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

[Max Taxable]

Nice to see this venerable, useful and very reliable plugin updated. Nice going guys.

[Simon Lloyd]

Max if you downloaded the new version before I posted this message please download it again and overwrite the previous one, the first update had a bug

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

Max if you downloaded the new version before I posted this message please download it again and overwrite the previous one, the first update had a bug

I have not done so because the original version still works perfectly for me on all my boards.

[Simon Lloyd]

That's fine, as I made a mistake and that post should have been for the VB3 version

[Max Taxable]

Just very happy to see this little issue solved for folks. Drove Ozzy and I crazy for months, before I bought a existing v4 board and didn't have the same problem. That opened the door for investigation, as it were. Gave us the angle of attack.

[Simon Lloyd]

I think it's earlier versions of VB4 start up sequence is pretty much the same as VB3 later versions order was different, Ozzy tried the bootstrap hook and that did it! I wasn't aware of the issue until this thread resurrected itself with these posts.

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

I think it's earlier versions of VB4 start up sequence is pretty much the same as VB3 later versions order was different, Ozzy tried the bootstrap hook and that did it! I wasn't aware of the issue until this thread resurrected itself with these posts.

It's definitely also got to do with how heavily modded the board is.... One of the early v4 boards I help admin had the same issue until all mods except this one, were turned off for a time. But that wasn't tried until just last week.

Originally we thought cron jobs were interfering, on Ozzy's board. Hence why only relatively few Baidu's were getting through. It wasn't until much later on we began to suspect hooks, and firing order, and etc.

Originally after working on it for a couple of weeks, we just blew it off for a time. Wrote it off as just a fluky deal. Until others started reporting the issue, then when I bought that v4 and didn't have the problem it really ramped up interest in solving this again. This goes back almost a year or maybe a little more, this mystery. For us at least.

Kudos to you Simon for having such a open mind about this - few devs would have listened especially on such a well established and widely used Mod as this.

[Simon Lloyd]

Originally Posted by Max Taxable

.....Kudos to you Simon for having such a open mind about this - few devs would have listened especially on such a well established and widely used Mod as this.

I built this to aid the community so it's a no brainer!

[Max Taxable]

Ozz and I never truly let go of a problem. It haunts us day and night until it is solved!

[Gadget_Guy]

Hate to be the one to have to say this.

My site just started throwing these errors:

Database error in vBulletin 4.2.2:

Invalid SQL:

UPDATE `bad_bots_blocked` SET ban_useragent = ban_useragent + 1;

MySQL Error : Table 'subaru_test.bad_bots_blocked' doesn't exist
Error Number : 1146
Request Date : Wednesday, December 17th 2014 @ 08:11:41 PM
Error Date : Wednesday, December 17th 2014 @ 08:11:41 PM
Script : http://www.toronto-subaru-club.com/f.../index.php?how
Referrer :
IP Address : 5.255.253.29
Username :
Classname : vB_Database_MySQLi
MySQL Version :


D.