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]

what settings did you use for the ban?

this mod dosn't ban user accounts associated with a ban; only blocks that ip from accessing the site. If its the only ip the user uses, then they won't be able to post, if they have several ips then yes, they will still be able to post.

[Cynicz]

A handy little mod, had to tweak ipbans.php for mySWLi but besides that a pretty smooth install.

One issue I am having though is enabling the registration option doesn't work, the registration field in the IP ban list stays at "No" and still functions as a blanket ban for anyone in the specified IP range.

I can manually issue a SQL query to set the "registration" value to 1 which causes the Reg ban to function and sets "No" to "Yes" in the ipban list although I'd prefer avoiding that extra step every time I ban a range of spambots.

(vBulletin 3.8.4 Patch Level 2)

[bigwest]

I really need this mod but for some reason it doesn't work for me or maybe it does but I don't understand it.

If I add the IP address:184.11.244.2

It bans the IP address: 126.255.255.255

Why is that?

(I altered those IP addresses just a little)

[kevinh]

Thanks for this wonderful add-on.

A quickquestion if I may - what does a person from a blocked IP see? do they just get a "cannot display this page" type error or do they actually see the "Reason" if one is entered in admincp ?

Also, one suggestion for future versions - a feature enabling banning of a whole country using a two letter code (e.g PK)

I use a firewall (CSF) on our cpanel server which includes this feature, although it applies to all sites across the server which often isn't desireable.

Last but not least, I find this site really useful for finding CIDR ranges - http://software77.net/geo-ip/ (I am not associated with the site in any way, I just use it).

[HFB]

Originally Posted by Cynicz

A handy little mod, had to tweak ipbans.php for mySWLi but besides that a pretty smooth install.

One issue I am having though is enabling the registration option doesn't work, the registration field in the IP ban list stays at "No" and still functions as a blanket ban for anyone in the specified IP range.

I can manually issue a SQL query to set the "registration" value to 1 which causes the Reg ban to function and sets "No" to "Yes" in the ipban list although I'd prefer avoiding that extra step every time I ban a range of spambots.

(vBulletin 3.8.4 Patch Level 2)

Same problem here. Can you tell me the sql query you use to change it?

never mind i figured it out
update ipban set registration = 1