CPU usage spikes – Is it Wordfence?

I checked. Honestly it is hard to tell. If wordefence is as you say then I don’t think its the problem. I’m still trying to get to the bottom of these I/O spikes and CPU usage.

I did find out that whenever I sit on the scan screen in WP an Ajax file is repeatedly execute and the runs up my usage. So I don’t stay inside the editing files long while editing WP.

Here is something that I thought was an issue. Perhaps you can confirm. When I click scan from wordfence menu in WP. I see the loading bars moving continuously and nothing happening in terms of files being scanned. However, I learned that may in fact be how WF is suppose to work.

Back to my usage and I/O spikes… I actually think the problem can be linked to spam attacks and hackers hitting my site. They kept triggering my WP-cron.php. So I disabled it in wp-config.php. Now I don’t think my scehduled scans work in wordfence any more. nor my back ups from another plugin. However Can’t I create a cron job in my cpanel to fire up my stored Wordfence scans?

The linked site is what I thought my issue was. Just wondering if this cron job gets WF to do its normal scan.
http://stickystatic.com/tech/disable-wordpress-cron-jobs

Oh your talking about the service code I see right after the http.

Like something like thess:
“GET /wp-login.php?action=register HTTP/1.1” 503 2333
“POST /wp-login.php HTTP/1.1” 503 2333
/wp-login.php HTTP/1.0″ 200 2987 “-” “-“

So the first example returns a 503 which means it was successfully blocked right? and the 200 means I need to go in and block their IP address right?

What if I decide to block their country. Then I don’t need to worry about blocking an individual IP correct? I think I sill would have to add their individual IP because on the country settings I’m only blocking backend access. I need to add their individual ID to block front end access as well correct? Or Does WF even block front end Access?

And I know this post was originally for CPU spikes. I think I was able to fix that and I don’t believe WF was at fault.

But my last question is WF still allows for our own servers to use resources even when 404 or 503s are returned correct?

Hi Tim thanks for responding to many requests today. Even from other people… However you are not answering my questions. I know I can use country blocking. Let me try to be a bit more specific and then I will close or resolve this post.

1st: Was I correct about the response codes?

2nd: If a country is blocked (premium member) do I need to worry about blociking an individual IP address if that IP address is from that blocked country?

3rd: Is there currently a way to block all backend users and only certain front end users… like IQ country (plugin) does? The current set up is you are unable to destinguish between both back end and front end.

4th: I added this question: Can I now use IQ country (plugin) with Wordfence without any conflicts?

Yes that helps very much.. thank you Tim… perhaps for my question in 3 that you recommend the option to distinguish between blocking from fronend and backend. For example. I may want to block all backend countries. All attempts basically except for my IP address. However, on the front end if I did that I would lock all my visitors from seening my site.

So, There would only be like 15-20 countries I would want to block from front end and everyone from backend …

Does that make sense. Currently WF cannot do that. Or is there a way? Anyway. thanks for all your help today.