Notification Templates in cPanel & WHM

1. What Are Notification Templates?

In cPanel & WHM, notifications are sent for many system events such as disk quota limits, backup failures, new account creation, or SSL expiration. These notifications are generated using Template Toolkit, which allows full customization. You can modify the text, colors, branding, support links, and even the structure of the message.

Default and Custom Template Paths

• Default: /usr/local/cpanel/etc/icontact_templates/
• Custom (recommended): /var/cpanel/templates/icontact_templates/

Important: Any modification inside the default directory will be overwritten during a cPanel update. Always use the custom directory.

2. Template File Naming Structure

Template files follow this naming pattern:

textnotification_name.type.tmpl

• notification_name: The event name (e.g., wwwacct/Notify)
• type: The template type such as subject, html, or text

3. Important Notification Templates

Some of the most commonly used notification templates include:

• Backup/Failure.*: Backup failure
• chkservd/Notify.*: Service down alerts
• Quota/DiskWarning.*: Disk quota warning
• SSL/CertificateExpiring.*: SSL certificate expiring soon
• wwwacct/Notify.*: New account creation

4. Template Variables

4.1 CPANEL Variables

• CPANEL.locale: User locale
• CPANEL.split_time_dhms(): Converts seconds into days/hours/minutes

4.2 NOTICE Variables

• NOTICE.domain: Domain name
• NOTICE.ip_address: IP address
• NOTICE.host_server: Server hostname
• NOTICE.quota_limit: Disk quota limit

Each template includes a header listing all available NOTICE variables for that specific event.

5. How to Customize Notification Templates

Step 1 — Create the Custom Directory

mkdir -p /var/cpanel/templates/icontact_templates

Step 2 — Copy include and wrapper (first time only)

cp -rpl /usr/local/cpanel/etc/icontact_templates/{include,wrapper} \
/var/cpanel/templates/icontact_templates/

Step 3 — Copy the Template You Want to Edit

cp /usr/local/cpanel/etc/icontact_templates/wwwacct/Notify.subject.tmpl \
/var/cpanel/templates/icontact_templates/wwwacct/Notify.subject.tmpl

Step 4 — Edit the Template

nano /var/cpanel/templates/icontact_templates/wwwacct/Notify.subject.tmpl

Example of a customized subject line:

[% CPANEL.locale.maketext('New account created on [_1] ([_2])', NOTICE.host_server, NOTICE.domain) %]

Step 5 — Rebuild Templates

/usr/local/cpanel/bin/rebuild-templates

Conclusion

With Notification Templates, you can fully personalize cPanel & WHM alerts to match your brand, language, and service requirements. Using the custom template directory ensures your changes persist through updates and gives you complete control over system messaging.