Updated: 8 October 2026 · Applies to: WHMSonic on cPanel and WHM (no longer offered), SonicPanel 3.34 (from SonicPanel documentation); IP checks tested on Debian 13 (curl 8.14.1, iproute2 6.15)
The main server IP that WHMSonic asks for is the public IPv4 address your server uses for outgoing connections, because that is the address the WHMSonic licence check sees. To find it, log in to the server as root over SSH and run curl -s http://www.whmsonic.com/ip.php. WHMSonic's own check still answered at the time of writing, and the address it prints must be the one your licence is registered for, even if WHM shows a different main IP.
WHMSonic itself is no longer offered: its website now redirects to SonicPanel, the standalone radio control panel from the same developers (see "What happened to WHMSonic" below).
1. Ask WHMSonic which IP it sees
curl -s http://www.whmsonic.com/ip.php; echo
Our test server got this answer (public address replaced with an example):
Your Server IP: 203.0.113.25 (Your WHMSonic software license must be registered with this IP. If not, please login to your client account on whmsonic.com and update your license IP then run the installation command. If you dont have a client account, please contact your license provider company to change your license IP.)
WHMSonic's old help pages used lynx -dump for the same check; curl gives the same text and is installed on almost every server.
2. Confirm it with a second service
curl -s https://ipinfo.io/ip; echo
This printed the same public address in our test. If both checks agree, that address is the one to register.
3. Compare it with the server's own addresses
hostname -I ip route get 1.1.1.1
hostname -I lists the addresses configured on the server, and ip route get shows which one the server uses as the source (src) for outgoing traffic. Our test ran in a container behind NAT, which shows exactly the kind of difference that breaks a licence check:
$ hostname -I
10.88.0.151
$ ip route get 1.1.1.1
1.1.1.1 via 10.88.0.1 dev eth0 src 10.88.0.151 uid 0
cache
The server only knows its private address (10.88.0.151), while the outside world, including the licence server, sees the public address from step 1. The same happens on a server with several IP addresses when outgoing traffic leaves from an address other than the one you expect.
4. Compare it with the main IP in WHM
In WHM, go to Server Configuration > Basic WebHost Manager Setup. According to cPanel, the IPv4 address there is the server's shared IP for hosting accounts. Outgoing connections, however, leave from the source address the system picks (step 3), so what WHM shows can differ from the result of step 1. WHMSonic's own help pages warned about exactly this: if the detected IP differs from the one in WHM, the licence check can fail.
If the addresses do not match
- Register the licence for the detected address. The ip.php message points to a client account on whmsonic.com, but that site now redirects to sonicpanel.com, so ask the company that sold you the licence, or SonicPanel's support, to change the licence IP.
- Or make the server use the licensed address for outgoing traffic. See choosing the outgoing (source) IP address.
- For other ways to check a server's public address, see 4 ways to find the server public IP address in Linux.
What happened to WHMSonic
WHMSonic was a WHM plugin for selling SHOUTcast radio hosting from a cPanel server. Today www.whmsonic.com answers with a redirect to https://sonicpanel.com, and the vendor's site sells only SonicPanel licences. According to SonicPanel, WHMSonic was first released in 2004 and "made 16 years of service", and SonicPanel was then developed by the WHMSonic developer team. The old WHMSonic installer and help pages now return server errors, and we found no WHMSonic downloads, documentation or licence sales on the vendor's site. Treat WHMSonic as discontinued and plan a move if you still rely on it.
SonicPanel is not a WHM plugin. According to SonicPanel, it needs a clean AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux server (versions 9 and 10 are listed in its installation guide) with no other control panel or services, so it cannot be installed next to cPanel. It supports SHOUTcast v1, v2.5 and v2.6 and Icecast, with AutoDJ, DJ accounts and billing modules for WHMCS and other systems.
The licence works the same way as before: it is tied to the server IP. According to SonicPanel, you change a licence IP in its client area under Manage Licenses with the Change License IP button, and if the panel reports a licence problem you should check that the server IP has an active licence and that the server can reach sonicpanel.com; if it cannot, SonicPanel suggests checking the DNS servers in /etc/resolv.conf.
Ucartz radio hosting
If you would rather not run the panel yourself, Ucartz offers Shoutcast and Icecast hosting with AutoDJ and white-label Shoutcast reseller hosting. For a hosted account, open a support ticket for anything that needs a server-side change. If you are new to SonicPanel, start with getting started with SonicPanel as a reseller.
Official documentation: About SonicPanel, SonicPanel features and cPanel: Basic WebHost Manager Setup.
