To protect your Magento backend against hackers and brute-force attacks, it’s often recommended that you change the default URL of the Magento Admin Panel.
Follow these steps to change the admin URL/path:
Step 1 – Change Path
Open the local.xml configuration file. The file is usually located in the app/etc/ directory under your Magento installation. Find the following code:
<admin>
<routers>
<adminhtml>
<args>
<frontName><![CDATA[admin]]></frontName>
</args>
</adminhtml>
</routers>
</admin>
Back up the file first then replace admin with a customised path then save the file and upload it to your server.
Step 2 – Refresh Cache
The final step is to refresh your cache. Use an FTP client to delete the content of the var/cache/ directory or use the following SSH command:
(First, navigate to you Magento root directory)
rm -rf var/cache/*
Step 3 – Complete
The change is now complete and you should try to log in via the new admin url – http://yourmagentodomain/adminpath/, replacing ‘adminpath’ with the path you chose in the step above. If everything went fine, you should now be presented with the Admin Panel login screen at the new URL. The old admin login URL should return a 404 error message.
