Anti-Spam Options - Rename register.php by BOP5

Brought to you by BirdOPrey5 / Qapla.com

It's great when you stop spam bots during registration but this mod gives you a chance to stop them BEFORE they even attempt to register.

I have received multiple reports from people who say their "register.php" was getting hammered with spam requests- so much so it was like a denial of service attack. Even if they disabled registration they would waste so much resources their site was slow or worse- had to be taken offline.

What this mod does is allow you to rename the register.php file- my theory is many of the vBulletin spamming bots are hard coded to look for register.php. Using a unique name will throw them off, at least for a while.

To manually change the name of register.php would have meant dozens, maybe hundreds of manual edits to files and templates previously.

This mod makes it as simple as possible. At worst you will need to edit 2 phrases and 1 file, and some people don't need to edit anything at all.

Compatible with VB 3.8.x (and 3.7, and 3.6 probably too) and all VB 4.x.x versions.

Basic Instructions
1) Import XML File
2) Go to mod settings in Admin CP
3) Rename your register.php file via FTP or some other means- make it a unique value but only use basic letters, numbers, underscores, or hyphens. Something like "joeregister999.php"
4) In the mod settings, set the value of register.php to the new file name you chose.
5) If you require email verification during registration follow the next setting in the Admin CP and edit the phrases listed (activateaccount and activateaccount_chnage phrases in Email Body)
6) Finally, if you use Facebook Connect on your forum make the manual file edit of class_bootstrap.php as instructed.

Now enjoy your new filename for register.php, I hope it reduces server load and spam in general.

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Please "Mark as Installed" if you use this.
Donations always appreciated. :up:
Nominate MOTM if you LOVE it!

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Note- if having problems sending activation codes or other Admin CP related activities use the solution in post #197.

[bzcomputers]

Originally Posted by dizzynation

Thanks for that! I don't mean to highjack your thread but when I did that^ Im just getting a blank white page.

The forum is in a folder /client/ so before I could just go to mysite.com/client/ and it would show the forum, but now I have to do /client/support.php to see the forum.

Any thoughts?

link to site?

[Davey-UK]

Excellent mod. That got rid of the rascals. Great work!

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by dizzynation

Thanks for that! I don't mean to highjack your thread but when I did that^ Im just getting a blank white page.

The forum is in a folder /client/ so before I could just go to mysite.com/client/ and it would show the forum, but now I have to do /client/support.php to see the forum.

Any thoughts?

If you're using VB 4.2+ you will also need to go to Navigation Manager in Admin CP and change the URL of Forums there as well.

[Digital Jedi]

Seems to me like this mod works best if you switch the name up regularly. Not all the time, mind you. But depending on the frequency of bots owners figuring out the location, every few weeks/months or so. Combined with a registration timer, this could be devastating! I'm going to give this a try, along with some other experimentation, on my 3.8.7. board during the soft open this week.

[ozzy47]

Joe I got a issue with this. It seems it breaks the inline moderation. When I tick on the checkboxes to moderate posts / threads, it says Invalid Thread Specified when you try to do anything.

This is what it shows in the error console for FF.

SyntaxError: missing ; before statement
http://ozzmodz.com/forumdisplay.php?69-Top-News-Stories
Line 571

Which what it is doing is interfering with this bit of code:

			<vb:if condition="$show['inlinemod']">
			<script type="text/javascript">
			<!--
				vB_XHTML_Ready.subscribe(function() { register_inlinemod("thread_inlinemod_form", "li", "threadbit", "thread"); });
			//-->
			</script>
			</vb:if>

Which is in about 9 templates in a default vB, it is replacing register_inlinemod with, whatever_you_changed_the_name_to_inlinemod

Took me forever to figure out it was you mod causing it, as I just about disabled every other mod i had running.

[CAG CheechDogg]

Ozzy, so this is affecting all of us who have this installed? ... Im a little confused here ...

[ozzy47]

Maybe it is something I added in the replacement_vars plugin. So it may not be his mod after all.

And now that I look at the original code it is indeed what I added. Sorry for the confusion.

[CAG CheechDogg]

Originally Posted by ozzy47

Maybe it is something I added in the replacement_vars plugin. So it may not be his mod after all.

And now that I look at the original code it is indeed what I added. Sorry for the confusion.

Ah ! ok good stuff man! lol...yer' still da' Man !! lol ... thanks for clarifying !

[ozzy47]

----> goes and hides in corner.

[CAG CheechDogg]

A facepalm will help too! hahah...lol...