Protecting wp-admin from bots

The most common attack on a wordpress site it the login page. Weak or compromised passwords are used by automated bots that will hit thousands of sites a day trying multiple username/password combinations.

In this article I will show you how to use .htaccess with nginx on Unbunt (or any Debian system) to prevent bots from accessing your WordPress login url.

First of all install apache2-utils:

sudo apt-get update -y;
sudo apt-get install -y apache2-utils;

Create a .htpassed file

 sudo htpasswd -c /var/www/.htpasswd mysiteadminusernameamajigger

Edit your /etc/nginx/sites-available/vhost file to add:

	location /wp-login.php {
    	    auth_basic       "Administrators Area";
	    auth_basic_user_file /var/www/.htpasswd; 
	}

	location /wp-admin {
    	    auth_basic       "Administrators Area";
	    auth_basic_user_file /var/www/.htpasswd; 
	}

Full example of my own file :

server {

    root /var/www/impressto.net;
    index index.php index.html index.nginx-debian.html;
    server_name impressto.net www.impressto.net;

    location / {
        root /var/www/impressto.net;
        if (!-e $request_filename) {
            rewrite ^/(.*)$ /index.php?q=$1 last;
        }
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
        include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php/php7.4-fpm.sock;
    }

    location /wp-login.php {
        auth_basic       "Administrators Area";
        auth_basic_user_file /var/www/.htpasswd; 
    }

    location /wp-admin {
        auth_basic       "Administrators Area";
        auth_basic_user_file /var/www/.htpasswd; 
    }

}

Now test your config:

sudo nginx -t;

If no errors shown restart nginx

sudo systemctl restart nginx;

Now it you go to your wp-admin url you will get a blocking password prompy. This will block most automated bots.