As a hosting administrator managing dozens or hundreds of accounts, knowing exactly which CMS is installed — and which version — across all accounts is essential for security patching, audit compliance, and mass upgrades. This guide provides ready-to-run one-liner commands for cPanel, Plesk, and DirectAdmin servers covering WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, OpenCart, and Magento.

WordPress

WordPress stores its version in wp-includes/version.php. This command finds every installation and prints the full path alongside the version string:

cPanel

find /home/*/public_html/ -type f -iwholename "*/wp-includes/version.php" 
  -exec grep -H "$wp_version =" {} ;

Plesk

find /var/www/vhosts/*/httpdocs -type f -iwholename "*/wp-includes/version.php" 
  -exec grep -H "$wp_version =" {} ;

DirectAdmin

find /home/*/domains/*/public_html/ -type f -iwholename "*/wp-includes/version.php" 
  -exec grep -H "$wp_version =" {} ;

Joomla

Joomla’s version file location and variable names changed across major versions. Use separate commands for legacy (1.x–3.x) and modern (4.x–5.x) installations:

Joomla 3.x and Earlier — cPanel

find /home/*/public_html/ -type f 
  ( -iwholename '*/libraries/joomla/version.php' 
     -o -iwholename '*/libraries/cms/version.php' 
     -o -iwholename '*/libraries/cms/version/version.php' ) 
  -print0 | xargs -0 grep -lH "RELEASE" 2>/dev/null | while read f; do
    grep -E "RELEASE|DEV_LEVEL" "$f" | awk -F"'" '{print FILENAME": "$2}' FILENAME="$f"
  done

Joomla 4.x / 5.x — cPanel

find /home/*/public_html/ -type f -iwholename '*/libraries/src/Version.php' 
  -exec grep -H "const RELEASE|const DEV_LEVEL|const PATCH" {} ;

Joomla — Plesk

# Joomla 3.x and earlier
find /var/www/vhosts/*/httpdocs -type f 
  ( -iwholename '*/libraries/joomla/version.php' 
     -o -iwholename '*/libraries/cms/version/version.php' ) 
  -exec grep -H "RELEASE|DEV_LEVEL" {} ;

# Joomla 4.x / 5.x
find /var/www/vhosts/*/httpdocs -type f -iwholename '*/libraries/src/Version.php' 
  -exec grep -H "const RELEASE|const PATCH" {} ;

Drupal

Drupal 7 stores its version in an .info file inside the system module. Drupal 8, 9, and 10 store the version as a PHP constant in core/lib/Drupal.php:

Drupal 7 — cPanel

find /home/*/public_html/ -type f -iwholename "*/modules/system/system.info" 
  -exec grep -H "^version" {} ;

Drupal 8 / 9 / 10 — cPanel

find /home/*/public_html/ -type f -iwholename "*/core/lib/Drupal.php" 
  -exec grep -H "const VERSION" {} ;

Drupal — Plesk

# Drupal 7
find /var/www/vhosts/*/httpdocs -type f -iwholename "*/modules/system/system.info" 
  -exec grep -H "^version" {} ;

# Drupal 8 / 9 / 10
find /var/www/vhosts/*/httpdocs -type f -iwholename "*/core/lib/Drupal.php" 
  -exec grep -H "const VERSION" {} ;

OpenCart

cPanel

find /home/*/public_html/ -type f -iwholename "*/system/startup.php" 
  -exec grep -H "VERSION" {} ;

Plesk

find /var/www/vhosts/*/httpdocs -type f -iwholename "*/system/startup.php" 
  -exec grep -H "VERSION" {} ;

Magento

Magento 1.x — cPanel

find /home/*/public_html/ -type f -iwholename "*/app/Mage.php" 
  -exec grep -H "getVersionInfo|'major'|'minor'|'revision'" {} ;

Magento 2.x — cPanel

find /home/*/public_html/ -type f -iwholename "*/app/etc/env.php" 
  -exec grep -lH "Magento" {} ; | while read f; do
    dir=$(dirname $(dirname "$f"))
    grep -r ""version"" "$dir/composer.json" 2>/dev/null | head -1 | awk '{print "'"$f"':", $2}'
  done

Bonus: Count Installs per CMS

To get a quick summary count of each CMS across all accounts (useful for audit reports), pipe the find output through wc -l:

# Count all WordPress installs on cPanel
find /home/*/public_html/ -type f -iwholename "*/wp-includes/version.php" | wc -l

# Count all Joomla 4/5 installs on cPanel
find /home/*/public_html/ -type f -iwholename "*/libraries/src/Version.php" | wc -l

# Count all Drupal 8/9/10 installs on cPanel
find /home/*/public_html/ -type f -iwholename "*/core/lib/Drupal.php" | wc -l

CMS Version File Reference

CMS	Version	Version File Path	Key String to grep
WordPress	All	wp-includes/version.php	$wp_version =
Joomla	1.x – 3.x	libraries/joomla/version.php	RELEASE
Joomla	4.x – 5.x	libraries/src/Version.php	const RELEASE
Drupal	7	modules/system/system.info	version =
Drupal	8 / 9 / 10	core/lib/Drupal.php	const VERSION
OpenCart	All	system/startup.php	VERSION
Magento	1.x	app/Mage.php	getVersionInfo
Magento	2.x	app/etc/env.php + composer.json	version

Performance Tip for Large Servers

On servers with thousands of accounts, these find commands can take several minutes. Run them in a screen or tmux session and redirect output to a file for later review:

screen -S cms-audit
find /home/*/public_html/ -type f -iwholename "*/wp-includes/version.php" 
  -exec grep -H "$wp_version =" {} ; > /root/wp-audit-$(date +%Y%m%d).txt 2>/dev/null
# Detach: Ctrl+A then D