DNS integrity check
Due to a recent mess we experienced it became apparent that:
/var/cpanel/users
/var/cpanel/userdata
httpd.conf
local dns
cluster dns
can all have a different idea of what the actual IP is.
s DNS health monitor is needed which will:
list accounts with IP addresses that are problematic and will offer the following tools:
- set selected or all accounts to have the same ip as the dns says (if IP is local)
- update dns IP for A record based on httpd.conf or local userdata IP
this dns health monitor could also point out if a domain is not hosted locally (for ex the client set A record to outside the server)
I like this idea 
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With the exception of our 1:1 NAT feature (which intentionally places the public IP in DNS related configurations and the private IP for configurations like httpd.conf), there shouldn't be a cPanel sanctioned and supported method in which you can have these files disagree on the account's IP.
The only actions that should result in these configurations files disagreeing with each other would be manual edits from the system administrator (therefore circumventing cPanel & WHM's code paths and checks) or (in the case of clustering) a misconfiguration/out of order configuration of the DNS clustering system.
The argument could easily extend from this feature request to make an elaborate system of checks that would be as wide scoping as the product itself (not just DNS related) to attempt to correct and massage out these manual circumventions of the product logic, which quickly turns this feature request into a behemoth in nature.
It is unlikely that something like this will be considered in the short term simply by nature of that if cPanel & WHM's mechanisms are utilized (and manual edits are not made) these problems should never crop up. If, however, you are able to cause these unintended discrepancies through cPanel & WHM supported interfaces, we would want to hear about this immediately. Please post any such bugs to our support staff at https://tickets.cpanel.net so any such bugs can be filed and pursued.
With the exception of our 1:1 NAT feature (which intentionally places the public IP in DNS related configurations and the private IP for configurations like httpd.conf), there shouldn't be a cPanel sanctioned and supported method in which you can have these files disagree on the account's IP.
The only actions that should result in these configurations files disagreeing with each other would be manual edits from the system administrator (therefore circumventing cPanel & WHM's code paths and checks) or (in the case of clustering) a misconfiguration/out of order configuration of the DNS clustering system.
The argument could easily extend from this feature request to make an elaborate system of checks that would be as wide scoping as the product itself (not just DNS related) to attempt to correct and massage out these manual circumventions of the product logic, which quickly turns this feature request into a behemoth in nature.
It is unlikely that something like this will be considered in the short term simply by nature of that if cPanel & WHM's mechanisms are utilized (and manual edits are not made) these problems should never crop up. If, however, you are able to cause these unintended discrepancies through cPanel & WHM supported interfaces, we would want to hear about this immediately. Please post any such bugs to our support staff at https://tickets.cpanel.net so any such bugs can be filed and pursued.
With the exception of our 1:1 NAT feature (which intentionally places the public IP in DNS related configurations and the private IP for configurations like httpd.conf), there shouldn't be a cPanel sanctioned and supported method in which you can have these files disagree on the account's IP.
The only actions that should result in these configurations files disagreeing with each other would be manual edits from the system administrator (therefore circumventing cPanel & WHM's code paths and checks) or (in the case of clustering) a misconfiguration/out of order configuration of the DNS clustering system.
The argument could easily extend from this feature request to make an elaborate system of checks that would be as wide scoping as the product itself (not just DNS related) to attempt to correct and massage out these manual circumventions of the product logic, which quickly turns this feature request into a behemoth in nature.
It is unlikely that something like this will be considered in the short term simply by nature of that if cPanel & WHM's mechanisms are utilized (and manual edits are not made) these problems should never crop up. If, however, you are able to cause these unintended discrepancies through cPanel & WHM supported interfaces, we would want to hear about this immediately. Please post any such bugs to our support staff at https://tickets.cpanel.net so any such bugs can be filed and pursued.
With the exception of our 1:1 NAT feature (which intentionally places the public IP in DNS related configurations and the private IP for configurations like httpd.conf), there shouldn't be a cPanel sanctioned and supported method in which you can have these files disagree on the account's IP.
The only actions that should result in these configurations files disagreeing with each other would be manual edits from the system administrator (therefore circumventing cPanel & WHM's code paths and checks) or (in the case of clustering) a misconfiguration/out of order configuration of the DNS clustering system.
The argument could easily extend from this feature request to make an elaborate system of checks that would be as wide scoping as the product itself (not just DNS related) to attempt to correct and massage out these manual circumventions of the product logic, which quickly turns this feature request into a behemoth in nature.
It is unlikely that something like this will be considered in the short term simply by nature of that if cPanel & WHM's mechanisms are utilized (and manual edits are not made) these problems should never crop up. If, however, you are able to cause these unintended discrepancies through cPanel & WHM supported interfaces, we would want to hear about this immediately. Please post any such bugs to our support staff at https://tickets.cpanel.net so any such bugs can be filed and pursued.
i posted the request based on a recent event where with no manual edits to those files we ended up with over 150 accounts disagree on their IP addresses and cause serious mailing problems. Only after 2 days of ticketing did the tech support staff finally identify that our migration problems were actually caused by disagreening IPs
at least a system health checker should point out that the disagreement exists
a simple solution would've been also to allow to change the ip address of an account to the same ip it has because that would've just synced all the ips. however this tool is too optimized and changing and ip to the ip i alteady has does nothing so we manually had to change the ips for over 150 accounts just to get the ips synced.
under no circumstance did we manually edit those many ips or files.
i think just a tool to check local, remote, conf and user dirs for ip mismatch would help identify some hard to diagnose problems
i posted the request based on a recent event where with no manual edits to those files we ended up with over 150 accounts disagree on their IP addresses and cause serious mailing problems. Only after 2 days of ticketing did the tech support staff finally identify that our migration problems were actually caused by disagreening IPs
at least a system health checker should point out that the disagreement exists
a simple solution would've been also to allow to change the ip address of an account to the same ip it has because that would've just synced all the ips. however this tool is too optimized and changing and ip to the ip i alteady has does nothing so we manually had to change the ips for over 150 accounts just to get the ips synced.
under no circumstance did we manually edit those many ips or files.
i think just a tool to check local, remote, conf and user dirs for ip mismatch would help identify some hard to diagnose problems
That's very concerning if you're saying your DNS zones ended up in such a configuration if you were only using cPanel & WHM sanctioned methods. I have never encountered this, and this would be the first I've heard of such.
I've reached out to our support team's management and referred them to your inquiry and requested they follow up further with investigating your ticket that you had opened with us. If that bug can be identified and replicated, we'd of course want to fix it promptly.
In my opinion, generating a plethora of these "health checker" features would bloat the software with complexity and serve to only mask any problems and be reactive to any problems. I'd much rather we identify how these problems are occurring and fix it at the source so they simply do not happen at all in the first place.
That's very concerning if you're saying your DNS zones ended up in such a configuration if you were only using cPanel & WHM sanctioned methods. I have never encountered this, and this would be the first I've heard of such.
I've reached out to our support team's management and referred them to your inquiry and requested they follow up further with investigating your ticket that you had opened with us. If that bug can be identified and replicated, we'd of course want to fix it promptly.
In my opinion, generating a plethora of these "health checker" features would bloat the software with complexity and serve to only mask any problems and be reactive to any problems. I'd much rather we identify how these problems are occurring and fix it at the source so they simply do not happen at all in the first place.
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