Giving access to your Ecenica web hosting plan to your web developer or website designer is really easy.
Your web development agency may be encouraging you to move your website to their own web hosting. On the face of it this may sound like a good idea. However there are many advantages of keeping your website on your own web hosting plan:
- Retain full control of your website files
- Save time by not having to swap web hosts every time you swap web agencies
- Our web hosting plans have been built with web developers in mind, with support for latest web hosting technologies including WordPress, PHP and MySQL
- Direct access to our expert technical and customer support teams
Provide complete access to your Ecenica Hosting cPanel
You can provide complete access to your cPanel account to your developer by giving them your cPanel username and password. Your web developer will then be able to change and control every part of your web hosting account, including using our 1-click installer, creating databases and setting up SFTP and SSH access.
To find your cPanel username and password:
- Log in to your Ecenica Dashboard
- Click Products/Services > Select your website hosting plan
- Under Control Panel click Show username & password
You can also change your cPanel password.
The web address your developer should use to log in is https://yourdomain.com/cpanel — replacing yourdomain.com with your own domain.
Your web developer can use the same cPanel username and password to log in to FTP.
We recommend you change your cPanel password after your developer has completed their work for security.
Complete access to cPanel for Reseller Hosting and Dedicated Servers
Provide your developer with access to your Ecenica Reseller Hosting account by giving them your cPanel username and password.
The cPanel username is found by logging in to WHM and clicking List Accounts.
See our WHM Guide for details on how to log in to WHM as well as creating cPanel accounts.
Once your developer has finished, we recommend you change your cPanel account password from WHM.
Limited Access (FTP and MySQL)
If you would prefer to provide limited access to your web developer, you can provide an FTP account and database access. This is the minimum required for your web developer to create, develop or upload your website.
- Create a new FTP account with access to your website files. See How to add extra FTP accounts
- Provide access to your MySQL databases by providing Remote MySQL access or by installing phpMyAdmin on a sub-domain or subfolder using the Ecenica App Installer
- Create a MySQL database, database user and password if required.
You can then provide the FTP details and MySQL database details to your web developer.
Provide Remote MySQL access
If your developer needs to connect to your database from their own tools (like MySQL Workbench, TablePlus, or a local development environment), you’ll need to set up Remote MySQL access.
- Log in to your Ecenica Dashboard
- Click Services > My Services > Manage on your hosting plan
- Click Login to cPanel
- Search for Remote MySQL and click it
- Ask your developer for their IP address and add it to the Host field
- Add a comment like ‘Developer laptop’ so you know what the entry is for
- Click Add Host
- Wait one minute while the firewall updates
Your developer can now connect using:
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Host | Your domain name (e.g. example.com) |
| Port | 3306 |
| Username | The MySQL database username |
| Password | The MySQL database password |
| Database | The database name |
See the full guide: How to Connect Remotely to MySQL.
Provide SSH and SFTP access
For developers who need command-line access or secure file transfers, set up SSH access. This is more secure than sharing your cPanel password and gives your developer their own credentials.
- Log in to the Ecenica Dashboard
- Click Services > My Services > Manage on your hosting plan
- Click Login to cPanel
- Search for SSH Access and click it
- Click Manage SSH Keys
- Click Generate a New Key
- Give the key a name (e.g.
developer-key) and choose a strong passphrase - Click Generate Key
- Once generated, click Authorize to add it to the account
- Toggle SSH Access to On
Give your developer these connection details:
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Server | Your domain name (e.g. example.com) |
| Port | 2244 |
| Username | Your cPanel username |
| Authentication | SSH key (not a password) |
Your developer will need the private key file and its passphrase to connect. For SFTP, share our guide: How to connect using FileZilla SFTP.
When your developer has finished their work, de-authorise their SSH key from cPanel’s SSH Access > Manage SSH Keys area.
Tips for secure access
- Use SFTP instead of FTP — SFTP encrypts your connection. Standard FTP sends data in plain text.
- Restrict Remote MySQL by IP — Only allow specific IP addresses to connect. Wildcards (e.g.
10.0.0.%) are supported but full wildcard access is not allowed for security. - Create separate accounts per developer — If you work with multiple developers, create a separate FTP account or SSH key for each. This makes it easier to revoke access when someone leaves.
- Revoke access when work is complete — Change your cPanel password, remove FTP accounts, remove Remote MySQL IP entries, and de-authorise SSH keys once your developer has finished.
