Change administrator path in joomla 2.5 - joomla

Question

I`ve been using joomla from past 2 years. As joomla is a very popular CMS for php lovers so hackers are always trying to deface the website in joomla. Anyone can easily detect the website is using on joomla or any other programming language by using wappanalyzer software. In joomla we can access the administrator panel by typing
http://phalana.com/administrator.
So my question is how to change the /administrator to something else so that hackers will not get to the administrator panel. So far i've seen the number of extensions in official joomla directory But still something is lacking on it.Can anyone help me to change the administrator path.

Answer 1

Changing /administrator is a very bad idea for a lot of reasons top amongst, ironically, is security. Apart from that it:
breaks lots of components
cuts you off from easy application of security updates
the effects of renaming are unknown from a security point of view
The best way to secure Joomla's /administrator area is to follow some simple steps...
Add realm authentication to the /administrator directory that way unless you hacker manages to figure out the username and password they're stumped.
Use an extension like JSecure or Akeeba's Admin tools (both allow your to set a "secret word" on the administrator URL) or check the extensions already available in the Login Protection section of the Joomla! Extension directory (called JED for short). N.B. I personally like Admin tools the most, with the /administrator?secreword, their application firewall and the .htaccess maker.
Follow the advice on the Joomla Doc's website Security Checklist
Personally we do all of these things and a bit more... as we keep telling people.

Answer 2

You can protect or hide your /administrator directory by creating an alternative directory wich sets a cookie that is sent to the http header in the request. That cookie will be validated from the index.php file at the /administator directory, if is not validated (when an unauthorized user wants to detect if your site is Joomla based by the known /administrator directory), then it will be redirected to the root directory for your site.
These are the steps.
*create an alternative /administrator directory ie: /admins_place
*inside /admins_place, create an index.php with the following code
snippet
<?php
$admin_cookie_code = "_hashed_secret_code_here_";
setcookie("JoomlaAdminSession", $admin_cookie_code, 0, "/");
header("Location: ../administrator/index.php");
?>
*In administrator directory add this code snippet at the beginning of
the index.php file.
<?php
if($_COOKIE['JoomlaAdminSession'] != "_hashed_secret_code_here") {
header("Location: ../index.php");
}
I hope this helps