Admin Country Allowlist vs Banhammer – Monitor Site Traffic, Block Bad Users and Bots

By far the simplest country allowlist plugin available for WordPress. Locks admin panel and XMLRPC access to a given list of allowed countries using QWeb’s IP to country lookup API. This is free open source software (FOSS), which you’re welcome to either use as-is, or fork and further develop under the very permissive terms of the MIT license. Out of the box, this is most likely the simplest, most efficient plugin for restricting access to your WordPress admin panel to an allowlist of specific countries. Simply install and activate the plugin, obtain an access key via the QWeb Ltd API console, and enter your access key in the plugin settings. The plugin will automatically determine your own country and add this to the allowlist, and you can add other countries to the list as you like. Countries are entered as comma separated ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes in a single field, making it super easy to copy & paste the same list across multiple websites. This plugin also restricts access to the WordPress XMLRPC mechanism, using the same country allowlist. You can optionally choose to allow or disallow access through known public proxy servers, even if they’re located in an allowed country. The plugin creates a cache of IP information and automatically clears cache files older than one week. This reduces the number of lookup requests and keeps your website responsive, without creating an unnecessarily large cache. As a single 25kb file, this is an exceptionally lightweight plugin. Built to be efficient, and using QWeb’s incredibly responsive IP lookup API, the Admin Country Allowlist plugin should be a part of your standard security kit for any WordPress websites that you manage. This plugin relies on QWeb’s IP to country lookup API for IP to country lookups, and will not function without an active API key from this service. QWeb does provide a FREE tier for this API service, suitable for most websites. Please refer to the QWeb Ltd API Terms of Use and QWeb Ltd Privacy Policy.

⚡ Banhammer: Protect your site against enemy hordes! Banhammer gives you full control over who and what may access your site. Visit the Armory to monitor traffic and review suspicious visitors. If you find some user or bot that is causing problems, you can ban them with a click. Or, if you just want to keep an eye on someone, you can flag them with a warning. Any banned users will be denied access to your site, until you restore access via the Tower. Check out the video and screenshots to get a better idea of how it works. 👉 Important: Not yet compatible with WP Multisite! Core Features Ban or Warn any WP user or IP address Restore access to any banned targets Monitor site traffic in the Armory Monitor logged users in the Admin Area Monitor all visitors on the front-end Manage banned targets in the Tower Complete Ajax-powered navigation Useful tools like jump, sort, search Complete documentation via Help tab Automatically clear logged data Sound effects for Ban, Warn, et al NEW: manually block any IP address Options Galore Optionally ignore logged-in users Optionally protect Login Page and Admin Area Customize the banned response and status code Display banned message or redirect the request Choose the interval to clear logged data One-click restore plugin default options All collected data may be deleted easily More Features Easy to use Clean code Fast and secure Built with WP API Lightweight and flexible Regularly updated and “future proof” Works great with any WordPress theme Comprehensive search of all logged data Works great with other WordPress plugins Works with or without Gutenberg Block Editor Focused on usability, performance, and security Banhammer is perfect for site owners, admins, and developers who want to keep an eye on traffic and block any unwanted visitors. It is a simple, flexible, and powerful security solution. Perfect for the best WordPress sites. Exclusive Features in Pro Version Ban based on URI request, referrer, or user agent Whitelist any IP address or user agent View cookies, POST data, and FILES data Email Alerts for banned & warned requests Display custom message to each banned target Add private notes to warned/banned targets Customize target strings for user agents, IPs, etc. Disable logging of banned, warned, and whitelisted targets Smart bot detection Paged results in Tower User avatars in Tower For complete documentation, visit the Help tab on any Banhammer screen. ⚡ Banhammer Pro now available » Privacy User Data: Banhammer collects user data to “do its thing”. The collected data is temporary and automatically deleted every day, or at whatever time interval is specified in the plugin settings. The only time that any data is “remembered” is when you ban something. For each person/thing that you ban, the plugin stores either the IP address OR the username (never both). At any time, all saved data may be deleted permanently via the plugin settings and Armory Tools. Cookies: Banhammer does not set any cookies for regular visitors, but does set a few simple cookies for admin-level users. These simple cookies enable dope effects and interactivity in the Armory and Tower UI. But no cookies are set or used for any other visitor/user or purpose. Services: Banhammer uses a free lookup service for GeoIP information. This happens only for admin-level users when they are viewing data in the Armory or Tower. No other third-party services are used by this plugin. Banhammer is developed and maintained by Jeff Starr, 15-year WordPress developer and book author. Support development I develop and maintain this free plugin with love for the WordPress community. To show support, you can make a donation or purchase one of my books: The Tao of WordPress Digging into WordPress .htaccess made easy WordPress Themes In Depth Wizard’s SQL Recipes for WordPress And/or purchase one of my premium WordPress plugins: BBQ Pro – Blazing fast WordPress firewall Blackhole Pro – Automatically block bad bots Banhammer Pro – Monitor traffic and ban the bad guys GA Google Analytics Pro – Connect WordPress to Google Analytics Head Meta Pro – Ultimate Meta Tags for WordPress REST Pro Tools – Awesome tools for managing the WP REST API Simple Ajax Chat Pro – Unlimited chat rooms USP Pro – Unlimited front-end forms Links, tweets and likes also appreciated. Thank you! 🙂