Giving the guy I hired access to cPanel

19 replies
Hi,
Sorry, this is probably a dumb question for most technical people.

I have had web hosting for several years but I've always done everything myself. Today, I hired a guy to do some work on my new domain (install WordPress, install/configure custom WordPress theme, add content, etc.)
This domain is an add-on domain in my hosting account.
How do I give him access just to the domain he needs to work on?
I did create a separate username and password for him, but when I log in as that user, I can see that user has access to ALL my sites.
Thanks!
#access #cpanel #giving #guy #hired
  • Profile picture of the author PHPSpaZ
    Originally Posted by MarkUSA View Post

    Hi,
    Sorry, this is probably a dumb question for most technical people.

    I have had web hosting for several years but I've always done everything myself. Today, I hired a guy to do some work on my new domain (install WordPress, install custom WordPress theme, add content, etc.)
    This domain is an add-on domain in my hosting account.
    How do I give him access just to the domain he needs to work on?
    I did create a separate username and password for him, but when I log in as that user, I can see that user has access to ALL my sites.
    Thanks!
    According to who your host is, and whether or not you have a dedicated box you may be able to restrict his access, for that though u will need to call your hosts support number. Sadly in most cases though you cannot.... My only suggestion is that if you dont trust him well enough to let him go with all that control... Then you might not want to let him touch your site.
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    • Profile picture of the author MarkUSA
      Originally Posted by PHPSpaZ View Post

      According to who your host is, and whether or not you have a dedicated box you may be able to restrict his access, for that though u will need to call your hosts support number. Sadly in most cases though you cannot.... My only suggestion is that if you dont trust him well enough to let him go with all that control... Then you might not want to let him touch your site.
      It is, of course, shared hosting.
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      • Profile picture of the author PHPSpaZ
        Other than just buying a separate hosting account for that specific domain there will be no way to restrict his access. Someone should probably write that functionality for CPanel LOL!
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        • Profile picture of the author Eric Seiler
          You could install Wordpress yourself if you have Fantastico, which is pretty much standard with most cPanel hosts. It's super simple, and literally takes under a minute.

          From there, you can give him access to what he needs through FTP, which can be set to specific directories (Files/FTP accounts in cPanel).

          If he needs to edit the database (through PHPMyAdmin or whatnot), I'm not sure what you can do there but for the kind of work you are talking about he shouldn't need it.

          Keep in mind, the Fantastico install of Wordpress hasn't been hardened, so it is relatively insecure.
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          • Profile picture of the author cwilliams6009
            I ran into this same issue when I asked a guy to do some on-site seo.

            Seems to me the best way is to set up a separate admin access, so you can track his moves, then change the password when done. You can also post on his odesk/elance/fiver.com site as a backup.

            but that doesn't totally solve the problem .
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  • Profile picture of the author hellow0rld
    You can put a password lock on directories....
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  • Profile picture of the author Earnie Boyd
    I would start by asking the hosting company. They may have a reference in their knowledge database so search it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kingfish85
    Create an FTP account and have it default to something like home/public_html/domain.com

    (domain.com being the addon domain he's working on)

    There's no way to restrict, change or create an additional use since you're logging in using the account name.
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  • Profile picture of the author Craftisy
    Make a seperate FTP account
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  • Good grief.

    Pony up for a WHM account (it's like $25/month with hostgator) and you can give him his own cpanel to cause mayhem and destruction on. You can limit the bandwidth etc on it too. It's also a great way to make money if you're selling websites and want to offer folks their own cpanel services/web based e-mail/etc.
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  • Profile picture of the author kdmpublishing
    Depending on your webhost, create a separate FTP username and password. Once the work is complete, disable the username. If you have hired the person for ongoing maitenance, then keep the credentials for him/her. Check with your hosting company to see how you can limit the amount of information is available to the person you hired. Also you should be able to check your stats/bandwidth if all of a sudden you notice excessive downloads for example,if you keep these types of products on your hosting server.
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  • Profile picture of the author imsirigiri
    There is no way to restrict a user from accessing entire setup with valid credentials. We generally work on several client sites and we do get asked this question multiple times. It's all based on trust.

