How to restrict dashboard access to Admins only?

Question

How would we restrict access to the WP admin area to all users except admins?
The users on our site have their own profile pages which do all the functions they need.

So admin should be off limits to all except admins.

How to do that?

Answer 1

You could write a plugin and hook into admin_init.

The codex actually gives an example with the feature you are looking for.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Action_Reference/admin_init#Example:_Access_control

Answer 2

We can hook to the admin_init action and check if the user is an administrator by using the current_user_can() function to see if the current user can manage_options, which is something only an administrator can do.

This code, when pasted into your functions.php file, will display a message when a non-admin tries to access the dashboard:

function wpse_11244_restrict_admin() {
    if ( ! current_user_can( 'manage_options' ) ) {
        wp_die( __('You are not allowed to access this part of the site') );
    }
}
add_action( 'admin_init', 'wpse_11244_restrict_admin', 1 );

If you prefer, you can provide better user experience by redirecting the user to the home page instead (the $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] check is to ensure we don't redirect on an AJAX request):

function wpse_11244_restrict_admin() {
    if ( ! current_user_can( 'manage_options' )  && $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] != '/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php' ) {
        wp_redirect( home_url() );
    }
}
add_action( 'admin_init', 'wpse_11244_restrict_admin', 1 );

If you want to redirect the user to their profile page, replace home_url() in the code above with the link.

Answer 3

Try the Adminimize plugin.
You can lock things down pretty well with that.

You could also try setting access up through htaccess file

Answer 4

function wpse_11244_restrict_admin() {
    if (!current_user_can('update_core')) {
        wp_die(__('You are not allowed to access this part of the site'));
    }
}

add_action('admin_init', 'wpse_11244_restrict_admin', 1);

Answer 5

I would use WP Frontend and set it for everybody expect admins.

Answer 6

Put these lines in your functions.php

function baw_no_admin_access()
{
 if( !current_user_can( 'administrator' ) ) {
     wp_redirect( home_url() );
     die();
  }
}
add_action( 'admin_init', 'baw_no_admin_access', 1 );