Suspension and termination: what happens to the address

Suspension takes a site offline and keeps everything. Termination removes the account and releases what it held, including the dedicated address. On a network where the addresses are the asset, knowing which one you are about to do matters more than it does anywhere else.

Suspension

A suspended account stops serving. Visitors get a suspension page rather than the site. Underneath, nothing is lost: files, databases, email and settings stay exactly where they were, and the account keeps its address assignment. Unsuspending puts it back as it was.

Use it whenever you are unsure. It is reversible, it is instant, and it costs nothing but the site being down.

• Good reasons: a compromised site you want stopped now, a project on hold, a client dispute, a site you intend to remove but not today.
• What still runs: be aware that scheduled tasks may continue depending on configuration. If you suspended because something was misbehaving, check that it actually stopped.

Termination

Termination deletes the account: files, databases, email, everything. The address it was using goes back to the pool. If you have a dedicated address subscription, the address stays yours to reassign, but the association with that account is gone.

There is no undo. The only recovery is a backup, and only if you have one that is recent enough to matter.

The checklist before terminating anything

1. Take a backup and download it off the server. A backup stored on the account you are about to delete is not a backup.
2. Confirm the domain's future. If it is not being retired, it needs somewhere to point before the site disappears.
3. Note the address. Write down which address the account was using, so you can reassign it deliberately rather than losing track of it.
4. Check for shared dependencies. A database used by another site, a cron job feeding something else, a certificate covering more than this domain.
5. Suspend first, wait a week. If nobody notices, terminate. If something breaks, you have not lost anything.

That last step is the whole discipline. Suspension is a free rehearsal for termination and almost nobody uses it that way.

What happens to the address

This is the part specific to a diverse-IP network. The account is deleted; the address is a separate thing you are paying for. It returns to your pool and can be assigned to a new account.

Two consequences worth planning for:

• An address carries history. Reassigning an address that previously served an abandoned site is fine in ordinary cases, but if the previous site was the reason you are terminating, consider whether you want the new site inheriting that address.
• Do not let addresses go idle unnoticed. An address paid for and assigned to nothing is a cost with no benefit. Audit the assignment list periodically, as described in Running Your Estate.

Reactivating later

If an account was suspended, reactivation is one action and the site returns as it was. If it was terminated, there is no account to reactivate; you create a new one and restore from backup. Those are very different amounts of work, which is the practical argument for suspending anything you might conceivably want back.

Billing status and service status are separate systems, so a paid invoice does not automatically restore a terminated account. If you are unsure which state an account is in, ask us before acting rather than experimenting on a live site.

The account management reference is at docs.cpanel.net.