Legacy cPanel Quick Start Guide

 Overview

This article will show you how to get your website and email live on your new web hosting account.

First, we need to make sure your domain name resolves correctly - that is, we need to make sure it's sending your website traffic to your new server. The easiest way to do this is to point your domain name to our nameservers.

Note: You might want to get everything else set up on your server first, before updating your nameservers. That way you can preview your website before going live. See the last section to learn how to preview your website.

If you registered your domain with us, your nameservers will be set up automatically, and you can go to the next step.

If you registered your domain elsewhere, you will need to visit that registrar and update your nameservers (also called Servers of Authority or SOA) to the ones shown below:

Our nameservers are:

Note: It can take up to 48 hours for updates to your domain name to take effect. During this time your website traffic and email may be disrupted. If you want to minimize this disruption to your website traffic and email, you may be able to first, before making any other changes to your nameservers, lower your TTL with your current registrar. Once you lower your TTL, wait 48 hours, and then update your nameservers. The change should now happen more quickly.

1. Log into your cPanel.
2. In the Mail section, click on Email Accounts.
   
3. Fill in the information for your new email user:
   • Email: Your new email address.
   • Password: Enter your new password twice. Be sure to choose something strong for added security. You can use thePassword Generator tool to create a secure password automatically; just make sure you remember the password.
   • Mailbox Quota: This sets a size limit on the mailbox. Enter a number, or choose Unlimited.
     
4. Click Create Account. After a moment, you'll receive a confirmation message. You should see your new email address listed under the Account @ Domain section. If you ever need to update the password or delete the account later, you can do that from this page.

Now you can set up your new email address with a local email client such as Outlook or Apple Mail, which you can check from your computer. You will need the following information to enter in your email client of choice:

• Incoming mail server type: IMAP or POP3
• Incoming mail server name: mail.EXAMPLE.COM (replace with your own domain)
• Username or account name: username@EXAMPLE.COM (replace with the email address you just created)
• Password: the password you just created
• Outgoing mail server type: SMTP
• Outgoing mail server name: mail.EXAMPLE.COM (replace with your own domain)

FTP allows you to upload or publish your website files. First, you need to set up an FTP user:

1. Log into your Control Panel.
2. In the Files section, click on FTP Accounts.
   
3. Fill in the information for your new FTP user:
   • Login: Your new FTP username.
   • Password: Enter your new password twice. Be sure to choose something strong for added security. You can use the Password Generator tool to create a secure password automatically; just make sure you remember the password.
   • Directory: This is the folder that you want the user to be able to access. For maximum access, leave this field blank. To grant access to all of your website files, use public_html/. To grant access to a specific subfolder, enter the full path to that folder (example: public_html/username/).
   • Quota: This is the maximum amount of disk space this user will be allowed to use on the server. Enter a number, or choose Unlimited.
     
4. Click Create FTP Account. You'll be taken to a confirmation screen that shows the information you just entered. Make a note of these settings for the next step.

You will need to enter the following information in your favorite FTP client:

• FTP server hostname: ftp.EXAMPLE.COM (replace with your own domain) or your IP address
• IP Address:  your IP address
• Username: the username you created in the previous step - remember to include the @EXAMPLE.COM part, not just the first part
• Password: the password you just created
• Root directory: public_html/

Tip: You can use the IP address for your server instead of the domain name if your domain is not yet pointed to your server here. You can find your IP address in your Customer Manager. Click on My Products, then on View Details next to your server. Your IP address is shown on the left.

To preview your website before your DNS settings have updated, you will need two pieces of information.

1. Your IP address.
2. Your cPanel username.

You can find your IP address in your Customer Manager. Click on My Products, then on View Details next to your server. Your IP address is shown on the left.

You can find your cPanel username on the home page of your Control Panel. Log into the Control Panel, then look in theStats box for your Home Directory. It should show something like /home/USERNAME. The part after home/ is your unique cPanel username.

To preview your website, enter the following URL in your browser:

http://12.34.56.78/~USERNAME

Replace 12.34.56.78 with your IP and USERNAME with your username. You do need the ~.

Once you're happy with how your website looks, you can go live.