In Magento, there are lots of functions you can perform from the admin backend including:
- Changing the look and feel of Magento
- Managing Customers and Customer Groups
- Managing Sales
- Change initial settings during the installation
- Create promotions
- Manage Newsletter
- View Reports
Further reading
Magento Store Settings Configuration Tutorial
Magento Website Optimization Tips
Magento Website Security Tutorial
Managing Extensions and Themes in Magento
Managing Products and Categories in Magento
How to Login to Admin Backend
Logging into the admin panel for your Magento website is very easy. Go to your Magento website. Add /admin to the URL and reload the page. You will be prompted with a username and password request. Give in your username and password that you have set up during the installation process. If the entered credentials are correct, you should successfully login to your Magento admin backend.
Further reading
Magento Store Settings Configuration Tutorial
Magento Website Optimization Tips
Magento Website Security Tutorial
Managing Extensions and Themes in Magento
Managing Products and Categories in Magento
Unable to Login to Magento Admin Backend?
There are several reasons you may find it difficult or impossible to login to the backend of your Magento website. The common ones are listed below
- Wrong admin url path. You may have typed the wrong url or you forgot the admin path. In these cases, you simply have to check to be sure you have entered the right path to your admin backend or you simply change the admin path for your Magento website. Changing the admin path will secure your website and is highlyy recommended.
- Wrong Username or Password. This often happens when complex(recommended) passwords are used and is common with developers who manage multiple websites using different username and passwords for login. You may want to copy your usernames and passwords to a safe file somewhere for security. If you are unable to login, it is recommended that you reset the password and try logging in with your new password.
- Local computer time vs. server time mismatch, causing instant cookie invalidation. Make sure your server time is correct.
- Incorrect permissions on var/session, preventing session files from being saved.
- Incorrect configuration of database/redis/other session storage, preventing saving of session values
- A module is instantiating sessions to early, preventing the correct session names from being set
- You're a developer using multiple URLs and have multiple cookie domains.
- Another developer has somehow modified app\code\core\Mage\Core\Model\Session\Abstract\Varien.php, creating a hard to track down bug
- The cookie domain in System -> Configuration -> Web -> Session Cookie Management doesn't match the actual site domain.
- You're using the localhost as your server domain, and using a version of webkit that has trouble/bugs setting cookies for localhost in some situations.
The short term fix is to just delete your cookie for the domain. That's often enough to solve the problem. If it persists, figure out which of the above reasons is the reason for your error, and take steps to address it (fix permissions, etc.)
Further reading
Magento Store Settings Configuration Tutorial
Magento Website Optimization Tips
Magento Website Security Tutorial
Managing Extensions and Themes in Magento
Managing Products and Categories in Magento
How to change Magento admin path
As noted above, we have said a cause of login problem is a wrong admin path. You can always change this not just to be able to login but also for the security of your Magento store. We will show you how to change the admin url for your Magento website. You will first need to login to the backend of your Magento website then follow the steps outlined below:
1) Click the File Manager link from the Website Tools section of the left menu.
2) Click the File Manager button
3) Double click on the app directory.
4) Double click on the etc directory
5) Rick click on local.xml and select edit from the menu.
6) Locate the following (normally towards the bottom)
<frontName><![CDATA[admin]]></frontName>
Replace the admin part with the new URL you wish to use. Make sure you leave the brackets. For our example, we changed it to the following
<frontName><![CDATA[newadminpath]]></frontName>
So our new admin path would be newadminpath
7) Save the file
Now we need to clear the cache
8) Back in the file manager, click the public_html folder from the directory tree on the left.
9) Double click on the var directory
10) Double click on the cache directory
Step 11) Press the select all button
12) Click the delete button
13) Click delete file(s) to confirm the delete.
That's it! Next time you wish to use the admin panel, put the new path in rather than admin
For example, www.example.com/newadminpath
