Login failures are not new. It can happen due to wrong login details stored in the browser, use of expired login details, or extra space in username or password.

However, for a web interface, login failures can also mean hack attempts. So, online systems apply various security policies to keep users safe.

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OnApp cloud management system uses two built-in security policies to keep a check on invalid login attempts:

• After 3 incorrect login attempts, the connecting IP will be blocked from further access.
• Each user can define a list of “Allowed IPs” that is authorized to access their account in OnApp. If someone tries to login using that username from some other IP, the login attempt will be blocked.

In each case, the error shown will be “Access Denied as your IP is not white-listed“.

This error is commonly faced by OnApp cloud users who recently made a change in their computer. Computer changes such as ISP switching or operating system upgrades can result in lost login details or expired IPs.

A cloud provider we support, recently received such a support request. This cloud provider used our OnApp support service to help cloud users quickly resolve service issues.

The request was raised by a cloud user who used the server instance to deliver a high-availability web hosting service. The cloud user’s office had recently switched their ISP, and all whitelisted IPs for their OnApp interface were no longer available.

This prevented everyone at the cloud user’s office unable to manage their server instance.

When OnApp login fails for 3 consecutive times, the IP will be blocked if it is not whitelisted.

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Resolving “Access Denied as your IP is not white-listed”

We resolve such issues quickly by adding the customer’s IP to the user’s white list. For this, we use the OnApp admin panel, and follow the steps below:

• Navigate to Control Panel menu -> ‘Users and Groups’ section.
• Click the user name. The User Profile page will be shown.
• Click the White List tab.
• On the page that appears, click Add new IP button (or the + icon in newer versions).
• Fill in the form that appears.

Add new whitelist IP in OnApp

Whitelisting administrator IP

Though rare, we’ve also seen situations where the IP of an administrator is sometimes blocked. For eg., if there are multiple administrators in the same office, and one admin’s browser keeps posting wrong login details. In such cases, the office IP will be blocked, and no one would be able to login to the admin interface. To resolve this, we whitelist the IP through in the OnApp database.

mysql> use onapp;
mysql> INSERT INTO user_white_lists VALUES (9,49,'192.168.3.7','white listing admin IP','2015-10-19 12:35:37','2015-10-19 12:35:37');

The important things to note here are:

• 9 – The entry ID in the user_white_lists table. To get this, we find the last line in the user_white_lists table, and increment 1 to the ID displayed there.
• 49 – This is the user’s ID. To get this, we use the mysql query “select id,login,email from users where login='USERLOGIN';“
• 192.168.3.7 – This is the IP to be white listed.

With these two methods, our team usually resolves all such OnApp related login issues within a few mins.