---
title: "Merge multiple cPanel accounts into one account using SSH"
description: "In this article we'll discuss an advanced method for taking multiple cPanel accounts, and merging them down into one cPanel account. You can only have multiple cPanel accounts on a VPS or dedicated..."
url: https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/cpanel/merge-multiple-cpanel-accounts-into-one-account-using-ssh/
date: 2012-11-20
modified: 2021-11-19
author: "InMotion Hosting Contributor"
categories: ["cPanel"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# Merge multiple cPanel accounts into one account using SSH

In this article we’ll discuss an advanced method for taking multiple cPanel accounts, and merging them down into one cPanel account. You can only have multiple cPanel accounts on a VPS or dedicated server plan. So if you’re looking at downgrading to shared hosting, or simply would like the convenience of managing multiple sites from one cPanel account this would be the guide for you.

For our example we have two cPanel accounts, **userna1** with the domain name **PrimaryDomain.com**, and **userna2** with the domain name **AddonDomain.com**. We’re going to take the **AddonDomain.com** domain and merge it into the **userna1** cPanel account so that both of these domains can be managed from the single cPanel login going forward.

The **AddonDomain.com** site has a WordPress install on it, so we’ll need to ensure that we grab a copy of the MySQL database, and also ensure that we are updating the database credentials in any scripts once the files have been moved over to the **userna1** account.

cPanel creation is no longer unlimited. Learn more about [cPanel Pricing Changes](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/cpanel/cpanel-pricing-structure/) and [related FAQs]( https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/cpanel-edu/cpanel-pricing-changes-faq).

To follow along with these steps you’ll need [root access](/support/server/ssh/root-access-faq/) to your server. If you do not have root access then you’ll want to follow along with our more basic article on [how to merge multiple cPanel accounts into one.](/support/edu/cpanel/how-do-i-merge-multiple-cpanel-accounts-into-one/).

1. [Login to your server via SSH](/support/server/ssh/how-to-login-ssh/) as the **root** user.
2. You’ll want to find the document root for our **AddonDomain.com** domain then change to that directory with these commands: <code”>grep addondomain.com /etc/userdatadomains </code”> Which should give back: `addondomain.com: userna2==root==main==addondomain.com==/home/userna2/public_html==70.39.151.52:80==` Next change to the directory in-between the **==’s** with: `cd /home/userna2/public_html`
3. Next we’ll want to look for any database configuration files. This can be accomplished by looking for the username followed by an underscore **_** using the following command: `grep userna2_ . -RH` Which should spit back: `./wp-config.php:define('DB_NAME', 'userna2_wrdp1'); ./wp-config.php:define('DB_USER', 'userna2_wrdp1');` Now we can see because this is using a **wp-config.php** script that these are the database credentials for a WordPress site. You’ll want to open up this file with your favorite text-editor and copy down the values for **DB_NAME**, **DB_USER**, and **DB_PASSWORD** for use later.
4. Now that we know the database name we can backup that database using the following command: `mysqldump userna2_wrdp1 > ~userna2/userna2_wrdp1.sql`
5. Now you’ll want to start copying over all of the data from the **userna2** account to the userna1 account using the following commands: `cp -frp ~userna2/etc/addondomain.com ~userna1/etc/` `cp -frp ~userna2/mail/addondomain.com ~userna1/mail/` `cp -frp ~userna2/mail/.*@addondomain_com ~userna1/mail/` `cp -frp ~userna2/public_html ~userna1/public_html/addondomain.com`
6. Next we’ll want to temporarily modify our **AddonDomain.com** domain so that we can add it to our **userna1** cPanel account. To do this [log into WHM](/support/edu/whm/log-into-whm/).
7. In the top-left **Find** box type in **modify**, then click on **Modify an Account**.[![whm-click-on-modify-an-account](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/website_cpanel_cpanel-split_whm-click-on-modify-an-account.png)](/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/website_cpanel_cpanel-split_whm-click-on-modify-an-account.png)  
8. Select **AddonDomain.com**, then click on **Modify**.
9. In the **Primary Domain:** field add a **-temp.com** suffix to your domain, so in this case we use **AddonDomain-temp.com**. Then scroll to the bottom and click on **Save**.
10. Still in WHM in the top-left **Find** box type in **List**, and then click on **List Accounts**.
11. Now click on the cPanel icon for the **PrimaryDomain.com** account with the username **userna1**.[![whm-click-on-cpanel-icon-for-userna1](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/website_cpanel_cpanel-merge_whm-click-on-cpanel-icon-for-userna1.png)](/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/website_cpanel_cpanel-merge_whm-click-on-cpanel-icon-for-userna1.png)  
12. Under the *Domains* section, click on **Addon Domains**.[![](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/cpanel_addon-domains-paper-lantern.png)](/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/cpanel_addon-domains-paper-lantern.png)  
13. Now type in **AddonDomain.com** as the new domain name, and choose a FTP username and document root for the site as well then click on **Add Domain**.
14. Now that you have all of your website data loaded under the **userna1** cPanel account the next thing you need to do is restore your MySQL database that you backed up. To do this [login to your cPanel](/support/edu/cpanel/how-to-log-into-cpanel/) with the **userna1** username.
15. Under the **Databases** section click on **MySQL Database Wizard**.[![](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/cpanel_mysql-database-wizard-paper-lantern.png)](/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/cpanel_mysql-database-wizard-paper-lantern.png)  
16. Now in this case I already know the **userna1** user has one WordPress site and database already, so I’ll be naming my database **userna1_wrdp2**, then click on **Next Step**.
17. I’m also going to set my database username to **userna1_wrdp2**, give that user a password then click on **Create User**.
18. Finally on the last step of the database wizard, click on **ALL PRIVILEGES** to check everything, then click on **Next Step**.
19. Now back in your SSH session you can import the MySQL database backup using the following command: `mysql -u userna1_wrdp1 -p userna1_wrdp1 < ~userna2/userna2_wrdp1.sql` At the **Enter password:** prompt enter in the password that you copied down earlier.
20. Now we want to correct all of the ownership permissions for the **userna1** user using the following command: `fixperms userna1`
21. Now that you have your website data copied over, and the MySQL database imported you’ll want to modify your database credentials in the **~userna1/public_html/addondomain.com/wp-config.php** script or any other database configuration scripts you found to use the **userna1** cPanel username instead of the **userna2** one. That way when you get rid of the **userna2** account the database will continue to function as its own separate entity.
22. Finally you can [log into WHM](/support/edu/whm/log-into-whm/) once more to remove the old standalone **userna2** account.
23. In the top-left **Find** box, type in **terminate**, then click on **Terminate an Account**.[![whm-click-on-terminate-an-account](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/website_cpanel_cpanel-merge_whm-click-on-terminate-an-account.png)](/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/website_cpanel_cpanel-merge_whm-click-on-terminate-an-account.png)  
24. Click on the **AddonDomain-temp.com** domain, then click on **Terminate** at the bottom of the page.

If you followed all of those steps you should have now successfully merged your **AddonDomain.com** site from the **userna2** cPanel account, into the **userna1** one. You could simply keep repeating this process again and again to get multiple cPanel accounts all merged down into one.