Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Advanced IP Ban Manager

Advanced IP ban manager

What is it/What does it do?

This is intended as a replacement for the ip bans under vbulletin options. It allows for timed ip bans, cidr ranges and attatching reasons to bans.

It also features registration only ip bans allowing members who may be effected by an ip ban to continue using the forums, but blocking registrations and ip ban exempts so that you can ban a large range of ips and let through a smaller subset of them.

Features

• Ip bans
• Timed ip bans
• Ip ban exempts
• Registration only bans
• Ban by cidr range

Installation
Backup db.
Upload files from zip.
Import product.
Refresh admincp.

Once Version 0.3 is installed; upload the attached php file into your admin cp to replace the one already there. This file fixes a couple of minor issues for some people.

Changelog

• 0.3.1
  Added a work around for issues of 0.0.0.0 ips being banned on any system where ip2long returned a signed int instead of an unsigned int.
• 0.3
  Fixed bug where ip bans wouldn't block registrations unless set to registration only.
  Added file with a list of common spambot ips that can be auto banned.
  Changed limit on cidr range from 16 to 4 As i often came across instances where i wanted to ban larger ranges
• 0.2.1b
  Added a bitfield rebuild to installer to fix issues with menu not showing.
• 0.2b
  Fixed bug in instal code.
• 0.2a
  Added admin permissions and exempt bans
• 0.1a
  Initial release.

Notes

This has been tested on 3.7.2 but should work on 3.6.x, 3.7.x and 3.8.x

This mod has not been tested on vbulletin 4; a separate, improved vbulletin 4 version can be found HERE

Access is now controlled by an admincp permission however no control over ip banning is done.

This variable can be used in the config file to prevent banning any ip/range of ips that contain the ips listed in it: $config['SpecialUsers']['unbannableips'] = "127.0.0.1|127.0.0.2";
Ips should be separated by a | symbol. This will not effect any bans that are already in place.

Bans are limited to a cidr range of 4. (This should be more than enough) If you require a ban that covers more than this, it should be set in the database. If there is demand for it, I may make the cidr limit optional/changable in future versions.

Exempts/bans work by taking the tightest cidr range match. eg if you ban 127.0.0.1/16 and add an exempt for 127.0.0.1/24 the exempt will take precedence, however adding another ban against 127.0.0.1/32 would override the exempt.

When uninstalling, the mod will remove the modifications to the admin table, however it is upto you to drop the ipbans table yourself. This has been done in order to preserve the data in that table incase you still want it for something.

I've added a file which was created by a member of my admin team, it contains a large list of ip addresses from which A lot of malignant traffic seems to come from. If you are having trouble with spam bots this list may help in preventing them from registering. To use the file visit the url : <your forum url>/admincp/ipban.spambots.php It will ask you to log in to your cp then display a blank page; this is to be expected as all its doing is inserting into the database. It will add approximately 140 bans; so they've been coded NOT to show up in the ip ban list. This feature is something i plan to expand on with a full interface for viewing, creating, adding and removing ip blocklists, but for now this mechanism is what i've come up with.

Support

As all of my boards have been upgraded to vbulletin 4, I am no longer actively maintaining any of my vb3.x mods. Free support for all of my 3.x mods is being removed from the 31st of March 2010 after this date, I will only be offering paid support for 3.x mods; downloading and usage of the mods will remain free but unsupported.

Please pm me for support of 3.x mods as I will not be checking their threads very often.

[S]Support is now offered as this is a beta release. I'll be checking vborg from time to time but for critical support issues, you are best contacting me on my own forums.

I'm hoping that this version (0.3) is bug free, so this can be considered a release candidate version.[/S]

I've uploaded a fixed php file for some people who were having problems with short php tags and other parse errors. This needs to be uploaded to the admin cp. The file will be added into the zip once in the next release.

This mod [S]will be [/S] has been upgraded to support vb4 The vbulletin 4 version will be released once the beta goes public.

