Extending cPanel's Home Directory to a New Partition

Is your cPanel server's /home directory running out of space? This can stop you from creating new accounts or cause other issues. A common solution is to add a new hard drive and configure cPanel to use it for new user accounts. This guide explains how to do that simply.

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PREPARING THE NEW PARTITION

Before cPanel can use the new space, you need to add and set up a new hard drive on your server.

Steps:

1. Install New Hard Drive: Physically install the new hard drive into your server.

2. Format the Drive: Format the new drive with a suitable file system (like ext4).

3. Mount as /home2: Create a new directory, for example, /home2, and mount the new hard drive to this location. This makes the new storage accessible.

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TELLING CPANEL TO USE THE NEW PARTITION

Once /home2 is ready, you have two main ways to tell cPanel to use it for new accounts. Both methods involve editing the cPanel configuration file: /etc/wwwacct.conf.

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OPTION 1: DEDICATE NEW ACCOUNTS TO /home2

This option makes sure all future cPanel accounts are created directly in the new /home2 partition.

How to Configure:

• Edit the /etc/wwwacct.conf file.

• Find the line that says HOMEDIR.

• Change its value to /home2.

Example:

HOMEDIR=/home2

Result:

After this change, any new cPanel accounts you create will automatically be placed in the /home2 directory. Existing accounts in /home will remain there.

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OPTION 2: AUTO-SELECT BASED ON FREE SPACE

This is a more flexible option. cPanel will check both /home and /home2 and create new accounts on the partition with the most free space.

How to Configure:

• Edit the /etc/wwwacct.conf file.

• Find the line that says HOMEMATCH.

• Set its value to /home*.

Example:

HOMEMATCH=/home*

Result:

With this setting, when a new account is created, cPanel will intelligently decide whether to put it in /home or /home2 based on which directory has more available disk space. This helps distribute user data more evenly across your storage.