    If you do not trust your guy, then you can install WP yourself and just give him site access. That's the only way to restrict the tech guy to one site. If you loose one site, at least you have lost ONLY one site. And you can also post the same review on his profile page and leave a negative feedback.
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  • Profile picture of the author Terry Crim
    When I pay for hosting the minimum level of hosting I go for is reseller hosting. This is also on shared hosting but not the basic level accounts. With the reseller hosting you can setup a control panel for each website and this will allow you to setup unique username and password for that website while also allowing access via the master user and password for all of your accounts.

    If you websites are setup all in a folder off of one account then there is nothing you can do to restrict access to just one domain. Even with password protected folders and creating users that have access starting at a certain level, a knowledgable person can still get access to all your sites.

    If you trust the person to work on your site then give them the access they need, if you don't trust them then don't.

    One of the bigger reasons I use reseller hosting is databases are isolated from site to site. This way if something happens or someone accidentally or on purpose does something it only impacts that one site and not ALL my sites. You can get pretty good deals for reseller hosting out there but it is still usually more than the basic level hosting.
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  • Profile picture of the author onefoxylady
    Originally Posted by MarkUSA View Post

    Hi,
    Sorry, this is probably a dumb question for most technical people.

    I have had web hosting for several years but I've always done everything myself. Today, I hired a guy to do some work on my new domain (install WordPress, install/configure custom WordPress theme, add content, etc.)
    This domain is an add-on domain in my hosting account.
    How do I give him access just to the domain he needs to work on?
    I did create a separate username and password for him, but when I log in as that user, I can see that user has access to ALL my sites.
    Thanks!
    I guess I am fortunate but my host does most of those chores for me at no cost but of course they do not do any SEO work and I have hired someone to do some for me. I have the same question you do and have an email into support for their advice. I will let you know as soon as I hear back from them which should be within minutes. Hope we can get a workable answer for both of us.
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    • Profile picture of the author onefoxylady
      OK Just received a response as follows:

      Hello,

      You can create an FTP account through Cpanel and give access only to files/directories you want.

      They sent me a file on exactly how to do it and I would suggest that your contact your host as they may have a different system.

      Here is part of what it said:

      Overview
      File Transfer Protocol (FTP) allows you to manage your website's files. cPanel includes an FTP server that is pre-configured and easy to use.
      If you are a website owner, and your system administrator enables FTP services, your FTP access should already be configured. You can use your cPanel account username and password to log in to FTP. You can also set up FTP accounts for additional users.
      Notes:
      Icon
      You can only access the FTP Accounts feature if your system administrator has enabled FTP services on your server.
      SFTP uses your cPanel account's shell access to transfer files. For more information about SFTP, read our How To Configure Your SFTP Client documentation.
      Add an FTP account
      FTP accounts allow users to access the domain's folder on the server's hard disk.
      To create an FTP account, perform the following steps:
      Enter the desired username in the Login text box.
      Enter and confirm the new password in the appropriate text boxes.
      Notes:
      Icon
      The system grades the password that you enter on a scale of 100 points. 0 indicates a weak password, while 100 indicates a very secure password.
      Some web hosts require a minimum password strength. A green password Strength meter indicates that you met the required password strength.
      Click Password Generator to generate a strong password. For more information, read our Password Generator documentation.
      Specify the FTP account's home directory.

      Hope this helps.

      Robbie
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  • Profile picture of the author Qianjun Befanis
    I have that issue too. My developer said:

    I just wanted to give you an update: I was successfully able to connect with the cpanel account via ftp and rendered the wordpress theme. However, it seems that the code has been locked from local editing when downloaded from the ftp source.

    I don't know what to do.
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    • Profile picture of the author rhinocl
      I've never run into that but as a first step suggest that they use the ftp program to change the permissions on the files so they can be edited. If they don't understand how to do that they should Google it as that is a routine task for a developer.
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      • Profile picture of the author Qianjun Befanis
        Originally Posted by rhinocl View Post

        I've never run into that but as a first step suggest that they use the ftp program to change the permissions on the files so they can be edited. If they don't understand how to do that they should Google it as that is a routine task for a developer.

        I have been doing all my website design for myself for years. Lately I hired this guy to help me out, since i started a new business, and it's really too much work for me to do all the thing alone.
        I gave the FTP and he came back saying the theme cannot be editing locally, I want him to put email opt-in box on the page using Divi template.
        I hope I purchased re-seller account from the beginning so I can just separated all the account from the very beginning.
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  • Profile picture of the author zeeshi570
    Its not a big problem you can trust your developer and ones he is finished working you can changed your cpanel password
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