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cPHulk login locked out- how to resolve the issue?

In the previous article we learnt what is cPHulk and how it works. Suppose, you have cPHulk enabled in your server and you have locked yourself out. This happens if you have forgotten to whitelist your IP address and there are multiple failed attempts. How will you get out of this situation so that you can login back to the server. I faced the same issue with a customer’s server. I had to troubleshoot an issue and I attempted a number of wrong login attempts. It was all due to a trailing space in the password that I had copied from file.

What I did to resolve the issue?

I had no reason to panic as I know how to come out of this situation. I simply had to access the WHM from another IP address. Once I logged in I had to go to the cPHulk option and Flush the failed logins DB. Easy isn’t it? Another option is to access the following URL on web from the other IP address which should disable the cPHulk service. You can then login to the WHM from your computer and flush the logins db.

https://your_server_IP:2087/scripts2/doautofixer?autofix=disable_cphulkd

What if it does not work too? We have plan B. Try to SSH your server as root. Once you successfully login to SSH, run the following commands.

/usr/local/cpanel/etc/init/stopcphulkd

/usr/local/cpanel/bin/cphulk_pam_ctl –disable

The above commands will stop the cPHulk service and you can easily login to WHM and flush the logins db.

What did you just say? You cannot access via SSH too? Don’t panic yet. If you have physical access to the server, just attach a console to it and login to the server and repeat the above commands. If the server is at remote place, attach a KVM to the server. If you don’t have a KVM, ask your Datacenter to provide a temporary KVM. Once all the above steps are repeated, you can finally access WHM and remote SSH.

Once all accesses are regained, don’t forget to whitelist your IP address and start the cPHulk service. You definitely don’t want Brute Force Protection to be disabled, do you?

If you think I have been a great help, don’t forget to drop me a Thank You in the comments section below.

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