Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Troll/ip-tracker, detect multiple accounts/trolls [3.6 compatible]

Continuosly information about updates can also be found here.

Edit 2007-08-07

Since the script needs to be rebuilt from scratch due to some problems with it, I've decided to temporarily stop the distribution. On larger sites, this script may cause heavy lagging when active. There has also been reports on "duplicate keys", that should be fixed. To prevent more problems cause by this hack, it's removed and cannot be downloaded.


History

In 2005 a forum was founded, for a short period of time that was intended to work as a service for people with a common interest - a reality show. The forum grew big and the traffic was very intensive. Moderators worked day and night to assist the forum. Traffic and events in the show made people show different kind of feelings and some of them showed this in strange ways. They said "I'd better register 10 nicknames, just to secure that noone can ban me". Sometimes, when they got banned, they registered new nicks and sometimes they switched ips but they didn't post anything the same day. Next day, they switched ip again and it suddenly got much harder to trace their nicks back to the start.

In 2006, the forum opened again (new season) and we was prepared for this. A script, specialized to trace trolls, was written and the main purpose was to trace things that vBulletin missed. This plugin was requested at the vBulletin forums.


Now, it's here, as a beta production - a trolltracker that stamps all visitors even if they don't post anything. It also, partially, checks if an ip-address can be traced from anonymous proxies by reading headers that proxies are sending to he server (HTTP_VIA and HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR).


Templates to change (Optional): 3


Attached

trolltracker-2.0.3beta.zip - the main archive with the tracker and extras
iptracker.php - A quickfix for the coming version 2.0.4 that changes the SHOW COLUMNS-behaviour-bug in the tracker


The archive

The zip should contain the following files

• The product, currently named product-trolltracker_beta.xml because of it's beta status
• iptracker.php, the tool that makes it easier to trace nicknames and ip's
• iptracker_search.php, htmlcode - the searchform that iptracker.php is using (old code that never used templates)
• trollpost.php, a quite slow script that imports ip's and usernames from the post-table to make it possible to trace older data. (If you run this over a web-interface, it might not work, because of timeouts --screendump--)

How to install

1. Copy *.php to your forumroot
2. Install the product code (choose overwrite if you're upgrading)
3. Check the configuration from your admincp (settings for usergroups that can run the iptracker.php is made from there)

Additional information


Track older ips (2.0.x)

If you want to import older posts, you can do that, but because of timeouts (and bad scripting) trollpost.php may timeout if you run the script from a web-browser. This part is, currently, unsupported, but if someone has any ideas here, feel free to notify me.

OPM Support

The ip-tracker supports RBL Monitor.


How to use it

Use the tracker by calling http://your-forum.com/iptracker.php


Database

The installation creates a table named user_troll for your forum.
The FQDN-support also adds a table called user_trollresolver for the resolver cache (like the one used in the OPM monitor)

Information and issues

• There is no version 1.x - that version was private (this is not an issue)
  
• It's still a beta, so bugs may still annoy us
  
• Testing on vBulletin 3.6.0 rc1: Works fine
• Importing posts with trollpost.php might give strange results if you are using the multiple account detector (AE): reports in forum that are posted with a specific userid makes it look like a troll is using other usernames too

To do

See CHANGELOG for full details


Show the tracker in navbar (v2.0.1+)

To show the tracker in the navbar (only for the admingroups that can be found in the options), edit your template 'navbar' and add this code where you want it to be shown:

 <if condition="$show['trolltracker']"><td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="iptracker.php">Trolltracker</a></td></if>

I chose to put it in the end of navbar, right after this code:

        <if condition="$show['member']">
<td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="login.php?$session[sessionurl]do=logout&amp;logouthash=$bbuserinfo[logouthash]" onclick="return log_out()">$vbphrase[log_out]</a></td>
        </if>

How to show trolls in the onlinelist

Edit template:
whosonlinebit

Find:
</tr>

Add above:

    <if condition="$show['trolldata'] AND $userinfo['trolldata'] != ''">
            <td class="alt1">
            $userinfo[trolldata]
            </td>
        </if>

Edit template:
WHOSONLINE

Find:

</tr>
$onlinebits

Add above:

    <if condition="$show['trolldata']">
            <td class="thead">
            <b>Trolldata</b>
            </td>
        </if>

Support, help, contact

Any questions, requests and bugreports can be sent to me by PM, mail or via threads at http://vbulletin.tornevall.net/


Don't forget to install this plugin

[Tyegurl]

the only message that i got and everyone else got was

too many nicknames on this forum blah blah blah

yes it was enabled

[Alfa1]

Originally Posted by TMM-TT

You mean something like the example shown in the attachment? Yes, there is a single deep-check now.

