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First, make sure this is the right article. This one is about you barring a visitor from your site. If your problem is the other way round, that is, if your own address can no longer reach the site, the webmail or the panel, that is a different matter and it is covered in how to unblock your IP address and why the firewall blocks your IP.
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With that out of the way: cPanel has a tool called IP Blocker, under Security, and it tells the server that one address, or a group of them, does not get into your websites.
What it actually does
| Reach |
What happens |
| Your websites |
The request is refused before the page is built. It covers every domain in your account, and none of anybody else’s. |
| E-mail |
Untouched. Blocking an IP here stops no messages, no spam, and no webmail login attempts. |
| FTP and the panel |
Untouched. Different services, different port, different rule. |
| The machine |
Untouched. The server firewall is ours and it is a separate layer, already turning away a good deal of what is out there trying its luck. |
The page takes a single address and also groups of addresses. The exact formats it accepts are written on the page itself, under the box: read them before you type, because a badly written range is either rejected or catches far more people than you meant.
Finding out which address to block
| 1 |
In the account access logs, which are the source that does not lie: every request, with the time and the address it came from. The panel statistics are the shortest way in: visitor statistics.
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| 2 |
In the form submission or the comment you received, if the application records the sender’s address. Most do.
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| 3 |
In the message headers, when the nuisance arrived by e-mail. But careful: that address belongs to a mail server, not to a website visitor, and blocking it here does nothing at all.
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To understand why one address changes from day to day and another does not, see IP addresses explained.
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Blocking your own address by mistake is the classic accident. Before you save, confirm what yours is: how to find your public IP address. If it has already happened, get into cPanel from another connection, your phone’s mobile data for instance, and delete the rule.
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When this fixes things, and when it is just work
| Situation |
Does it help? |
| One identified person making a nuisance of themselves on your site |
Yes, at least while they keep that connection. This is the case the tool was built for. |
| An automated program hammering one address on your site |
It helps, if it always comes from the same place. Many do not, and change address on every attempt. |
| Spam through the contact form |
Almost never. The cure is a captcha and validation on the form, not a list of addresses that never ends. See a contact form that actually reaches your inbox. |
| Login attempts on the WordPress dashboard |
Almost never. They come from thousands of addresses. The route is in protecting the WordPress login and putting a captcha on the login. |
| Blocking an entire country |
Not a job for this tool. Those are huge lists that go stale daily, and they catch your own customers while travelling. If you genuinely need it, talk to us. |
| The site is under a real attack and keeps falling over |
No. That is another layer, and it is ours: what we do about security. Open a ticket instead of adding addresses to a list. |
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Review the list now and then, and delete what no longer makes sense. Home and mobile addresses change hands, and what you blocked a year ago may today be a customer’s phone trying to buy from you. A block list nobody prunes quietly turns into lost customers.
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If what happened was more than an annoying visitor, and the site now has files you did not put there, the subject is telling whether your site has been compromised and how to clean it up.
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Got an address bothering your site and not sure it is worth blocking? Send us the logs.
Open a support ticket
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