Blocking visitors with the cPanel IP Blocker

The cPanel IP Blocker (also called IP Deny Manager) lets you stop specific IP addresses or ranges from reaching your site at the server level, before a request ever touches your application. It is the fastest way to shut out an abusive scraper, a brute-force bot, or a single hostile visitor. This guide shows how to add, format, and remove entries the standard way in modern cPanel (Jupiter).

What the IP Blocker actually does

When you add an address, cPanel writes a deny rule into your account's .htaccess file (via Apache/LiteSpeed) so matching visitors receive a 403 Forbidden response. The block is per hosting account, works for both websites and any subdomains under it, and takes effect immediately. Because it operates at the web-server layer, it is lighter than blocking inside WordPress or a plugin, but it is meant for a handful of known-bad sources, not for filtering large, constantly changing traffic.

Blocking an IP address step by step

1. Log in to cPanel and open the Security section.
2. Click IP Blocker.
3. In the Add an IP or Range field, enter the address you want to deny.
4. Click Add. The entry appears in the Currently-Blocked IP Addresses list below.

The change is live right away. Test it from the blocked network (or ask the affected party) to confirm the request now returns a 403.

Accepted formats

The IP Blocker accepts several notations. Use whichever matches how much of the range you need to stop:

• Single address: 203.0.113.45
• Implied range with a dash: 203.0.113.1-203.0.113.255
• Implied range with a wildcard: 203.0.113.*
• CIDR notation: 203.0.113.0/24
• Partial (class) range, which cPanel expands automatically: 203.0.113.

You can also enter a fully qualified domain name and cPanel will resolve it to an IP, but hardcoded IPs and ranges are more reliable because a hostname's address can change.

Finding the right IP to block

Never block an address you have not verified, or you may lock out real visitors sharing a provider or a NAT gateway. Identify the source first:

1. In cPanel open Metrics, then Raw Access or Visitors, and look for the address hammering a URL or generating errors.
2. Alternatively check your access_log for repeated hits, for example a flood of failed logins to wp-login.php.
3. Confirm the address is not a legitimate crawler (Googlebot, Bingbot) or your own office or CDN before adding it.

Removing or editing a block

To lift a block, return to IP Blocker, find the entry in the Currently-Blocked IP Addresses list, and click Delete in that row, then confirm. There is no edit in place, so to change a range you delete the old entry and add the corrected one. Keep the list short and reviewed; stale blocks accumulate and can quietly deny customers whose dynamic IP was later reassigned to someone else.

Limits and better tools for larger problems

The IP Blocker is a manual, static defense. For an ongoing attack, complement it with cPanel's ImunifyAV or a firewall, rate limiting, and strong login protection, since a determined attacker can rotate through thousands of addresses faster than you can paste them. If most of your abuse comes through a CDN or reverse proxy, block at that edge instead, because at the origin every visitor may appear to arrive from the proxy's IP. For deeper reference on how cPanel structures these tools, see the official cPanel documentation.

On ASEOHosting's LiteSpeed and CloudLinux servers, each site sits on its own dedicated Class C IP, so a block you set affects only your account and never a shared neighbor. For more account-level walkthroughs, browse our cPanel and technical guides, and if you suspect a persistent attack that needs server-side mitigation, contact our support team.