Questions about cPGuard / cpFence

sozotech

We have a clustered Enhance setup with about 30 separate servers. Some of the servers are shared servers and others are dedicated to an individual customers. One of our dedicated customers would like to add a security WAF similar to Imunify360 on cPanel. We've narrowed our choices down to cPGuard and cpFence.

My first question is, are we able to set up these products on just one server in the cluster or does it need to be on all the servers in the cluster? Would it need to be loaded on the control server AND the customers dedicated server?

The dedicated server in question is running the paid Litespeed webserver. Does one of these two product work better in that regard as a WAF?

Thanks for any other advice or tips in a WAF selection or set up is appreciated!

xyzulu

sozotech My first question is, are we able to set up these products on just one server in the cluster or does it need to be on all the servers in the cluster? Would it need to be loaded on the control server AND the customers dedicated server?

You could ask this of the vendor directly, ie cPFence. You can contact them here: https://cpfence.app/faq/ (bottom of the page has a contact form). It's a good way to gauge their support for their paid products as well.

That being said, you will need whatever product you choose to be installed on the server you plan to "protect". None of these products are able to provide protection to servers in your cluster without being installed on that server. You can, to the best of my knowledge, just install it on the servers you want to protect.

cPFence

sozotech

As other members have mentioned, you’ll need to install the software on the server you want to protect. If you go with per-website billing, you can cover multiple servers under a single license. This works well if you have a lower number of sites; for example, 100 sites across all your servers would only cost $10 per month. With per-website billing, you will be able to install cPFence on all your servers, no matter how many there are.

Both cPFence and cPGuard offer fully functional free trials, so the best approach is to try both and see which fits your needs better.

FWIW, a fully functional local UI is coming to cPFence within the next few days. This is not based on Enhance’s API, it’s built directly into cPFence and runs entirely on your server, making it fully GDPR-compliant. The new UI will include all security and cPFence WordPress bulk tools, allowing you to run them, edit configuration files, and adjust settings through a lightweight, easy-to-use interface. No more relying on the CLI or cheat sheets.

opsshield

Thank you for mentioning us in this thread DracoBlue

sozotech As others said, the best approach is to try the shortlisted solutions on your server and find the best one that suits you. There is nothing like "the best" and it is purely based on the convenience and comfort of the user based on how well the software works for their infra. We do not provide per-user licenses as it is likely not economical on medium/big servers ( most of our customers use cPGuard on shared/reseller servers ). But we offer 30% discount for Enhance users which you can claim if you are happy with the cPGuard trial and wish to proceed with the paid plan. We have proven software that has been running for 6+ years with active development and support. Feel free to contact us if you need any clarification about cPGuard.

SharedGrid

As xyzulu mentioned, you install the product on the server you would like to protect - it doesn't protect the whole cluster.

We use cPGuard and can highly recommend the product and the team behind it. Being said, I've not tried the product from cPFence but they are very active in this community, and have given a lot of time and dedication towards helping others which has been massively appreciated by everyone here. There are a few things each product offers that the other doesn't, and vice versa - might be worth reading up on the features of both and deciding which is best for you.

DracoBlue

@opsshield

leonardo

cPFence

FWIW, a fully functional local UI is coming to cPFence within the next few days. This is not based on Enhance’s API, it’s built directly into cPFence and runs entirely on your server, making it fully GDPR-compliant. The new UI will include all security and cPFence WordPress bulk tools, allowing you to run them, edit configuration files, and adjust settings through a lightweight, easy-to-use interface. No more relying on the CLI or cheat sheets.

Oh man, I am so excited about this one!

Vendoz

cPFence a fully functional local UI is coming to cPFence within the next few days.

This will be game-changing and a huge time-saver 🙂 I’ll gladly try it with a free trial when it’s available!

cPFence

leonardo

It’s definitely exciting! A huge time saver to be able to use your mouse and quickly monitor attacks, change settings, restore quarantined files, run/stop scans, manage WAF rules, block/whitelist countries, and more, all done in seconds instead of minutes or hours. No more digging through commands or hunting down config files, the UI will do all the heavy lifting for you, with zero footprint on CPU and RAM as usual. Plus, it fully supports all 18 bulk tools of WP-AutoShield, making security management smoother and more efficient than ever.

bgeek

cPFence This is huge! Can't wait!

sozotech

Thanks everyone for their input. One more probably dumb question, so would it be possible to mix and match these products on different servers in the same enhance cluster? So if client 1 wants cpguard on their server and client 2 wants cpfence, would there be anything stopping that?

cPFence

sozotech

No issues, as long as you don’t run both on the same server, you should be fine.

deydod

It’s set to be released tomorrow or over the weekend if all testing goes smoothly. It’s already running on all our servers. Nothing flashy, just a lightweight , 100% secured and efficient UI that gets the job done effectively.

opsshield

sozotech There is absolutely no problem with this and you can use both on selected servers in the cluster based on your preference. We do not generally recommend running 2 similar solutions on the same server because ultimately it will cause unnecessary resource usage on your server for the same purpose. So better choose the right one that can meet your demands and use it on the server.

deydod

@cPFence Can you post a few screenshots of how it is looking?