I'm not sure if that is what I mean. Hope so.

I found a thread here, about this errormessage but that was with vB3.0 and a dedicated server (and this is the first time I see that error-message). Is that happening, only when using this product? The last message you pasted can't be found in the tracker:

Can it be something else, that happens? :surprised:

Thanks for that thread. It has started right after installing this hack. 99% of the error messages have to do with the troll tracker. So I pretty sure this hack caused it, but I have no clue why or how to fix it. Like in that thread my errors are also on fixed times. Give or take a minute: 00.00 06.00 12.00 18.00

[Tyegurl]

btw i want to thank you for such a quick and helpful reply to my email. that kind of support is so hard to come by. that's just top notch work on your part. thanks again!

you are very easy to find and get in touch with. i wish more coders were that way!

[TMM-TT]

Originally Posted by Tyegurl

btw i want to thank you for such a quick and helpful reply to my email. that kind of support is so hard to come by. that's just top notch work on your part. thanks again!

you are very easy to find and get in touch with. i wish more coders were that way!

I'm a very supportive person.. It's just fun to help

[TMM-TT]

2.0.1 beta has been released. Report bugs, please

[TMM-TT]

Due to a smaller bug that caused a blank page when disabled PM-alerting only, there's now a 2.0.2 with some other fixes too

2.0.2 [beta]

• Alerter caused blank page when PM-reporting disabled
  
• Trolltracker now blocks other usernames too if there's a match with the list in options
  
• Trolltracker now blocks linked IP-addresses listed in options

[TMM-TT]

Bonus release:

2.0.3 [beta]

• Autoblacklist banned users

Meaning, if a user is banned, the user can't even touch your forum anonymously (= not logged in) if there's an ipmatch.

[aveon]

when i search fo ips it gves me this error


<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC>
<HTML><HEAD>
<TITLE>Database Error</TITLE>
</HEAD><BODY>
<H1>Database Error</H1>
The requested URL http://www.mysite.de is not avaliable at the time please try again later.<P>
<HR>
<ADDRESS>Apache/df-exts 1.2 Server at www.mysite.de Port **</ADDRESS>
</BODY></HTML>



also this

You are trying to run this page from the outside of vBulletin. Don't do that.

why do i get this errors sorry im new at this vbulletin stuf thanx...

[kofoid]

I'm getting this error

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.4:

Invalid SQL:
SHOW COLUMNS FROM Yadauser_troll WHERE field != 'username';

MySQL Error : You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'WHERE field != 'username'' at line 1
Error Number : 1064
Date : Sunday, July 16th 2006 @ 06:39:48 PM
Script : http://lets-yada-yada-yada.com/iptra...ame&Submit=Ask
Referrer : http://lets-yada-yada-yada.com/iptra...lip&Submit=Ask
IP Address : 24.8.201.245
Username : Laura
Classname : vb_database

[geppeto]

Originally Posted by kofoid

I'm getting this error

I have error number 1064 and 1062 too when a user make login in forum

Database error in vBulletin 3.5.4:

Invalid SQL:
INSERT INTO db_mysqluser_troll (userid, realip, forwarded_for, username, timestamp, http_via, date, time, opm) VALUES ('2', '172.16.0.5', '', 'geppeto', 1153162500, '', '2006-07-17', '20:55:00', '0');

MySQL Error  : Duplicate entry '0' for key 1
Error Number : 1062
Date         : Monday, July 17th 2006 @ 08:55:00 PM
Script       : http://172.16.0.2/~xxxxx/index.php
Referrer     : http://172.16.0.2/~xxxxx/xxxxx/index.php?do=head
IP Address   : 172.16.0.5
Username     : geppeto
Classname    : vb_database

cheers