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Free Rename wp-login.php

Please read! This plugin is no longer available for download in the WordPress plugin repository. We suggest finding a similar, alternative plugin. We don't know the reason why the plugin is no longer available. Sometimes the author requests the removal, and sometimes it's removed by the repo administrators.

Rename wp-login.php

Plugin Author: avryl

Jay Hoffmann

April 23, 2014 (modified on June 5, 2018)

Admin, Security

There are two reasons to change the URL of your login screen (which by default is yoursite.com/wp-login.php or yoursite.com/wp-admin/). The first is to have a little more control over your site, and maybe even make it a bit easier to remember. The second is to protect against brute force security attacks, which often blanket target “wp-login.php” extensions for URLs. Rename wp-login.php takes care of that for you with the flip of the switch, and this is just one of the things even a beginner can do to secure a site.

What’s It Do?

Rename wp-login.php allows you to change the URL of your WordPress admin login page from “yoursite.com/wp-login.php” to whatever extension you want. By default, it will be changed to yoursite.com/login, but you can make it yoursite.com/whatchamacallit if you so please. After the name is changed, the wp-login.php page will return with a 404 “Not Found” page, and /wp-admin/ will return with a small message informing users that they must be logged in to access the administrator area. That means that the only way to access the login page is with the custom URL you set up.

How’s It Work?

When you install and activate the plugin, you will be automatically redirected to Settings -> Permalinks so you can set-up the location of your new page. You will see “http://yoursite.com/” with a small text box next to it.

Rename WP Login settings

Just enter what you want the new URL of your login page to be

Enter the name you want to use for your login page in this box. So, for instance, if you insert “my-login-page” into the text box, then the way you will have to access your login page from then on will by visiting:

http://yourdomain.com/my-login-page/

So make sure you save the name of this URL somewhere. Especially since both wp-login.php and /wp-admin/ will be disabled when the plugin is activated. However, the plugin doesn’t make any changes to your database, so if you deactivate the plugin, everything will go back to normal.

Costs, Caveats, Etc.

Even for a fairly new plugin, Rename wp-login.php has gone through a good amount of updates to clean up the codebase and make it more efficient. The code for the plugin is hosted on GitHub if you are looking to contribute. And if you’re having any problems with the plugin, you can visit the support forums to get help from the plugin developers.

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