When you are using a Hosted.com’s cPanel Web Hosting solution, you can restrict access to websites via the IP addresses. The cPanel IP Blocker interface allows users to restrict access to their websites for specific IP addresses or Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs).
This tutorial assumes you have access to cPanel and are already logged in. Let’s show you how to Block an IP Address, by using cPanel’s IP Blocker.
Table of Contents
How To Use The cPanel IP Blocker
To deny access to an IP address or range of IP addresses, follow these steps:
1. Open your cPanel Dashboard.
2. Navigate to the IP Blocker interface.
3. Enter the IP address or range in the provided text box.
You can input IP addresses in various formats as follows:
- Single IP address (e.g., 10.5.3.33)
- Range (e.g., 10.5.3.3-10.5.3.40)
- Implied range (e.g., 10.5.3.3-40)
- CIDR format (e.g., 10.5.3.3/32)
- Implied IP address (e.g., 10.)
4. Click “Add”.
Note: When using implied IP addresses like “10.”, it represents the range “10.*.*.*”, blocking access to any IP address beginning with “10”.
How to View Currently Blocked IP Addresses
Once added, the system segregates the IP address ranges into subnets in CIDR format and adds them to the .htaccess file. You can view the currently blocked IP addresses in the following format:
- Server Setting – Represents the CIDR-formatted IP address range.
- Beginning IP – Indicates the start of the range.
- Ending IP – Denotes the end of the range.
For example, if you block the range “208.74.124.96-208.74.124.128”, it will appear in the Currently Blocked IP Addresses table as follows:
How to Unblock an IP Address
To remove an IP address from the list of blocked IP addresses, follow these steps:
- In the Currently Blocked IP Addresses table, locate the IP address you wish to unblock.
- Click “Delete” in the Actions column for the respective IP address.
- Confirm the action by clicking “Remove IP”.
By following these steps, you can now effectively manage access to your website by blocking or unblocking specific IP addresses using cPanel’s IP Blocker interface.
Additional Information:
Benefits of using cPanel’s IP Blocker
To use the IP Blocker interface in cPanel as a a useful tool for website administrators to be able to perform:
- Security Enhancement – Prevents malicious or suspicious IP addresses to thwart hacking attempts and other threats.
- Unauthorized Access Prevention – Blocks unauthorized access attempts or suspicious behavior by restricting specific IP addresses.
- Traffic Management – Mitigates unwanted traffic sources such as spam bots or crawlers, and by doing this it improves website performance and conserves server resources.
- Compliance – Meets regulatory or security standards by blocking certain IP addresses or ranges.
- Temporary Blocking – Easily blocks and unblocks IP addresses for temporary maintenance or to address security issues.
For more information, visit Hosted.com’s cPanel web hosting plans.
Login to Hosted.com
First, you must be logged in to your Hosted.com Account.
1. Login to your Hosted.com account with your username and password.
Login to cPanel from Hosted.com Dashboard
2. Click on “Manage Services”.
3. Select “WordPress Hosting” from the drop-down menu.
4. Click “Manage” on the right of the screen
5. In “Product Information” followed by “Control Panel” you will see cPanel on the right
6. Click “Login”.
Login to WordPress from cPanel Dashboard
7. Click on your domain name to go to your WordPress Admin area.
8. On your WordPress Dashboard: