When you sign up for a new hosting plan, we send you a "New Account Information" email packed with everything you need to get started: cPanel URL, login details, nameservers, mail server settings, and more. This article explains every section, in case anything looks unfamiliar.
What's in the email, section by section
Account information
Your basic account identity:
- Username — your cPanel username (also used for FTP, MySQL prefixes, SSH if enabled). Auto-generated from your domain — usually short, lowercase, no special characters.
- Password — your initial cPanel password. We strongly recommend changing it once you log in for the first time.
- Domain — the primary domain on the account.
Server information
- Server hostname — e.g.
eos.canspace.ca. Use this for your cPanel and webmail URLs, and as your mail server hostname in email clients. - Server IP — the IP address of the server your account lives on. You'll rarely need this, but it's there for things like DNS A records pointing at us from external nameservers.
- Nameservers — the two nameserver hostnames to set at your domain's registrar. These point your domain at the right server. They're specific to the server your account is on, e.g.
ns27.canspace.caandns28.canspace.ca.
Control panel access
- cPanel URL —
https://yourserver.canspace.ca:2083— where you log in to manage your hosting (files, databases, email, SSL, etc.). - Webmail URL —
https://yourserver.canspace.ca:2096— where you can read your email through a browser.
Both URLs work over the server's hostname even before you've pointed your domain at us. Once your domain is pointed at us and SSL is provisioned, you can also use yourdomain.com:2083 and yourdomain.com:2096.
Email / mail server settings
If you use desktop or mobile email clients (Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird, iPhone Mail, etc.), this section has the IMAP/POP/SMTP settings you'll need. Standard values:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| Incoming server (IMAP) | yourserver.canspace.ca, port 993, SSL/TLS |
| Incoming server (POP3) | yourserver.canspace.ca, port 995, SSL/TLS |
| Outgoing server (SMTP) | yourserver.canspace.ca, port 465, SSL/TLS |
| Username | Your full email address (e.g. [email protected]) |
| Password | The email account's password (set when you create the account) |
See our per-client setup guides:
- Set up email on iPhone, iPad, or Mac (Apple Mail)
- Set up email on Android
- Set up email in Outlook
- Set up email in Thunderbird
Temporary URLs
Some welcome emails include a "temporary URL" like https://yourserver.canspace.ca/~yourusername/. This lets you preview your website on our server before updating your domain's DNS to point at us. Useful during migrations.
For better preview options including hosts file overrides, see How to preview your site before updating DNS.
FTP information
- FTP host — same as your cPanel hostname (your server hostname or your domain).
- Port —
921(we use a non-standard port for security). - Username / password — your cPanel username and password.
What to do first
- Log in to cPanel using the URL and credentials in the email.
- Change your password — cPanel home → Preferences → Password & Security. Use something only you know.
- Update your nameservers at your domain's registrar to the two values in the email. If your domain is registered with CanSpace, you can do this directly from your client area — see How do I change my nameservers?
- Enable two-factor authentication on your client area login: How to enable 2FA.
- Bookmark the cPanel URL for next time.
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