In order to protect your Magento admin backend from hackers and brute force attacks, we recommend that you change the default Magento Admin Panel URL.
This article will show you how to do that.
In my case, I have Magento running on http://mymagento.com.
My Admin Panel URL is http://mymagento.com/index.php/admin/ and I would like that changed to http://mymagento.com/index.php/SecureAdmin99/
Step 1: Login to cPanel, then navigate to the File Manager and open the Document Root folder of the Magento website, which Admin Panel URL we are going to change.
Step 2: Open the app, then etc folder. We will be editing the local.xml file, so we should download a backup first. Click on the local.xml file, then Download and save the file to your computer.
Step 3: Now that we have downloaded a backup of the local.xml file, click on the file and select Code Editor >> Edit.
Step 4: Look for the:
<frontName><![CDATA[admin]]></frontName>
section at approximately the 61st line of the local.xml file.
Step 5: Change:
<frontName><![CDATA[admin]]></frontName>
to:
<frontName><![CDATA[SecureAdmin99]]></frontName>
or any other secure string of your choice and Save the file.
Step 6: Login to the Magento backend via the old URL and go to: System >> Cache Management >> click on Flush Magento Cache.
Step 7: That's it! You can now access your Magento Admin Panel via the new URL.
