How to manage our network firewalls and remove IP blocks

Source: https://www.first2host.co.uk/how-to-manage-our-network-firewalls-and-remove-ip-blocks/

Since WHMCS v6 resellers and web hosting customers have been unable to remove ip blocks themselves. This was due to the template changes inside WHMCS and the module not displaying correctly inside the client area. We now have a working fix in place with some great new features for all resellers and hosting customers.

Why does my IP get black listed?

Generally an ip will be added to the blacklist if one or more of the following things happens. Usually people who constantly get black listed find they have an incorrect password in a email client like Outlook.

• You use the wrong username or password to login to cPanel five times or more
• You use the wrong username or password to login to Webmail five times or more
• You use the wrong username or password to login to FTP five times or more
• You use the wrong username or password to login to POP3 email five times or more
• You have over 150 connections from your ip to the server at any one time

How do I know my IP is blocked?

You will know if an ip is black listed because it will look like the server is offline. You won’t be able to see any cPanel logins or Webmail logins or navigate to any website on the server. We now provide a way for clients to remove ips from the servers black list so we won’t offer connectivity support for any ip related bans.

Removing your own IP from the blacklist

Generally if it’s your own ip that is black listed just login to the client area and your current ip would automatically be added to the white list and removed from any black list in our new system.

Another option is from anywhere in the client area hover over the “support” tab and then click on “unblock ip address” Your then taken to a basic unlock page and your current ip address will already be populated in the unblock field. Just hit unblock and if your ip has been restricted it will be removed from the list and you can connect to the server again.

The third, more advanced option is to visit the new firewall access area which, is activated now for all resellers and hosting customers. To get to the new area you can hover over the “services” tab then click “my services”, on the next page select your web hosting or reseller account and hit the green “active” button. Your now at the product homepage screen and on the left hand side you will see a new option for “manage firewall” click the link to visit the new area

From here you will now see the new area, the right displays your servers firewall rules and what ports are currently open on the server, these are default ports and as a rule we won’t allow any other ports to be opened. We can allow outgoing access by different ports if required.

To unblock an ip simply select “unblock ip” and enter the ip into the search field if we find this ip in your server we will remove it.

To allow an ip access to the server but only for a short time select “temporary allow ip” by default a temporary ip allow lasts for 7 days, it’s then removed.

You can now also generate an email key and sent that to your email address, click the link inside the email you receive and your ip will be added to the white list. You can send different keys to different email addresses but please remember we monitor every connection that enters our network.

Finally if all else fails and for some reason you can’t connect to the server or you can’t remove an ip block from the client area you can remove the power from your internet router and replace it after ten seconds. Most ISPs use dynamic ip addresses and you would be issued with a new ip which would then allow you access to the server. If you have firewall access from inside web host manager you can also use a mobile or tablet device that does not share the same internet connection as your pc with the blocked ip to get access to web host manager and remove the ip block from inside the firewall panel.