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Web Server Settings

Panelica 1.0.375 Verified 2026-07-24 Web Server & PHP

Web Server Settings tunes the two web servers that power Panelica, globally. Every change is tested with the real nginx -t or apachectl -t before it goes live and rolled back automatically if it fails, so a bad setting here cannot take your sites down.

Panel locationWeb Server → Settingshttps://YOUR-SERVER-IP:8443/webserver/settings
 Web Server Settings
Nginx
running · front · 80/443
Apache
running · back · 7080
General Nginx Apache

How Panelica serves a site

Panelica runs Nginx in front and Apache behind, and understanding this makes the settings obvious. Nginx takes every visitor request on ports 80 and 443, serves static files and TLS directly, and for anything that needs PHP or .htaccess it proxies to Apache on an internal port. Apache runs the PHP application through PHP-FPM. Each domain can run in one of two modes: nginx + apache (the default, full .htaccess support) or nginx-only (Nginx talks to PHP-FPM directly, no Apache, slightly leaner). That per-domain choice lives in the domain editor; this page sets the global defaults both servers share.

Two status cards at the top show each server live: running or stopped, version, PID and uptime.

Nginx settings

The Nginx tab exposes the global nginx.conf knobs most servers ever need:

Setting What it does
worker_processes How many worker processes Nginx runs (auto matches CPU cores)
worker_connections Max simultaneous connections per worker
keepalive_timeout How long an idle connection stays open
client_max_body_size The largest upload Nginx accepts (e.g. 512M, 2G)
gzip + level Text compression on/off and how hard it compresses (1-9)
server_tokens Hide the Nginx version number in responses

Apache settings

The Apache tab covers httpd.conf: ServerTokens (how much version detail Apache reveals, Prod recommended), request timeout, keepalive with its request cap and timeout, and ServerSignature (whether Apache signs its error pages). The tab also hosts the MPM selector, the single biggest lever on Apache's memory footprint.

The Apache MPM, and why it matters: the Multi-Processing Module decides how Apache handles connections. prefork gives each connection its own process (simplest, most compatible, heaviest on RAM); event handles many connections per thread (far lighter memory). Switching it is the one change here that requires a full Apache restart rather than a reload, so it is ROOT-only, and it is only available if your Apache build ships the MPM modules separately. If your build has a single MPM compiled in, the selector is disabled with a note.

Applying changes safely

This is the reassuring part. When you save, Panelica does not just overwrite the config and hope:

Behind the scenes: every save backs up the current config first, writes the change, then runs the real syntax test (nginx -t or apachectl -t). If the test fails, the panel restores the backup and does not reload, and hands you the exact error line, so a typo or a bad value never reaches the running server. Only a config that passes the test is reloaded live. A dedicated Test button lets you run that check without saving at all.
One honest caveat on "hide version" for Nginx: the Nginx server_tokens toggle only updates the directive if it already exists in nginx.conf. On some installs version hiding is applied per site through the vhost templates instead, in which case flipping this global toggle has no visible effect even though the save succeeds. The Apache equivalents (ServerTokens, ServerSignature) always take effect.

Access

ROOT only: the entire Web Server section, reading and saving alike, is restricted to ROOT at the backend (an admin can read the Apache MPM state but not the server config). These are global server settings, not per-account, so they sit with the operator tools rather than a hosting customer's controls. See roles and permissions. For your own site's per-domain rules, use Custom Directives or the domain editor.

Panelica Documentation · Written and verified against the live panel. · Last verified 2026-07-24 on Panelica 1.0.375