Revision as of 11:27, 2 September 2014

With many web based softwares, users know they can try visiting various common directory names to find admin control panels - for example "admin", "admincp", "manage", etc...

So customising the location of your WHMCS admin area is one of many steps you can take in order to make the lives of malicious users looking for login forms that little bit harder.

There are some restrictions:

• You cannot move the admin directory outside of the WHMCS folder tree - so you can rename it, but not move it entirely
• The admin directory name may only contain standard a-z 0-9 latin characters as well as dashes(-), underscores(_) and dots(.)

Renaming Your Admin Directory

If you choose to rename your admin directory, you need to specify what you have called it within the WHMCS configuration.php file so that WHMCS can still find and use it. To do this, follow the steps below:

1. Open the configuration.php file within your WHMCS installation's root directory
2. At the bottom of the file (before the closing PHP tag ?> if one exists), add the following line:

   $customadminpath = "mycustomfoldername";

3. Replacing mycustomfoldername with the name you wish to use for your admin directory. This should just be the directory name, not a full path.
4. If your configuration.php file already contains a custom admin path definition, you can simply update the existing line
5. Rename the admin directory to the name you specified in step 2 above

Also note, if you have already setup your cron job, or one has been created for you, you will need to update the path on the cron as well inside your hosting control panel. For example:

php -q /home/username/public_html/secure/mycustomfoldername/cron.php

Errors

Should WHMCS detect a conflict between your settings and the admin directory path you are trying to access, you will see one of the error messages below. Details of how to resolve each one are provided.

You are attempting to access the admin area via a directory that is not configured. Please either revert to the default admin directory name, or see our documentation for Customising the Admin Directory

Well you've come to the right place! What the above error message means is that you have not yet added the $customadminpath line to your WHMCS configuration.php file, or it has been done incorrectly. Please follow the steps above again. If you continue to experience the error message even after that, revert your admin directory name to the default "admin" name to regain access and contact our support team for assistance.

You are attempting to access the admin area via a directory that is different from the one configured. Please refer to the Customising the Admin Directory documentation for instructions on how to update it.

Seeing this error message indicates that the directory name you are attempting to access your admin area via is different to the value specified in the $customadminpath variable inside of your WHMCS configuration.php file. Follow the steps above in order to update it.

You are attempting to access the admin area via a custom directory, but we have detected the presence of a default "admin" directory too. This could indicate files from a recent update have been uploaded to the default admin path location instead of the custom one, resulting in these files being out of date. Please ensure your custom admin folder contains all the latest files, and delete the default admin directory to continue.

This is one of the most common mistakes we see. What this means is that you have a custom admin directory path defined, and are attempting to access your WHMCS installation using it, but WHMCS has also detected the presence of a default "admin" directory too. Typically this indicates that an update has recently been applied and some of the files from that update have been uploaded to the default "admin" directory path. In doing this, it means the files you are using in your custom admin directory are not up-to-date which can lead to unexpected errors and consequences. Please ensure you have uploaded all of the latest files to your custom admin directory location and then delete the default "admin" directory.