cPanel requirements?

Hello, are there any issues with running Kirby2 on a cPanel server? I noticed that mbstring could be a problem. Is it a requirement? Or is there anything else I should watch for? I have Kirby1 running on cPanel but haven’t upgraded yet, and the only real issue I have there is the lack of URL rewrite.

Look at Docs: Requirements for details.

Thank you. I suppose I should have focused the question more on what I’d be missing running Kirby2 on cPanel. I’m currently running a personal Kirby1 site on cPanel, even though that server setup supports neither mbstring nor mod_rewrite. I’m looking at building all future client sites on Kirby, but it looks like that is not going to be possible unless I pay for dedicated servers for each new site.

Guess I have to go back to Wordpress. maybe not, notes below.

You can easily get cpanel shared hosting with both mbstring and mod_rewrite - even with cheap $5 per month hosting plans.

Which is your host?

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I’ve never heard of cPanel preventing mod_rewrite. There’s no conflicts I know of with cPanel, but maybe you have an issue with your hosting plan’s limitations. For sure Kirby works on A Small Orange, Dreamhost, Media Temple, etc.

My host is GoDaddy (who acquired Media Temple, incidentally). I had a conversation with their server team, and they told me what was already in their documentation… that they have other (dedicated) server environments that support mod_rewrite and mbstring, but their shared hosting cPanel is not on that list. I got the impression they were either not able or not willing (both?) to add those, perhaps because of the support with other servers.

Ok, so with a little help from a php dev friend and a phpinfo file, I found out my cPanel already has the mbstring extension…chalk that up to a lack of knowledge on server tech support, perhaps.

Also, I think that my URL problem may not be mod_rewrite at all but instead something much simpler…like lack of htaccess. It’s highly probable that file didn’t make it in my personal site’s ftp transfer due to its hidden nature. Going to follow up on that.

They should have mod_rewrite according to this:
https://support.godaddy.com/help/article/899/how-do-i-use-mod_rewrite

If they don’t then you should really change hosts. I tried many hosts over the years (including some cheap $3 ones) and I never found one that didn’t support mod_rewrite.

Here is a good website for finding a good host with all the features you need:

For what it’s worth, I had problems also when installing to asmallorange hosting.

I was cloning from github.

The issue was that I needed to change the files to chmod 644 and folders to 755, essentially. Specifically, I changed .htaccess to 644, index.php to 644, panel/index.php to 644, and panel/ to 755.

If someone could explain why this was the case, I’d be interested to hear :slight_smile:

Fellow ASO user here. Not sure why this is the case, but I always have to change my permissions when pulling new changes from GitHub… it’s annoying for sure.

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You should be able to automate this via a post-checkout/post-merge hook?

@texnixe -

Me being an inexperience sysadmin, is it okay for me to recursively change the permissions of all files to 644 and all folders to 755 for the whole project, or would there be security downsides for that?

That should be fine, Kirby does not have any files that require special permissions. If you have a .git directory at the root, you should exclude that however since Git has its own rules. :wink:

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