There are several ways to access your cPanel login screen and in this article, we’ll cover the most important ones and what the difference is.
More than One Way to Access cPanel
WHM and cPanel are software that is installed on a server. There are a couple of ways of accessing cPanel’s login screen and depending on given circumstances you might want to choose one over the other.
Since it runs on the server you can access it using the server’s IP information or using its hostname, for example.
Understanding the Server’s IP Address Usage
As cPanel is installed on a server with a public IP it is accessible through it. Ultimately, you’ll always use that IP to access cPanel’s services, sometimes it might be masked under a domain.
When a server is set usually a hostname is chosen for that server. The hostname servers as an address that is easily remembered, instead of remembering directly the numbers of the server’s IP address.
It’s much easier to remember host.server.com instead of 123.234.232.221 (the example might a little easier). When the hostname is properly set accessing the service like
123.234.232.221/service
or using the hostname
host.server.com/service
.. will both result in accessing the same resource. Using the host.server.com one might be easier to remember.
cPanel Login with Hostname Access
The most used method of accessing your cPanel is:
server.hostname.com/cpanel
This will resolve the IP of server.hostname.com and request the cpanel resource, resulting in a login screen
cPanel is usually listening (recognizes requests) on port 2033, knowing this you can use:
server.hostname.com:2083
Using the server’s hostname you’re ensuring that you’ll access cPanel’s login screen directly on the server. If you have access limitations implied by your local ISP you might have issues access external ports above 1024, and for this, you might consider a different approach.
cPanel Login with Domain
A hostname is a domain that is set to be recognized as the server’s hostname. The server also has an additional configuration to “know” about this.
You can also access the server’s cPanel login screen using your own domain. For this, your domain needs to be “pointed” to the server by A record, so that the previously mentioned is also true for your domain:
mydomain.com points to 123.234.232.221
server.hostname.com points to 123.234.232.221
cPanel is hosted on 123.234.232.221
then accessing the server like
mydomain.com/cpanel
or
mydomain.com:2083
will result in the request being sent to the same server, resulting in cPanel’s login screen.
There is something different when using the domain approach. Since cPanel associated several services with your domain and creates subdomains for them (like mail.mydomain.com) you can also use direct subdomain access, which is:
cpanel.mydomain.com
This allows you to bypass the local ISP of accessing ports above 1024 as it makes an HTTP request to port 80. You should also note that accessing the login like this will result in a security warning as this domain does not have an SSL certificate installed.
Using IP access
You can also use the server’s IP address directly to access the server’s resources. This is frowned upon as you will both access the service at port above 1024 (thus might be limited by your ISP) and you will not have a secure connection as IP addresses cannot have SSLs installed for. To use this you should use the following (give the IP 123.234.232.221 is your server’s)
123.234.232.221/cpanel
And using the port:
123.234.232.221:2083
cPanel Login Summary
We recommend using the Hostname approach. If you’re having issues with it try using your subdomain access, like:
hostname.server.com:2083
If limited by your ISP:
cpanel.mydomain.com
