This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.

Lockdown WP Admin

Description

This plugin will hide WordPress Admin (/wp-admin/) when a user isn’t logged in. If a user isn’t logged in and they attempt to access WP Admin directly, they will be unable to and it will return a 404. It can also rename the login URL.

Also, you can add HTTP authentication directly from WP Admin and add custom username/password combinations for the HTTP auth or use the WordPress credentials.

This doesn’t touch any .htaccess files or change the WordPress core files. All the CSS/Images under /wp-admin/ are still accessible, just not the .php ones.

If you enable HTTP authentication, it will add HTTP authentication to the PHP files in /wp-admin/.

To contribute to the development, check out the GitHub Repository.

Installation

  1. Upload /lockdown-wp-admin/ to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
  2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
  3. Navigate to the “Lockdown WP” menu

FAQ

Installation Instructions
  1. Upload /lockdown-wp-admin/ to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory
  2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
  3. Navigate to the “Lockdown WP” menu
How can we add files to the white list to hide from the public eye? We want to have AJAX and use a custom file, but we can’t because it hides it from the public.

You can add a file using the ‘no_check_files’ filter. Use this:

        function add_my_cool_filter($data)
        {
            // You have to accept the $data argument or else it will cause a system meltdown ;)
            $data[] = 'my-file-name.php';   //  JUST the file name.
            return $data;
        }
        add_filter('no_check_files', 'add_my_cool_filter');

Simple.

How can I get back in if Lockdown WP Admin locked me out?

You can create a .txt file named ‘disable_auth.txt’ in your wp-content/plugins/lockdown-wp-admin/ folder (The file location would be /wp-content/plugins/lockdown-wp-admin/disable_auth.txt). We don’t care about the content but that will disable the HTTP Auth and whatever was locking you out of your site.

Reviews

January 19, 2023
Still working perfectly in the current version of wordpress. It stops all those annoying bot attacks that any wordpress site gets. Still recommended.
December 26, 2019
This plugin still working! I use on all my sites. Hopefully a new update will be available for longer use.
October 7, 2018
I'm posting this because we as 'users', sometimes take for granted the efforts of plugin authors and seem only to comment when we are 'whining' or 'complaining'. Mostly because many do not simply follow the install procedures, so seek to blame the Author. The Problem : All WP users have is security because your site is constantly under threat. Unless your sitting there watching, one morning you'll get up and your site has been damaged by some malicious idiot! The Plugin : As of : 07-10-18 this gem of a plugin is still working strong with the latest WP version! Whilst it has not been updated for a few years, it's still working and does so very effectively against potential threats as wouldbe hackers can't find how to log into your site. It's a near impossibility to do so and soon, they give up and choose an easier target. My Two Cents : So for what it's worth to the Author, very well done for this and can only hope they re-visit this plugin to add any additional elements. I would certainly make a donation toward it if they were to resume and continue maintaining it! It's lightweight, it works...simple as that!
September 3, 2018
This plugin is simple and easy to setup. I have been using it for two years but with the last Wordpress actualisation (4.9.8) it stopped working. I was locked out and was not able to access to panel administration. I had to delete the plugin. What a pity.
Read all 54 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Lockdown WP Admin” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Translate “Lockdown WP Admin” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

1.0

  • Initial release

1.0.1

  • Fixed a link to a broken file

1.1

  • Fixed a bug on activating the plugin network wide, we disabled network wide activation.
  • Cleaned up the plugin and prevented a double loop of the HTTP check, unnecessary.

1.2

  • Cleaned up more code.
  • Security fixes that will prevent somebody from possibly hijacking your website. (Props Jon Cave)

1.3.1

  • Added the ability to change the login URL entirely. It will disable /wp-login.php and give it whatever you want to make it.

1.4

  • Fixed a bug with user’s with a index.php base
  • Added stats for us to collect about about URL setup and server configuration for our users. This will let us make the plugin even better.
  • Fixed bug for having private user management in WP Admin

1.4.2

  • Bug fixes
  • Added admin-ajax.php to the files that we permit to be access in wp-admin.

1.6

  • Added way to get back into WP-ADMIN if locked out (See the FAQ)

1.7

  • Removed the stats that were collected to that we could understand the issues that users were having with the plugin.

1.8

  • Finally discovered why so many users had HTTP authentication errors. Fixed it to support almost 80% of hosts out there.
  • If you still have problems, shoot me an email.

1.9

A very late update, sorry! Worked to fix many issues with the admin bar and the “get_current_screen()” error. If you still see issues, please contact me!

2.0

  • Provided a system dump to help in debugging issues that may arise.
  • Fixes a issues on the 404 page under 3.5.1 (get_current_screen())
  • Cleanup, cleanup!

2.0.1

2.0.2

  • Query string detection bug fix by James Bonham
  • Issues with WordPress in a sub-directory

2.1

  • Unit Testing! Unit Testing ensure more reliable code going forward
  • Support for WordPress 3.6
  • General Cleaning

2.2

  • Fixing issues with other plugins
  • Support tested for 3.9
  • Large code structure changes. If you are extending the Lockdown_Manager at all, you should basically check the class anew since it was separated into Admin and Application services.

2.3

  • Fixing issues with latests WordPress Version
  • Cleaning of code, enhancements.
  • Localizing all the strings.