How can we Install the HTTP/2 in the cPanel WHM server.

estelle

New Member
Would like to serve content over http/2. Can anyone either provide instructions or link to instructions? Thank you.
 
Right now our recommended way to do this is with Litespeed which requires an extra license that can be purchased through sales/billing.

cPanel is working on finishing up HTTP/2 support in Apache that I think we'll see stable in v66 so probably just a few more months.
 
@estelle

Right now there is no supported way by default in cPanel. Litespeed supports http/2 but the default apache installs from cPanel do not. cPanel has been working on native support for this, but it's still in the experimental phase and isn't really something we can directly support yet with apache. Since they are working on it however, I'd assume a few months and it will be released as stable.
 
According to their thread post; they stated the changelog hasn't been updated to reflect.

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The changelog hit a snag, but will hopefully be updated soon.
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It was removed from the Experimental repo and placed into their standard repositories; but I wouldn't count it as production ready as it's most likely only available in an EDGE release and not a STABLE.

What we need to hope for is that it's not just a "install and done" method as HTTPD/2 required a lot of manual configuration to work on EasyApache 3. Hopefully they have it configured to work out of the box with little-to-no configuring needed; otherwise it'll end up like PHP-FPM.
 
You mean it is STABLE now? I don't think it is enabled by default in my VPS server yet. Or maybe it will be enabled by default once v66 is released?
 
cPanel has HTTP2 on cPanel version V66; it's not currently set as stable -- It's only available on the RELEASE and CURRENT builds; both which are not generally recommended for production environments.

HTTP2 is not compatible with Apache MPM_PREFORK and DSO+Mod_RUID2.

You will have to utilize MPM_WORKER and SuPHP for HTTP2.

It will not be enabled by default due to these customized configurations. cPanel utilizes MPM_PREFORK by default, so HTTP2 will not be an default option.

If you have any doubts, questions or require assistance swapping over and utilizing HTTP2 -- Please open a support ticket.
 
cPanel has HTTP2 on cPanel version V66;

Correct me if I'm wrong, so what you are saying is with cPanel version V64, HTTP2 is only available by installing a mod. But with V66, HTTP2 feature is already built-in, and you just need to turn it on manually.

HTTP2 is not compatible with Apache MPM_PREFORK and DSO+Mod_RUID2.
You will have to utilize MPM_WORKER and SuPHP for HTTP2.
It will not be enabled by default due to these customized configurations. cPanel utilizes MPM_PREFORK by default, so HTTP2 will not be an default option.

So if the VPS server by default uses Apache MPM_PREFORK and DSO+Mod_RUID2, will it cause site downtime if your support technicians will customize the server to use MPM_WORKER and SuPHP ?
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, so what you are saying is with cPanel version V64, HTTP2 is only available by installing a mod. But with V66, HTTP2 feature is already built-in, and you just need to turn it on manually.

The only HTTP2 module that was available prior to v66 was in the experimental repo; which rendered your server automatically unsupported via cPanel Support.

This module was moved from the experimental repo to the cPanel repo for regular usage. It requires the installation of ea-apache24-mod-http2

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ea-apache24-mod_http2.x86_64 : HTTP2 module for Apache HTTP Server
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So if the VPS server by default uses Apache MPM_PREFORK and DSO+Mod_RUID2, will it cause site downtime if your support technicians will customize the server to use MPM_WORKER and SuPHP ?

I was unaware of any downtime when testing on my own servers, but everyone's configuration is different. I don't recommend utilizing this with any third party service such as NGINX. However, if you use Litespeed -- then you're already utilizing http2 and there is no need for this module.
 
Hello Jonathan,

cPanel version 66 is now in the stable tier. Do you support http2 with easyapache 4 now?
 
I noticed today too that v66 is now stable. Now I have questions below:

1. You said that MPM_PREFORK and DSO+Mod_RUID2 is not compatible with HTTP2. Is there any reason why cPanel refuse to utilize MPM_WORKER and SuPHP as default ?

I'm wondering because cPanel is the most prevalent control panel in the world. If they will not change the default, HTTP/2 adaptation will be very slow.

2. There's this one hosting company who wrote an article blog a few days ago on how to enable HTTP2 on WHM with EA4 . The article mentioned to install php 7.x and set PHP 7 as default PHP version for all the websites. Well, I have a script that still uses PHP 5.6, does it mean that HTTP/2 does not work on PHP 5, and therefore my PHP5-only compatible scripts will go awry if I enable HTTP/2 on my vps server?
 
I noticed today too that v66 is now stable. Now I have questions below:

1. You said that MPM_PREFORK and DSO+Mod_RUID2 is not compatible with HTTP2. Is there any reason why cPanel refuse to utilize MPM_WORKER and SuPHP as default ?

I'm wondering because cPanel is the most prevalent control panel in the world. If they will not change the default, HTTP/2 adaptation will be very slow.

2. There's this one hosting company who wrote an article blog a few days ago on how to enable HTTP2 on WHM with EA4 . The article mentioned to install php 7.x and set PHP 7 as default PHP version for all the websites. Well, I have a script that still uses PHP 5.6, does it mean that HTTP/2 does not work on PHP 5, and therefore my PHP5-only compatible scripts will go awry if I enable HTTP/2 on my vps server?

As I can't speak for cPanel, I know we provision cPanel as MPM_PREFORK and DSO+Mod_RUID2; as that's the most optimized setup we can offer for our customers without any foreseeable issues. This allows for most users who do not require additional configuration to setup their websites and go without the need of adjustment.

Most hosting companies, including us, are going to push the recommendation to utilize PHP 7.0. This is what I suspect the company in question had in mind when writing their guide. We all want websites to be ran on the latest platform to ensure security.

That being said, I have HTTP/2 installed on my test environment on several websites and I set PHP 5 and did not experience any errors. Everyone's experience may differ.

Someone feel free to correct me if this is not the case.

However, I would expect to see more issues on HTTP/2 when dealing with older browsers due to the protocol not being supported due to how HTTP/2 is detected.
 
suPHP will not work with opcode caching such as Zend Opcache and that's a huge downside to suPHP. suPHP served it's purpose...10 years ago. It's past it's prime and should be retired :)

LSAPI is the best handler available on the market in terms of efficiency, now if cPanel will just get their act together and focus on it instead of PHP-FPM which I strongly disagree with them pushing so hard then the world would be golden :)

HTTP/2 is not dependent upon a certain PHP version. It would work with PHP4 for that matter.

Long story short, if you want HTTP/2 the absolute best way to get it right now without sacrificing efficiency is to purchase Litespeed.
 
Long story short, if you want HTTP/2 the absolute best way to get it right now without sacrificing efficiency is to purchase Litespeed.

I see. So for us using still Apache and cPanel, do you recommend that we wait out maybe a couple more months until cPanel will completely improve HTTP/2 integration ?
 
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