Website Security and Backups Help

Troubleshoot my Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Your Web Application Firewall (WAF) works as a reverse proxy, which means we filter all of your incoming traffic to keep bad requests from getting to your website. Since this is done by an update to your DNS settings, sometimes services that aren't directly related to your website - Mail, FTP, or cPanel access - can be affected. There are some small changes you can make to help restore these services.

Before you start

You'll need to locate your hosting IP address before you can make any changes to restore services that aren't working.

  1. Go to your GoDaddy product page.
  2. Under Website Security and Backups, next to the Website Security account you want to manage, select Manage.
  3. Under Firewall, select Details.
  4. Select Settings.
  5. There are two IP addresses listed on your firewall dashboard, the Hosting IP Address and the Firewall IP Address.

Make note of the Hosting IP - you'll need it to update your services.

Accessing FTP/SFTP/SSH

If you're connecting to your domain by navigating to ftp.coolexample.com, it won't work if the FTP record is pointing to the Firewall IP. You can't change the IP address of your domain because it will deactivate the firewall, but you can use the Hosting IP to connect to FTP instead of ftp.coolexample.com.

Another option is to work with your hosting provider to change the ftp.coolexample.com sub-domain to point to your Hosting IP instead of the Firewall IP .

Accessing cPanel/WHM or Plesk

If you typically access cPanel, WHM or Plesk by going to coolexample.com/cpanel, cpanel.coolexample.com, coolexample.com:2083, etc. - choose the option below that applies to you.

  • cPanel - https://yourhostingipaddress:2083/
  • WHM - https://yourhostingipaddress:2087/
  • Plesk - https://yourhostingipaddress:8443/

Mail

After you activate your Firewall, you might need to check your MX records with your hosting provider.

If your email is hosted on a cPanel server, you'll want to change the MX record to mail.coolexample.com = >> [yourhostingipaddress].

For GoDaddy email, see Pending Setup: MX Error

More info