Miscellaneous Hacks - Ban Spiders by User Agent

What this mod does
With this mod you can enter User Agents to watch or ban, you can also recieve emails or have an Output.txt created and updated with time and date of visits. It doesn't just have to be spiders, you can watch, log or ban any useragent!

How to install
Simply import the product ban_spider, the mod is active by default but none of the other options are turned on.

What is a UserAgent?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent

Understanding a UserAgent string
http://user-agent-string.info/parse

Genuine User Getting Blocked?
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=105

Tools to help
http://whatsmyuseragent.com/SwitchingUserAgents.asp
http://www.botsvsbrowsers.com/SimulateUserAgent.asp

FAQ
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=137

How does it work?
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=381

What's a bot?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spambot

How do i ban a bot?
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=318
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....7&postcount=51

Where's output.txt located?
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=216

Bad bot lists
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=259
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=224
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showpost....&postcount=281

Tested on vb3.7.x, vB3.8.x , vB4.x.x but should work on any version.

__________________________________________________ __________________
Special thanks to:
Lior
KH99
BoP5
for helping me sort out a few issues

...and beta testers
ForceHSS (Special thanks to Force for latest testing)
ozzy47
GreyHost

If you use this please mark as INSTALLED

History
9th June 2011 Orginal xml added
12th June 2011 Added both email notification and text file logging
22nd June 2011 Version 2.0.0, Added create thread on activity

1. Added match facility you can now use something like Yandex and it will match MOZILLA/5.0 (COMPATIBLE; YANDEXBOT/3.0; +HTTP://YANDEX.COM/BOTS)
2. Added clickable link to visited thread

22nd September 2011 added user redirect url selection
08th October Beta testing started for thread creation.
20th October Beta testing started for emailing.
21st October Beta testing complete Ver 3.0.0 uploaded
29th October minor fix added to cope with empty userid on thread creation
30th October Beta testing automatic redirection to spiders/bots IP
31st October New xml uploaded with automatic redirect to IP
25th November Minor fix for blank forumid fixed
26th November 2011 Fixed version check & create thread Off by default
17th December 2014 Version 3.1.0 uploaded, Hook changed extra logging and statistics added by Ozzy47 (Chris)
18th December 2014 Version 3.1.1 uploaded, prevented spiders being counted when mod turned off.
17th December 2014 Version 3.1.2 uploaded, due to rogue code from another mod
The Bad Bots list is now included in the product
Please prune out all those that you wish to be able to see your site (i suggest you definately prune out "DA" and "Custo" :

Support will now only be given to those who have this mod marked as INSTALLED

[Simon Lloyd]

Firstly that does exactly as it says, It WILL create threads!, hundreds and hundreds of them and one of the members here who say they have it set to "yes" chose to do so!

[BlueCheri]

Downloaded, suggested this by a friend.

Think must be useful, let us see how it works.

Thanx.

G!

[sarasotarepub]

Well done Simon.

We were having an infestation of Baidu Spiders but your Mod took care of them. I installed it last night and this morning they (and others) were gone.

[Simon Lloyd]

Glad it's helping you

[bosanci28]

hmmm,

why do i have all this in my ""VSa - Advanced Forum Statistics"

this:

* activity from bot no.7 (baidu) in your list*

also notice from 2 other bots like: yandex and webster.

thanks for any help...

[Simon Lloyd]

In forum statistics you will see the bot activity as they do access your site but are then redirected before they can open the thread...etc that they were attempting, if you are seeing the actual phrase "activity from bot no.7 (baidu) in your list" then it's because you have the notifications turned on in the mod

[bosanci28]

so just turn off the option at: "Create New Thread" ?
thanks

[Simon Lloyd]

Yep, turn it off, it's just a way of monitoring it working or if you are only testing one bot at a time, otherwise you'll get thousands of the damn things

[meaters]

Awesome mod, thanks!

Saved our community from Baidu, hundreds of bots were online persistenly to the point of crashing our server.

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by meaters

Awesome mod, thanks!

Saved our community from Baidu, hundreds of bots were online persistenly to the point of crashing our server.

And with only the addition of, per line:

MSIE 1
MSIE 2
MSIE 3
MSIE 4
MSIE 5
MSIE 6

You end 99.9% of all spam bot registration attempts and cut garbage traffic even further.

Here's my entire ban list for this Mod:

baiduspider
beta.statsit.com
statsit
SiteIntel
Yandex
GomezAgent
FunWebProducts
MSIE 1
MSIE 2
MSIE 3
MSIE 4
MSIE 5
MSIE 6
w3m