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.

[ozzy47]

Noticed a error within the mod. If you leave the New File Name For register.php setting blank, to disable the mod, you get a bunch of these errors on the online.php page.

Warning: strpos(): Empty needle in /home/ozzmodz/public_html/includes/functions_online.php(1245) : eval()'d code on line 35

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by ozzy47

Noticed a error within the mod. If you leave the New File Name For register.php setting blank, to disable the mod, you get a bunch of these errors on the online.php page.

Warning: strpos(): Empty needle in /home/ozzmodz/public_html/includes/functions_online.php(1245) : eval()'d code on line 35

Thanks.

In the mean time users should either disable the mod via the Product Manager or if you want go to Plugin Manager, edit the Location Fix plugin.

Erase everything that is there and paste this in its place:

global $vbulletin;
if ($vbulletin->options['bop5rr_register'] AND $vbulletin->options['bop5rr_register'] != 'register.php')
{
  $regpage = $vbulletin->options['bop5rr_register'];

  if (strpos($userinfo['location'], $regpage) !== false) 
  {
    $userinfo['action'] = $vbphrase['registering'];
    $handled = true;
  }
}

Will make the change in the next update.

[ozzy47]

Good stuff Joe, works just fine now. Thanks for the quick update.

[CAG CheechDogg]

So is that the (patched) code or just a (for now) fix? ...

[ozzy47]

You need to manually make the changes for now, the product is not updated.

[CAG CheechDogg]

Ok good stuff ... thanks ozzy ...

[ozzy47]

Not a problem.

[Cla75]

Ciao BirdOPrey5

When I change the two instances in class_bootstrap.php the forum does not charge the index.
Returning to the original class_bootstrap.php everything works with vb 4.2.1
Obviously I also renamed the file register.php.

What am I doing wrong?
I followed your guide "Rename register.php by BOP5 Readme.txt" three times, but the same problem

Thanks

[BirdOPrey5]

The file changes are only required for Facebook Connect to work correctly- it doesn't change any index- can you explain what you mean by changing an index?

Installing the mod and enabling it is what changes the register.php link in the forum code, and a few phrase edits to change the URL in emails.

[Scalemotorcars]

Well, nuts I thought this would get the Spam bots off my server for at least a little while. They found the new registration page in a matter of hours.

I used a very random URL and they still found it. Someone must have gotten it manually.

So Im using Spam-O-Matic and that catches nearly all these ******. I rarely get a spam post so that's good. I'm just trying to get the bots off my server.

Any ideas? They hit the registration page every few seconds.