How to Allow & Deny by IP Address

Author: Mitch Keeler

Having issues with somebody at a particular IP address that is giving you problems? Are they bugging your users or poking you with the proverbial stick of annoyance? Well with the power of a little creativity and your .htaccess file you can help them find their way to the “Hey, hit the bricks!” door and hopefully the said door will hit them on the way out too.

To get this done, all you need to do is add this to your .htaccess file:

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

Just replace the “XXX.XXX.XXX” with the IP address you wish to block. You can also add a second line like this if you wish to block multiple IP addresses:

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

One last tip. If you want to block everybody from seeing your web site, just put in deny from all.

order deny,allow
allow from QQQ.QQQ.QQQ
allow from LLL.LLL.LLL
deny from all

This would turn everybody away except for the people who have the IP address QQQ.QQQ.QQQ and LLL.LLL.LLL.

For more help with getting this done, check out the official Apache page on the process:

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/mod_access.html

  • Benny

    Thanks for this. Going to have to bookmark it and save it for a rainy day. :P

  • http://www.web-hosting-newsletter.com/2008/02/25/february-lunarpages-newsletter-content/ February… | web-hosting-newsletter.com

    [...] How to Allow & Deny by IP Address [...]

  • http://www.cetatea.info Mihai

    is it possible to deny a country ? something like any webpage at *.be ? or it needs to be for the hole ip class of the provider ? someone told me a long time ago that this is possible …

    Thank you

  • http://aranea.zuavra.net/ Skippy

    It’s not really possible to block a country because your .htaccess only receives IP’s. Well, if you know all the IP classes for a certain country I guess it might work. :)

    Here’s another similar trick, using mod_rewrite. You can use it to redirect IP’s to a certain page on your site or even another site.

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/goaway.txt
    RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} =aaa.aaa.aaa.aaa
    RewriteRule .* /goaway.txt [R,L]

    You can do classes as well, using regular expressions:

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/goaway.txt
    RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^aaa.aaa.aaa.
    RewriteRule .* /goaway.txt [R,L]

    I use this whenever I upgrade a website and I don’t want anybody but me roaming the site for half an hour. Use something like whatismyip.org to find your current IP:

    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !=/maintenance.txt
    RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} !=your.current.ip.here
    RewriteRule .* /maintenance.txt [R,L]

    Just make sure to clear these lines when you’re done. :)

  • http://HouseofFacts.com JackFlash

    how can you block anyone when we obtain different ip address from the isp each time we log on to the internet?

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