Extra features in vb4.0 version:

• whois ip from admin cp
• cidr calculator (shows the ip range that a cidr bans)
• test bans (enter an ip to see if its banned or not)

Planned features for future versions:

• import/export bans
• integration into 'delete posts as spam' => admins with suitable permissions will be able to select a box to ban the posters ip(s) in addition to banning their account(s)

[Carnage]

I should probably change that to use $db->fetch_array() will fix in the next version. (probably the vb4 compatible version)

[tommythejoat]

My board has a very long list of banned ip's and we are interested in banning ranges of ip's.

I don't understand how CIDR improves upon just using the * wild card in a banned ip. e.g. 221.222.* or 221.222.0.0/16 look the same to me. Am I missing something?

We would like to be able to ban something like 221.222.131-255.* or even 221.222.131-155.*. I don't see any notation that supports this.

Currently I keep the bans in a spreadsheet so I can sort and annotate them. I then just copy the ip column into the ban list in AdminCp.

Maybe if I get used to the notation, I can figure out how to take out a large range and add back in the pieces that are OK to get to the examples above.

I wonder if there is a calculator somewhere that converts the kind of range I listed above to a set of CIDR's.

[TheInsaneManiac]

I will def install if you can add an option to ban from within posts and profiles. Cause searching for a user and then finding their IP is a pain in the butt.

[jacx]

Originally Posted by TheInsaneManiac

I will def install if you can add an option to ban from within posts and profiles. Cause searching for a user and then finding their IP is a pain in the butt.

When looking at your home page... replace index.php with online.php and you can see the ip addresses quite quick that way.

My request is this...if possible.

I have some super mods that I would like to give the ability to. I want to avoid making them admins but ip banning is a feature they need. Is there someway to allow this?

I have tried to give them minimal admin permissions as a secondary group and turned on Can Administer Ipbans to yes but still nothing on their admin cp

[TheInsaneManiac]

Feature Requests:
Allow banned IPs to see how long they are banned for.
Add an option to ban from within posts and profiles. Cause searching for a user and then finding their IP is a pain in the butt.

[Carnage]

I don't understand how CIDR improves upon just using the * wild card in a banned ip. e.g. 221.222.* or 221.222.0.0/16 look the same to me. Am I missing something?

yes. You don't have to use just /16 /24 /8 and /32 you could for example use /28 which would ban a range of 16 ips

We would like to be able to ban something like 221.222.131-255.* or even 221.222.131-155.*. I don't see any notation that supports this.

CIDRs aren't perfect, but the following ban 221.222.131.0/19 hits 221.222.128.0 - 221.222.159.255 You could leave it at that or add an exempt for 221.222.128.0/23 and 221.222.130.0/24 to protect the lower end and an exempt for 221.222.156.0/22 to protect the upper end.

I wonder if there is a calculator somewhere that converts the kind of range I listed above to a set of CIDR's.

The latest (vb 4 version) of this mod includes a calculator that goes from CIDR notation to range notation; in theory, if you upload the contents of the uploads folder to your 3.8 install, it should provide the extra features. (Don't import the vb4 product thou, as the mod will cease to work) I'll see how hard it would be to write a calculator to go the other way.

Allow banned IPs to see how long they are banned for.

This might be possible by just editing the phrase... I'll look into it.

Add an option to ban from within posts and profiles. Cause searching for a user and then finding their IP is a pain in the butt.

Its already on the planned feature list to allow banning from the delete as spam page; I see no reason not to include this; however the ip's will probably not be very efficiently banned. (eg it'll have to add a /32 ban for each and every ip the user uses. Trying to automatically work out a range would be VERY error prone.)

[gigaenvy]

Sorry if I'm dense, but can this mod simply ban the IP address by clicking the IP address icon in the user postbit and making a selection from their? Seems like low-hanging fruit to add this feature from the beginning.

Thanks!

[Carnage]

i'm afraid that isn't possible, but you are right, it is a fairly low hanging fruit. It'll probably be added along with the other front end integrations that i've got planned; however development time is currently going into the vb4 version of this mod; so I don't know how long it'll be until the new features i've added to that get into this version.

[shuwarriors]

I've added several IPs but just noticed that in the IP ban manager page the list of IPs is all 0s

Is there a fix for this?
If you could email an answer as I'll find it hard to keep an eye on this; hallamwarriors(at)gmail.com
thanks

[Fynnon]

i have banned someone`s ip but i didnt ban him on the forum so he ca still come and post