Gatekeeper allows administrators to take a WordPress site offline while leaving it accessible to authorized users for maintenance, testing, etc.
Screenshots
The Gatekeeper administration page
Installation Instructions
- Upload
gatekeeper to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
- Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
- Go to Tools > Gatekeeper to manage Gatekeeper.
Why was this plugin developed?
I needed a “coming soon” page for a site I was working on but also needed to be able to use WordPress myself in order to test themes, designs, etc.
The existing landing page themes are nice, unless you also need to be able to test a theme without letting the world see. At first, I added some PHP
code into the WordPress index.php file to redirect all but my IP address to the coming soon page, but WP upgrades opened my site to the world. Editing
the htaccess file is an option, but it’s extra work and only works until my IP address changes. So…I created Gatekeeper.
Can I redirect visitors to an existing WordPress page?
No. Gatekeeper protects all WordPress pages (except admin and login pages) from everyone but those whitelisted, so redirecting to a WordPress page
would create an undesirable redirect loop.
How do I use an offline page?
The offline page can be any web-friendly page: HTML, PHP, text, etc. It’s not required, but recommended, to keep this file in a separate directory to keep it from being confused with WordPress files.
Can Gatekeeper protect non-WordPress pages?
No.
Should I rely on the Blacklist for security?
No. The primary purpose of the plugin is to take sites offline for maintenance. The Blacklist was designed as an extra feature to help thwart connections from undesirable IP addresses, but is not designed as a security feature. WordPress administrators would be advised to use Wordfence, iThemes Security, Bulletproof Security, Sucuri Security, or another widely used and trusted WordPress security plugin for security.
Help! It doesn’t work!!
If the plugin doesn’t appear to be working, first check your whitelist. Make sure you’re not testing from a whitelisted IP address. If Auto-Protect Admin IP is checked, the plugin will attempt to automatically whitelist your IP address and let you see the site normally. If you have Whitelist Logged-in Admins checked, the plugin will let you view the site normally as long as you are logged into WordPress. The plugin is designed to do its best to not lock you out of your own site.
ChangeLog
1.1
- UI improvements.
- Explicit warnings that the Blacklist is not designed for security. See FAQ.
- Acknowledging support for latest version of WordPress.
1.0.1
- Minor bug fix to eliminate an “undefined index” error.
1.0
- Updated code to avoid conflicts with other plugins and themes that were resulting in “Fatal error: Cannot redeclare admin_register_head()” errors.
- Consolidated plugin styles (CSS) into one stylesheet, instead of having some inline styles scattered throughout the code.
- Whitelist/Blacklist options are now collapsible (and collapsed by default).
- Minor miscellaneous visual improvements.
0.8
- Initial release (beta version).
