How to disable specific ModSecurity rules in Plesk

Kuzma Ivanov

Updated May 30, 2023 01:07

Plesk for Windows kb: how-to Plesk for Linux ABT: Group A

Applicable to:

How to disable specific ModSecurity rules in Plesk per domain or server-wide?

Note: Not all rules can be disabled due to the MODSEC-274 bug in ModSecurity.

Disabling rules for a domain

Via ModSecurity settings
1. Log in to Plesk.
2. Go to Domains > example.com > Web Application Firewall (ModSecurity).
3. In the Switch off security rules section, specify rule IDs (for example, 340003), tags (for example, CVE-2011-4898), or a regular expression (for example, XSS) used in the rules that need to be switched off, and click OK.
  
  Note: The Switch off security rules section is available only when the web application firewall mode is set to On or Detection only.
  - By rule IDs
  - By rule tags
Via additional Apache directives (Linux only)

Note: This solution is intended for Plesk administrators only.
1. Log in to Plesk.
2. Go to Domains > example.com > Apache & nginx Settings.
3. Create a custom Apache directive and put it into the Additional directives for HTTP/HTTPS fields. In the following example, rules with IDs 340162 and 340163 will be disabled:
  
  Note: It is possible to specify more than one RuleID. Add another line with RuleID on a new line.
  
  CONFIG_TEXT: <IfModule mod_security2.c>
  SecRuleRemoveById 340162
  SecRuleRemoveById 340163
  </IfModule>
  
  OR
  
  CONFIG_TEXT: <IfModule mod_security2.c>
  SecRuleRemoveById 340162 340163
  </IfModule>

Disabling rules server-wide

Log in to Plesk.
Go to Tools & Settings > Web Application Firewall (ModSecurity) > Switch off security rules.
Switch off rules using one of the following ways:
- By rule IDs. Add IDs from the error message to the Security rule IDs field as shown on the following picture (Click to enlarge) and apply the changes.
  
  Note: If there are several rule IDs, put each on a new line.
- By rule tags. Add rule tags from the error message from Active to Deactivated as shown on the following picture (Click to enlarge) and apply the changes.

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