iFastHostingHow to read your hosting welcome email
One email holds nearly everything you need for your first weeks of hosting. Here is what each section actually means.
The email sent when a hosting account is first created holds nearly everything needed to get started, and it is worth keeping rather than deleting once you have logged in the first time — several details in it get referred back to repeatedly over the life of the account.
What is usually in it
- Control panel login details — the address to sign in at, along with a username. In most cases you sign in to the control panel automatically from your client area rather than typing these directly, but they are there as a direct route if needed.
- Nameservers for the account, needed if you are pointing a domain here from a registrar. These are specific to your account and platform, so always use the ones in your own email rather than any example you find written elsewhere.
- A temporary server address, useful for previewing your site before a domain is pointed at it.
- FTP details, if you plan to upload files with an FTP client rather than the browser-based file manager.
- Mail server settings, needed if you set up an email address on the domain and want to connect it to a mail app rather than using webmail.
Why it is worth keeping
Several of these details — nameservers especially — are things you are unlikely to need again for months, and then need exactly once, at a moment when it is inconvenient to go looking for them. Save the email somewhere it will not get lost, or note the key details somewhere separate from the inbox they arrived in, particularly the mailbox on the domain itself: if that domain's email is not working yet, you cannot read an email sitting in it.
What to do if you cannot find it
Check the spam or junk folder first — automated account emails are occasionally filtered by mail providers unfamiliar with the sending address. If it genuinely cannot be found, everything in it is also visible directly inside your control panel once you are logged in, so a missing email does not mean the information is lost. Logging in to your hosting account covers getting into the control panel without needing the original email at all.
If you cannot log in either, contact support from the email address on the account and we can resend the details or confirm what is on file.
Related reading
There are two separate logins, and knowing which one you need saves a lot of confusion in your first week.
What you get with your hosting planEvery hosting plan bundles the same handful of things together. Here is what each one is actually for.
How to point a domain to your hostingThe two ways to connect a domain to a hosting account, when to use each, and how to tell the change has actually taken effect.
Do I need both a domain and hosting?Yes. A domain is an address; hosting is what the address points to. A website needs both before it can go live.