Wordfence Problems with LiteSpeed Servers

Hi @tigershroof,

Could you please provide additional information on the issues you’re experiencing?

If it’s related to scans and updates, please refer to this article which addresses an issue where LiteSpeed aborts Wordfence scans and updates?

In case you’re having difficulties setting up Wordfence Firewall, please see this article on our documentation platform.

Regarding the Wordfence URLs, what makes you think they are being blocked? Is it because the connection to the Wordfence servers (on the Wordfence –> Tools –> Diagnostics page) doesn’t read OK? Or do you see a specific error message in a log file indicating a connection issue?

The scans are getting completed properly, so, no problems on that front.

There are two problems occurring :

a) Vulnerable URL Blocking – The Vulnerable URL’s are being blocked. When I check the Live Traffic Log and select “Blocked”, I can see that IPs have been blocked for accessing URLs. However, when I click on “Blocked IPs”, I do not see those IPs there.

b) 503 Error – When I activate “Extended Protection”, I start getting complaints that 503 Errors are showing up. As soon as I deactivate the Extended Protection, the errors go away.

I am using Lite Speed Server with W3 Plugin.

Hi @tigershroof,

Regarding the Blocked filter on the Live Traffic page: what you see there are requests that were blocked either because of the user-agent (browser), referer (website visitor arrived from) or IP range the address of the visitor is in. These criteria would’ve been set in the Advanced Blocking tab of the Wordfence Blocking page.
However it does not correspond to explicitly blocked IP addresses or those breaking a rule that triggers an IP address block.

From that page, you can then choose to block the related IP address by clicking the “Block this IP” button.

The list of blocked IPs you’re shown on the blocked IP’s tab on the Wordfence Blocking page shows individual IP addresses that have been blocked. You can find more information on this topic in our documentation.

Regarding the 503 Error, we would need additional information in order to identify the cause:

• Do you have any cache plugin/feature enabled? (I’m not sure if the W3 plugin you mentioned is the W3 Total Cache plugin or a distinct plugin)
• Could you please confirm which hosting provider you are using for this site

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by wfyann. Reason: Additional info

Sorry for the delay in responding. The LiteSpeed Server was indeed conflicting with Wordfence in many ways. I tested the same website with Wordfence activated on a Lite Speed Server as well as Apache Server. Apache Server gave no problems at all.

With Litespeed, after every 48 hours in Extended Protection, my pages started giving 503 Error. I would go and clear the Hosting Providers Turbo Cache and Memory Cache and the problem would go away. Then, without any warning, same problem again.

I must also mention that W3 Total (Fixed) Version of Cache was auto installed on this host. https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/w3-total-cache-fixed/

So, I moved my hosting provider to Apache Server.

Hi @tigershroof,

Thank you for the feedback.

Indeed, caching plugins/features can interfere with Wordfence scans.

Also, LiteSpeed can sometimes abort Wordfence scans and updates.