How to properly change the Magento admin panel URL

Changing the default Magento admin URL is one of the simplest ways to protect your store from brute force attacks and automated login attempts. This guide walks you through editing the local.xml configuration file to set a custom admin path.

Before you start

In this example, the Magento store is at http://mymagento.com and the current admin URL is http://mymagento.com/index.php/admin/. The goal is to change it to something like http://mymagento.com/index.php/SecureAdmin99/.

Choose a custom path that is hard to guess - avoid obvious strings like backend, myadmin, or store-admin.

Step 1 - open the file manager in cPanel

Log in to cPanel, then open File Manager and navigate to the document root folder of your Magento installation.

Step 2 - back up local.xml

Inside the document root, open the app folder, then the etc folder. Before making any changes, download a backup of local.xml to your computer: click the file, then select Download.

Step 3 - open local.xml in the code editor

With your backup saved, click local.xml again and select Code Editor, then Edit.

Step 4 - find the frontName setting

Locate the following line (around line 61):

<frontName><![CDATA[admin]]></frontName>

Step 5 - change the admin path

Replace admin with your chosen custom string:

<frontName><![CDATA[SecureAdmin99]]></frontName>

Use a unique, hard-to-guess value rather than the example above. Save the file when done.

Step 6 - flush the Magento cache

Log in to your Magento admin panel using the old URL while it still works, then go to System > Cache Management and click Flush Magento Cache.

Step 7 - verify the new URL

You can now access your Magento admin panel at the new URL. The old /admin/ path will no longer work.

If you have any questions, open a support ticket from within your Kualo client area.