Introduction To The Shield Dashboard Section

Shield Dashboard section is the most important part of the plugin - it contains options for the basic plugin settings.

Here you can

This option contains important default settings used through the plugin. Those are the following:

IP Source - Is a method of retrieving the user/visitor IP address. There are several methods:
- Automatically detect visitor IP
- REMOTE_ADDR - (recommended)
- HTTP_CF_CONNECTING_IP
- HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR
- HTTP_X_FORWARDED
- HTTP_X_REAL_IP
- HTTP_X_SUCURI_CLIENTIP
- HTTP_INCAP_CLIENT_IP
- HTTP_X_SP_FORWARDED_IP
- HTTP_FORWARDED
- HTTP_CLIENT_IP

Note: If you don't know what your particular IP address is, please see here:

For better understanding the Shield plugin and the Visitor IP address detection, read the article here.

Show Plugin Badge - Display plugin badge on your site.
In-Plugin Notices - Display non-essential plugin notices and admin bar menu.
By default Shield displays non-essential notices in the admin area and admin bar.
This can be hidden by switching off this option.
Anonymous Usage Statistics - Allows us to gather some information around your use of the plugin.
Run In MU Mode - Setup the plugin to run as an MU-plugin to prevent accidental deactivation.
Self AutoUpdate - Controls the Shield Security plugin's auto-update.
Delete Plugin Settings - Removes all plugin options when you deactivate the plugin. If this option is disabled, all plugin settings will remain.
Temp Dir - Specify a temporary directory lets you tell Shield where it should start in its search for a writable directory.
Beta Access - Allow Shield to upgrade to beta and pre-release versions.

Here you can completely enable or disable Shield plugin and all its features.