====== Changing Your Password ======

We strongly recommend that you change your password immediately once your account has been created, and it's not a bad idea to change it regularly, either, just to be safe. This page details how to do this on any net5 shared hosting system. 

===== Picking a Strong Password =====

Your site is only as secure as its password, and there's nothing worse than having your site defaced, deleted or worse because you had a bad password. To protect your site, you need a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Password_strength|Strong Password]].

There's various web sites that offer to generate secure passwords for you (such as the [[http://strongpasswordgenerator.com/|strongpasswordgenerator.com]] or [[http://www.bad-neighborhood.com/password-generator.htm|Mnemonic Password Generator]], for example -- [[http://www.google.com/search?q=strong+password+generator|google]] for more), but generally, as long as there's more than 8 characters, that you have a good mix of letters and numbers (adding punctuation symbols helps too), and avoiding words that appear in a dictionary, you should be fine. Alternatively, cPanel now provides its own password generator right when you want to change your password!

We also recommend that you use different passwords for your email accounts, MySQL databases and your main cPanel login. That way, even if one is compromised, the rest of your site is still relatively safe.

===== Changing Your Password =====
You need to log into your site's cPanel interface first (usually accessed by http://www.yoursite.com/cpanel or http://server.net5.com.au/cpanel) using the details in your Welcome Email.

{{:hosting:cpanel-login.png|cPanel}}

Once you've logged in successfully, you'll find the "Change Password" button. 

{{:hosting:cpanel-password.png|Change Password}}

Type in your old and new password, click "Change your password now!", and you're finished!

Please don't forget to write down your new password somewhere safe!