diff --git a/templates/gitlab.rb.j2 b/templates/gitlab.rb.j2
index 74676f19da99e4c95eae3f7af901c91a828dd6ed..b82ec06008158a75955cdd1f7b49ee8b3b29a3b7 100644
--- a/templates/gitlab.rb.j2
+++ b/templates/gitlab.rb.j2
@@ -1446,7 +1446,7 @@ gitlab_pages['listen_proxy'] = '127.0.0.1:11181" -listen-proxy="[::1]:11181'
 # gitlab_pages['tls_max_version'] = "tls1.2"
 
 ##! Pages access control
-# gitlab_pages['access_control'] = false
+gitlab_pages['access_control'] = true
 # gitlab_pages['gitlab_id'] = nil # Automatically generated if not present
 # gitlab_pages['gitlab_secret'] = nil # Generated if not present
 # gitlab_pages['auth_redirect_uri'] = nil # Defaults to projects subdomain of pages_external_url and + '/auth'