Admin Tools for Joomla 4 Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos Admin Tools for Joomla 4 Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos Copyright © 2010-2021 Akeeba Ltd Abstract This book covers the use of the Admin Tools site security component, module and plugin bundle for sites powered by Joomla!™ 4. Both the free Admin Tools Core and the subscription-based Admin Tools Professional editions are completely covered. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the appendix entitled "The GNU Free Documentation License". Table of Contents 1. Getting Started .......................................................................................................................... 1 1. What is Admin Tools? ....................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Disclaimer ............................................................................................................. 1 1.2. The philosophy ....................................................................................................... 2 2. Server environment requirements ......................................................................................... 2 3. Installing Admin Tools ....................................................................................................... 2 3.1. Installing or manually updating the extension ............................................................... 3 3.1.1. Troubleshooting the installation ....................................................................... 3 4. Upgrading from Core to Professional .................................................................................... 4 5. Automatic updates ............................................................................................................. 5 5.1. Troubleshooting the update ....................................................................................... 6 5.1.1. Addressing server issues ................................................................................ 6 5.1.2. Check the validity of your Download ID .......................................................... 7 5.1.2.1. Check your subscription status ............................................................. 7 5.1.3. Updates are showing after installing the latest version ......................................... 8 5.1.4. Updates not showing despite having an older version .......................................... 8 5.1.4.1. Check the update site .......................................................................... 8 5.1.4.2. Refresh the update cache ..................................................................... 8 5.1.5. Miscellaneous troubleshooting and information .................................................. 9 5.1.5.1. The update fails to download ............................................................... 9 5.1.5.2. Updating with a third party service fails ................................................. 9 5.1.5.3. Manual update ................................................................................... 9 5.1.5.4. Update installation problems ................................................................ 9 6. Entering your Download ID ............................................................................................... 10 7. Requesting support and reporting bugs ................................................................................ 12 8. Uninstalling Admin Tools ................................................................................................. 12 9. Quick Setup .................................................................................................................... 13 2. Using Admin Tools .................................................................................................................. 15 1. The Control Panel ............................................................................................................ 15 2. The component Options .................................................................................................... 16 3. Fixing the permissions of files and directories ....................................................................... 20 3.1. Configuring the permissions of files and directories ..................................................... 22 4. Emergency Off-Line Mode ................................................................................................ 23 5. Protect your administrator back-end with a password ............................................................. 26 6. The .htaccess maker ......................................................................................................... 28 6.1. Basic Security ....................................................................................................... 30 6.2. Server protection ................................................................................................... 36 6.2.1. How to determine which exceptions are required .............................................. 40 6.3. Custom .htaccess rules ............................................................................................ 45 6.4. Optimisation and utility .......................................................................................... 46 6.5. System configuration .............................................................................................. 52 7. The NginX configuration maker ......................................................................................... 53 7.1. Basic Security ....................................................................................................... 55 7.2. Server protection ................................................................................................... 60 7.2.1. How to determine which exceptions are required .............................................. 64 7.3. Advanced NginX Settings ....................................................................................... 64 7.4. Optimisation and utility .......................................................................................... 66 7.5. System configuration .............................................................................................. 72 8. The web.config maker ...................................................................................................... 74 8.1. Basic Security ....................................................................................................... 76 8.2. Server protection ................................................................................................... 79 8.2.1. How to determine which exceptions are required .............................................. 82 8.3. Optimisation and utility .......................................................................................... 83 8.4. System configuration .............................................................................................. 88 9. Web Application Firewall .................................................................................................. 89 iii Admin Tools for Joomla 4 9.1. Configure WAF .................................................................................................... 90 9.1.1. Basic Features ............................................................................................ 90 9.1.2. Request Filtering ......................................................................................... 93 9.1.3. Hardening Options ...................................................................................... 96 9.1.4. Cloaking .................................................................................................. 101 9.1.5. Project Honeypot ....................................................................................... 103 9.1.6. Exceptions ............................................................................................... 104 9.1.7. Auto-ban .................................................................................................. 105 9.1.8. Logging & reporting .................................................................................. 107 9.1.9. Customisation ........................................................................................... 110 9.1.10. Troubleshooting (I got locked out of my site) ............................................... 111 9.2. WAF Exceptions ................................................................................................. 111 9.3. WAF Deny List ................................................................................................... 113 9.4. Administrator Exclusive Allow IP List .................................................................... 115 9.5. Site IP Disallow List ............................................................................................ 117 9.6. Anti-spam Bad Words .......................................................................................... 119 9.7. Blocked Requests Log .......................................................................................... 120 9.7.1. List of blocking reasons ............................................................................. 120 9.8. Auto Blocked