Blocking access to your site with .htaccess

.htaccess is an Apache web server configuration file that lets you define access rules and other settings at the directory level — without touching the main server config. You can use it to restrict access by IP, protect specific files, set redirects, define character encoding, and much more.

cPanel is the control panel used on all Web Hosting orders.

If a visitor tries to access a page that's been blocked via .htaccess, they'll see a 404 error page.

How to edit .htaccess

1. Go to Files → File Manager.

File Manager in cPanel

2. Open the public_html folder.

public_html folder

3. The .htaccess file is hidden by default. Click Settings and check Show Hidden Files (dotfiles) to make it visible.

Showing hidden files

4. Select the .htaccess file and click Edit.

Editing .htaccess

5. In the dialog that appears, click Disable encoding check, then click Edit.

Editor settings

6. Make your changes and click Save Changes when you're done.

Saving changes

Key directives

• Order — defines the order in which Allow and Deny rules are evaluated
• Allow — grants access
• Deny — blocks access

Block everyone

To take your site completely offline or restrict all external access:

deny from all

Allow only a specific IP

Useful for maintenance mode or staging environments — everyone gets blocked except you:

order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX

You can whitelist multiple IPs by separating them with spaces.

Block a specific IP

To ban a single visitor or a known bad actor while keeping the site accessible to everyone else:

deny from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX

Multiple addresses can be listed on the same line, separated by spaces.

Protect a specific file

You can apply different rules to individual files. For example, to lock down wp-config.php so only your IP can access it:

<Files wp-config.php>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
</Files>

The same approach works for protecting the .htaccess file itself:

<Files .htaccess>
order deny,allow
deny from all
allow from XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
</Files>