Confirm your email address
How the confirmation link works, why it asks you to log in and press a button, how long it lasts, and how to get a new one if it expired.
Right after you sign up, we send an email with the subject "Confirm your email for VPSNine". It matters more than it looks: that address is how you get back in if you ever forget your password.
Confirm it
- Open the email and follow the link. It goes to
my.vpsnine.com/verify-email. - If you're not logged in, the page says Log in to confirm your email. Choose log in to confirm, log in (with your 2FA code, if you use one), and you're brought back to the link.
- A page called Confirm your email opens. Press Verify email.
- You're taken back to the panel, with "Email verified. Thanks." at the top.
On the account page, the verified line now says yes.
What needs a confirmed address
You can log in, add SSH keys and open support tickets straight away. Two things wait until the address is confirmed: ordering a server and making an API token. Both would otherwise let someone who signed up with another person's address act on an account that isn't theirs. Try either one early and the panel tells you to confirm first; the API answers 403 email_unverified.
Why there's a button at all
Plenty of mail systems open every link in an incoming email to check it for malware, before you've even seen the message. If opening the link were enough, those scanners would quietly use it up and yours would say "expired". So opening the link only shows the page. Nothing happens until a person presses the button.
Why you have to be logged in
The link only works for the account it was sent for, while you're logged in to it. Anyone can type your address into a sign-up form. If the link alone were enough, someone could sign up with your address, wait for you to press the link out of habit, and end up with a confirmed account in your name that they hold the password to. Asking you to log in first proves that the person who knows the password also reads the inbox.
If you're logged in to a different VPSNine account, the page says This link is for another account and changes nothing. Log out, log in to the right one, and open the link again.
If you get the email but never signed up, ignore it, or reset the password from that inbox to take the account over. A reset on an account that was never confirmed removes anything someone else set up on it.
The link expired, or never came
Links work once and last 24 hours. Asking for a new one cancels the old ones, so always use the newest email.
To get a new link, log in. Until your address is confirmed, every panel page has a banner at the top ("Confirm your email address") with a send a new link button. You can use it three times an hour.
If nothing arrives, check spam first; it's usually there. Then look at the address on the account page. If it's misspelled, email [email protected] from the right address and we'll sort it out.
A password reset also confirms your address, by the way. If you reset your password with an emailed link, you've proved you can read that inbox, so we mark it verified. On an account that was never confirmed, the reset also removes its SSH keys, API tokens and 2FA, in case someone else signed up with your address.