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

[ForceHSS]

Originally Posted by Alibass

Installed and voted MOTM

I have a question, I've got a bot that's been sitting on my site for days.

It's UA is Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 2.0; and it shows in WOL as hosted-by.leaseweb.com
How can I get rid of this one other than blocking IP?

block its host

[Alibass]

Originally Posted by ForceHSS

block its host

Are you talking about using this program and if so how or you talking about blocking in htaccess?

[Simon Lloyd]

Originally Posted by Alibass

Installed and voted MOTM

I have a question, I've got a bot that's been sitting on my site for days.

It's UA is Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 2.0; and it shows in WOL as hosted-by.leaseweb.com
How can I get rid of this one other than blocking IP?

What is it's full useragent?

Originally Posted by Alibass

Are you talking about using this program and if so how or you talking about blocking in htaccess?

Not htaccess but with this mod...although i do have a similar mod that bans ip addresses

[Alibass]

Originally Posted by ForceHSS

block its host

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

What is it's full useragent?

Not htaccess but with this mod...although i do have a similar mod that bans ip addresses

All I see is this,

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 2.0; )

[ForceHSS]

Originally Posted by Alibass

Are you talking about using this program and if so how or you talking about blocking in htaccess?

use this program to block his host this is what it is for

[Alibass]

Originally Posted by ForceHSS

use this program to block his host this is what it is for

As I posted in my first post the user-agent is,

Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 2.0; )

Web host is,

hosted-by.leaseweb.com

I have tried both of these in the spider list of this program and it doesn't work. Now f there is another way using this program then please let me know.

[ForceHSS]

do you have the option Ban Spiders In List = yes

[Alibass]

Originally Posted by ForceHSS

do you have the option Ban Spiders In List = yes

The mod works fine and as it was designed to do, I just cant get rid of this one bot without blocking the IP.

The user-agent is not like the others and I cant tag it in the spider list to work correctly. Look at the UA I posted and you can see there is no bot name listed in the UA. If someone can tell me what to add to the spider list to block this bot then that's great, but if not please don't ask me if I have things ticked a certain way. This is a simple mod to use and by no means my first rodeo with mods. I'll just block the the IP range if no one can give me an answer without asking me a hundred questions.
Sorry mate, not trying to be rude but I'm looking for an answer to my question if someone knows it, not looking for questions. Thanks

[Simon Lloyd]

Originally Posted by Alibass

The mod works fine and as it was designed to do, I just cant get rid of this one bot without blocking the IP.

The user-agent is not like the others and I cant tag it in the spider list to work correctly. Look at the UA I posted and you can see there is no bot name listed in the UA. If someone can tell me what to add to the spider list to block this bot then that's great, but if not please don't ask me if I have things ticked a certain way. This is a simple mod to use and by no means my first rodeo with mods. I'll just block the the IP range if no one can give me an answer without asking me a hundred questions.
Sorry mate, not trying to be rude but I'm looking for an answer to my question if someone knows it, not looking for questions. Thanks

This mod will do its job, simply enter the entire User Agent string in the list to ban and the mod will take care of the rest

If you experience further trouble i will investigate that bot further, i had a similar issue with a bot i thought i was banning, but then found the UA didn't contain the bot name, so in this instance i had to use the entire UA as i found it. Over the last few pages of this thread you will see i've posted links on how you can check UA's against your site or find UA's...etc, have a look for those links as they will help you in the fight against the bots

[Simon Lloyd]

Here's another of leaswebs UA's;
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2) Gecko/20100115 Firefox/3.6

So again, enter this entire UA to ban them

Edit: Here's a few more!
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; Win 9x 4.90; Creative)
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; MRA 4.6 (build 01425); MRSPUTNIK 1, 5, 0, 19
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1) Netscape/8.0.4
Mozilla/4.76 [en] (Windows NT 5.0; U)

The above UA's are a little older but there's still a possibility of them using them, as you can see from the timings of these posts (or edits) with a little research and the help of Google you too can find the UA's that you want to ban.