How-to automatically import a large list of IPs to Whitelist or Blacklist

Requirements

• ShieldPRO Version: 9.0+
• A Correctly Functioning WordPress Cron

Shield Security has an automatic IP black list system, but for some scenarios, manually whitelisting or blacklisting IPs may be required.

If you have a large collection of IP addresses you may find it easier to import these automatically into Shield for either blacklisting or whitelisting.

The method to do this is to upload a file to your Shield Security plugin that contains a list of IP addresses, or CIDR ranges.

The file and data must have the following properties:

• A plain text file.
• Each line must contain only 1 IP address or 1 IP range in CIDR notation.
• Any line in the file that, when taken as a whole, isn't a valid IP address or range, will be ignored.

• The folder into which the file must be uploaded is inside the Shield Security plugin folder,

  - namely: /wp-simple-firewall/flags/

• The file must be named either:
  • ip_import_black.txt - for importing IPs directly into the blacklist
  • ip_import_white.txt - for importing IPs directly into the whitelist

How It Works

Shield will only check for the existence of this file once every 1hr on the WordPress cron. i.e. it doesn't happen immediately - you must wait on the cron to run and finish. There are a number of WordPress plugins available for managing and monitoring the cron, please refer to those if you wish to gain more insight into this.

When Shield detects the presence of either of the files listed above, it will attempt to import all IP address within the file.

Please ensure you name the file appropriately and according to the list into which you would like to import the IP addresses.

No matter whether the process is successful or fails, the file will be deleted after the import attempt is finished. Please ensure that if you need a copy of these IP addresses, you keep a copy of the file for your records.