and Nginx backends; per-account vhost files auto-generated
• Account suspend / unsuspend — disables vhost and notifies the account holder
• WHMCS billing bridge — provision, suspend, terminate, and change packages from WHMCS automatically

Domains & DNS

• Addon domains, subdomains, redirects — unlimited per account (within package limits)
• Full DNS manager — BIND9 or PowerDNS backend; A, AAAA, CNAME, MX, TXT, NS, SRV, CAA records
• Nameserver health checker — verify NS1/NS2 resolve correctly after setup
• Auto-provisioning — DNS zone, vhost, and Linux user created automatically at account creation

Email

• Virtual mailboxes — Postfix + Dovecot backend; SHA-512 hashed passwords; Maildir storage
• IMAP/SMTP access — IMAP :993 SSL/TLS, SMTP :587 STARTTLS
• Webmail (Roundcube) — built-in at port 8883 with single sign-on (SSO) from user panel
• DKIM signing — auto-provisioned per domain; OpenDKIM wired into Postfix milter
• SPF/DMARC records — added to DNS zone automatically on account creation
• Optional Rspamd — postfix-dovecot-rspamd stack available in Server Options
• Domain dropdown — email creation UI shows selectable domain list (no typos)

Databases

• MySQL / MariaDB — per-account databases with isolated users; phpMyAdmin link
• PostgreSQL — optional; pgAdmin link when installed

File Management

• In-browser file manager — browse, create, edit, upload, download, rename, delete, chmod
• Path sandboxing — users cannot access files outside their home directory
• FTP accounts — ProFTPD, vsftpd, or PureFTPD (swappable in Server Options); explicit TLS

SSL Certificates

• Let's Encrypt (Certbot) — free certificates issued and auto-renewed per domain
• Certificate status dashboard — days remaining, expiry alerts at ≤14 days
• Self-signed fallback — panel runs on a self-signed cert with correct IP SAN by default

Security

• Fail2Ban — 5 active jails: SSH, panel auth, API abuse, PHP errors, Postfix SMTP
• UFW firewall manager — allow/deny rules by port, protocol, and source IP from admin panel
• API rate limiting — 10 req/min on auth, 120 req/min on API; 429 with Retry-After header
• Two-factor authentication (TOTP) — admin/reseller login; admin can reset any user's 2FA
• Session management — view and revoke active sessions per user
• Audit log — every API action logged with user, IP, payload; filterable by user/action/date

Docker

• Docker Engine management — install from panel; container/image/volume/network CRUD
• Compose stacks — create from YAML, start/stop/remove, live streaming logs
• One-click app catalog — 9 templates: WordPress, Ghost, Nextcloud, Gitea, Matomo, Vaultwarden, Node.js, Flask, Static Nginx
• Per-user quotas — admin sets max containers, CPU, and RAM per account
• Reseller allocation — resellers configure Docker limits for their own customers
• Async launch — image pulls run in background so PHP never times out

Server Monitoring

• Real-time stats — CPU, RAM, disk, uptime on admin dashboard (polled via API)
• Historical charts — Chart.js graphs of CPU and RAM over time (5-minute cron samples)
• Service health — Apache/Nginx/MySQL/Postfix/Dovecot/FTP/DNS status with restart controls
• JARVIS integration — optional agent sends live metrics to the JARVIS AI dashboard

Updates & Versioning

• Update channels — Stable (main branch, major/minor releases) or Beta (beta branch, patch/pre-release)
• One-click update — git pull → PHP syntax check → deploy → auto-restore if panel goes down
• Version history — every deploy recorded with version number, commit hash, and timestamp
• Nightly cache — update checks cached for 12 hours; nightly cron pre-warms cache at 2am
• OS upgrades — apt-get upgrade with pre-backup, service health check, and live log streaming
• GitHub Actions — pushes to main auto-bump PATCH version; pushes to beta auto-append -beta.N

Reseller Features

• White-label branding — custom logo upload (PNG/SVG), accent color picker with live preview, custom CSS, support email/URL, hide "Powered by" toggle
• Customer account CRUD — create, suspend, unsuspend, terminate customer accounts
• Docker quota management — per-customer container/CPU/RAM limits
• Strict isolation — resellers only see their own accounts

Panel Configuration

• Settings page — panel name, default PHP version, nameservers, update channel; all values loaded from DB, saved individually
• Server Options — swap web/mail/FTP/DNS backends without touching config files
• Notifications — CyberMail API for welcome emails, suspension notices, disk warnings, SSL expiry; test button in panel
• Backups — per-account file + database backup; download or restore; optional rclone/S3 remote destination
• Cloudflare integration — per-account API key; sync DNS records, toggle CDN proxy per record
• Nginx Proxy Manager — Docker-based reverse proxy for additional services

Developer / Automation

• REST API — 25+ endpoints; all documented in api-reference.md
• Bearer token auth — create API tokens for scripts and integrations
• WHMCS module — full billing bridge for automated provisioning
• Auto-deploy webhook — GitHub push → webhook → git pull + PHP syntax check + DB migrations
• SQLite database — no MySQL required for the panel itself; survives database server restarts

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Panels

Panel	Port	Audience
Admin	8882	Server administrators
Reseller	8881	Reseller accounts
User	8880	End-user hosting accounts
Webmail (Roundcube)	8883	Email users (SSO from user panel)

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Documentation

Guide	Audience
Installation Guide	Server admins — requirements, installer, auto-deploy setup
Admin Guide	Full admin panel feature reference
Reseller Guide	Reseller account and branding management
User Guide	End-user features: files, email, databases, Docker, etc.
API Reference	Full REST API with auth, rate limits, and all endpoints

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Source

GitHub: myronblair/novacpx (private)