pitcherplant#

A WordPress login honeypot and tarpit. Serves a pixel-perfect fake /wp-login.php page that logs attacker credentials, applies progressive delays, and feeds fail2ban for long-duration IP bans.

Your real login lives at a hidden URL (via WPS Hide Login or similar). Attackers hitting the default WordPress login paths get trapped.

Dashboard

How it works#

Web server rewrite rules (nginx or Apache) redirect unauthenticated requests to /wp-login.php and /wp-admin to wp-trap.php
The fake login page looks identical to a real WordPress login (same CSS, same error messages, same headers)
Each login attempt is logged to two files:
- Simple log for fail2ban: [timestamp] HONEYPOT: IP - attempt N - user=X
- Full JSONL intelligence: credentials, headers, user agent, Cloudflare country, timing
Progressive tarpit delays: 2s, 4s, 6s... up to 30s per attempt (configurable)
After 20 attempts (configurable), fail2ban bans the IP for 30 days via iptables

Logged-in administrators with valid WordPress cookies bypass the honeypot entirely.

Quick start#

# 1. Clone the repo
git clone <repo-url> pitcherplant && cd pitcherplant

# 2. Configure for your site
cp config.env.example config.env
# Edit config.env with your site name, URL, and target info

# 3. Deploy
./install.sh

Docker#

docker pull ghcr.io/cache8063/pitcherplant:latest
docker run -d -p 8080:80 ghcr.io/cache8063/pitcherplant:latest

Edit wp-trap-config.php inside the container to set your site name and URL. Logs are written to /var/log/wp-honeypot-intel.jsonl inside the container. The dashboard is available at /dashboard/.

Install modes#

# Local (running on the WordPress server itself)
./install.sh --local /var/www/html

# Remote via SSH
./install.sh --ssh root@webserver /var/www/html

# Proxmox LXC container
./install.sh --pct root@proxmox-node 550 /var/www/html

# Auto-detect from config.env
./install.sh

Configuration#

Copy config.env.example to config.env:

Variable	Default	Description
`SITE_NAME`	`My WordPress Site`	Shown on fake login page
`SITE_URL`	`https://example.com`	Used in fake WP headers
`LOG_FILE`	`/var/log/wp-honeypot.log`	fail2ban watches this
`INTEL_FILE`	`/var/log/wp-honeypot-intel.jsonl`	Full intelligence log
`STATE_DIR`	`/tmp/wp-honeypot`	Per-IP state tracking
`MAX_DELAY`	`30`	Maximum tarpit delay (seconds)
`F2B_MAXRETRY`	`20`	Attempts before ban
`F2B_FINDTIME`	`86400`	Detection window (seconds)
`F2B_BANTIME`	`2592000`	Ban duration (30 days)

Intelligence viewer#

./tools/honeypot-intel.sh summary     # Overview: top usernames, passwords, IPs
./tools/honeypot-intel.sh live        # Real-time feed
./tools/honeypot-intel.sh creds       # All username:password pairs
./tools/honeypot-intel.sh passwords   # Password frequency ranking
./tools/honeypot-intel.sh usernames   # Username frequency ranking
./tools/honeypot-intel.sh countries   # Attacks by country (Cloudflare)
./tools/honeypot-intel.sh timeline    # Hourly attack histogram
./tools/honeypot-intel.sh ip 1.2.3.4  # Drill down on specific IP
./tools/honeypot-intel.sh banned      # Currently banned IPs

What gets logged#

Every POST (login attempt) records:

{
  "timestamp": "2026-03-10T14:22:33+00:00",
  "ip": "203.0.113.45",
  "attempt": 5,
  "username": "admin",
  "password": "password123",
  "remember_me": false,
  "redirect_to": "/wp-admin/",
  "headers": {
    "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 ...",
    "cf_ipcountry": "CN",
    "cf_ray": "abc123"
  },
  "delay_applied": 10,
  "country": "CN"
}

GET requests (reconnaissance) are also logged with URI, headers, and country.

Requirements#

PHP 5.4+
nginx or Apache 2.4+ with mod_rewrite
fail2ban
iptables (for banning)
Python 3 (for the intel viewer)
Cloudflare (optional, for country-level geo data)

The Docker image uses nginx + php-fpm on Alpine for a minimal footprint (~60MB).

File layout#

pitcherplant/
├── install.sh                  # Deployment script
├── config.env.example          # Configuration template
├── trap/
│   ├── wp-trap.php             # Honeypot script (goes in WP root)
│   └── wp-trap-config.php      # Config template (goes in WP root)
├── fail2ban/
│   ├── filter.d/wp-honeypot.conf
│   ├── jail.d/wp-honeypot.conf
│   └── jail.local
├── apache/
│   ├── honeypot-rewrite.conf   # Rewrite rules for .htaccess (Apache installs)
│   └── security-headers.conf   # Bonus security headers
├── docker/
│   ├── nginx.conf              # nginx site config (used by Docker image)
│   └── entrypoint.sh           # Container entrypoint
└── tools/
    └── honeypot-intel.sh       # Intelligence viewer

Math#

With default settings (maxretry=20, delay=2s per attempt increment):

Attempts 1-20: 2+4+6+8+10+12+14+16+18+20+22+24+26+28+30+30+30+30+30+30 = ~7 minutes of tarpit
Then: 30-day iptables ban

License#

MIT

Clone this repository