Administering LiteSpeed Web Server in cPanel

If you are used to administering Apache on a cPanel server, administering the faster Litespeed webserver is not that much different. Litespeed transparently takes over for Apache; any configuration changes that you would normally make in an Apache configuration file or .htaccess files is still made in those files. In fact, once Litespeed is installed you can administer your cPanel server like you normally would. The few changes you would want to make to Litespeed directly can be done through your server’s Web Host Manager (WHM).

Once you are logged into WHM, either click through Plugins and LiteSpeed Web Server, or just search for “LiteSpeed”. The main page gives you the following headings:

• Install LiteSpeed WebServer
• Control LiteSpeed WebServer
• License Management
• Switch between Apache and Litespeed

As part of Liquid Web’s management of LiteSpeed, you will probably not need to manage the license or change the installation.

Controlling LiteSpeed

Once you are in Litespeed’s configuration page, click on Admin Web Console. The console has three main areas: General, Configuration, and Web Console.

The general area lets you do the following:

• Gracefully restart Litespeed (this needs to be done after any configuration changes are made).
• View Litespeed logs and statistics.
• Enable and disable specific virtual hosts.

The configuration area gives you much more control over Litespeed’s configuration. While Liquid Web’s configurations are already optimized for speed, should you need to tweak specific aspects of your configuration this is the place. If you have a specific question about a configuration variable, each one has a handy information pop-up that displays while you hover over the blue “i” speech bubble.

Switching Between Apache and LiteSpeed

If for some reason you wish to run plain Apache for a time, the plugin page in WHM has Switch to Apache and Switch to LiteSpeed links right at the bottom. Each will take you to a confirmation page. If you mistakenly click “Switch to LiteSpeed” when you are already running Litespeed, the confirmation page will let you know.

Command Line LiteSpeed

While most everything Litespeed can be configured from WHM, changing the Litespeed administrator’s password must be done from the command line like so:

root@host# /usr/local/lsws/admin/misc/admpass.sh

The beginning of that command (/usr/local/lsws) may occasionally be in a different directory, depending on where Litespeed was originally installed.