What You’ll Learn
- Redirecting frontend traffic to hide your Dashboard site
- Restricting wp-admin access by IP address
- Adding HTTP Basic Authentication to wp-admin and wp-login
- Manually removing Dashboard locks if locked out
Frontend Redirect Rules
Make your dashboard front page inaccessible to everyone but you. Easily set a redirect URL, and all hits on Non-WP-Admin pages will be redirected to it. This will make your MainWP Dashboard site virtually invisible. Redirection is the process of forwarding one URL to a different URL. There are three main kinds of redirects: 301, 302, and meta refresh. It is a way to send both users and search engines to a different URL from the one they originally requested.Add Frontend Redirect Rules
Login into your MainWP Dashboard
Go to the MainWP > Extensions > Dashboard Lock extension page
Locate the Frontend Redirect Rules option box
Enter the URL where you want to redirect the traffic
Click the Save Settings button
Remove Frontend Redirect Rules
Login into your MainWP Dashboard
Go to the MainWP > Extensions > Dashboard Lock extension page
Locate the Frontend Redirect Rules option box
Delete the URL from the Redirect frontend traffic field
Click the Save Settings button
Exclude Custom Pages from Redirection
Login into your MainWP Dashboard
Go to the MainWP > Extensions > Dashboard Lock extension page
Locate the Frontend Redirect Rules option box
Locate the Exclude slugs from the redirection option
Enter wanted pages (one per line)
Click the Save Settings button
Important Notes
WP-Cron: Adding the Frontend Redirect Rules may affect your WP-Cron function. If you notice that scheduled functions are not working, please remove the Frontend Redirect Rules. REST API: To avoid Frontend Redirect from affecting the REST API functionality, please add/wp-json to the exclusion list. 
Dashboard Lock
The Extension allows you to limit access to Admin area pages and to your wp-login.php page to specific IP addresses without having to manually edit your .htaccess file. Additional IPs can be set up to access your WordPress admin by adding one IP address per line if you access your dashboard from multiple locations. You can also add a secondary login and password for your Admin area pages and to your wp-login.php page. This is helpful if you have a dynamic IP but still want to add some extra protection to your site.Limit Access to certain IP addresses
Login into your MainWP Dashboard
Go to the MainWP > Extensions > Dashboard Lock extension page
Locate the Dashboard Lock option box
Locate the Allow Login from IP option
In the provided text area, enter one or multiple IP addresses (each in a new line)
Click the Save Settings button
Lock the /wp-admin/ pages
Login into your MainWP Dashboard
Go to the MainWP > Extensions > Dashboard Lock extension page
Locate the Dashboard Lock option box
Locate the Admin area lock option
In the provided fields, enter desired Username and Password
Click the Save Settings button
Lock the /wp-login.php page
Login into your MainWP Dashboard
Go to the MainWP > Extensions > Dashboard Lock extension page
Locate the Dashboard Lock option box
Locate the Login page lock option
In the provided fields, enter desired Username and Password
Click the Save Settings button
Important Notes
If you are having issues with the Admin area lock and Login page lock, please check here. Some hosts don’t allow HTTP basic authentication, and this can create an infinite redirection loop. This can make accessing your MainWP Dashboard site hard. In case you experience this issue, please remove Admin area and login page locks. If this doesn’t help, it is highly recommended to contact your host support. In case you have lost your HTTP Basic Auth credentials, remove Admin area and Login page locks.HTTP Basic Authentication Not Working
HTTP access authentication is a method for an HTTP user agent to provide a username and password when making a request. It is a technique for enforcing access controls to web resources because it doesn’t require cookies, session identifiers, and login pages. No handshakes should be performed in prediction. The use of HTTP Authentication with cPanel/WHM is disabled; therefore, the option was removed from the Tweak Settings. It was disabled in cPanel/WHM 11.42 version. If you are not comfortable with tweaking cPanel settings by yourself, we highly suggest contacting your host support and asking them to do this for you. Even though it has been disabled from cPanel/WHM, you can enable HTTP Authentication by modifying /var/cpanel/cpanel.config. Add the line below skiphttpauth=0 Setting it to 1 means it has been disabled. Setting it to 0 means it has been enabled. After enabling HTTP Authentication & a pop-up will occur. Restart cPanel once you save this file.Remove Dashboard Locks
There are two ways to unlock your MainWP Dashboard site. In case there are no issues with your MainWP Dashboard site, and you can access the Dashboard Lock Extension settings, you will be able to use the Remove Locks button to remove all locks. In case you can’t access your MainWP Dashboard site, locks will need to be removed manually.Unlock MainWP Dashboard
Login into your MainWP Dashboard
Go to the MainWP > Extensions > Dashboard Lock extension page
Locate the Dashboard Lock option box
Click the Remove Locks button
Manually Remove MainWP Dashboard Locks
Remove IP Address Restriction
Use your favorite FTP Client to access your MainWP Dashboard site server
Navigate to the root directory of your MainWP Dashboard site
Locate the .htaccess file
Download it
Open the file in any code editor software
Remove the code inserted by the Dashboard Lock Extension
Save changes
Upload the file back to the root directory
Remove the Admin area lock
Use your favorite FTP Client to access your MainWP Dashboard site server
Navigate to the ../wp-admin/ directory of your MainWP Dashboard site
Locate the .htaccess file
Download it
Open the file in any code editor software
Remove the code inserted by the Dashboard Lock Extension
Save changes
Upload the file back to the ../wp-admin/ directory
Remove Login page lock
Use your favorite FTP Client to access your MainWP Dashboard site server
Navigate to the root directory of your MainWP Dashboard site
Locate the .htaccess file
Download it
Open the file in any code editor software
Remove the code inserted by the Dashboard Lock Extension
Save changes
Upload the file back to the root directory
Related Resources
- Security Add-ons - Browse all security tools
- How Secure is MainWP - Security architecture overview
- Two-Factor Authentication - Add 2FA to your Dashboard