Disallow guests to view threads, must register first

Yes I know that there is already a a feature to stop guests from viewing threads, but then this also shows all the posts and threads counters to zero, and under Last Post it will say never (which sucks ). But, with my hack, it just asks guests to either login or register when viewing a thread and still shows all the right numbers

Instructions

Open archive/index.php and find

PHP Code:

    $title .= ' - ' . $foruminfo['title'];
}
else
{
    $do = 'index';
} 


Below, add

PHP Code:

if ($bbuserinfo['userid'] == 0 AND !preg_match("#(google|slurp@inktomi|yahoo! slurp)#si", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'])) 
{ 
    print_no_permission(); 
} 


Open showthread.php and find

PHP Code:

globalize($_REQUEST, array('perpage' => INT, 'pagenumber', 'highlight' => STR, 'goto')); 


Below, add:

PHP Code:

if ($bbuserinfo['userid'] == 0 AND !preg_match("#(google|slurp@inktomi|yahoo! slurp)#si", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']))
{
    print_no_permission();
} 


Open template threadbit and find:

PHP Code:

<td class="alt1Active" id="t$thread[threadid]" title="$thread[preview]"> 


Replace it with

PHP Code:

<td class="alt1Active" id="t$thread[threadid]" <if condition="$show['member']">title="$thread[preview]"</if>> 


Done!

[Onkel_Tom]

There is still a problem if your vB is closed for guest and a user registers at the forum without click on the activation eMail, he can still read threads in the forum!

I found the solution for one usergroupID in the thread.

PHP Code:

if ($bbuserinfo['userid'] == 0 or $bbuserinfo['usergroupid'] == 1) 


But for more usergroupID's it should look like:

PHP Code:

//if ($bbuserinfo['userid'] == 0 or $bbuserinfo['usergroupid'] == 1 or $bbuserinfo['usergroupid'] == 3 or $bbuserinfo['usergroupid'] == 4 or $bbuserinfo['usergroupid'] == 8 or $bbuserinfo['usergroupid'] == 11 AND !preg_match("#(google|slurp@inktomi|yahoo! slurp|lycos|ask jeeves|scooter|fast-webcrawler|turntinbot|msnbot|webcrawler|Infoseek|W3C_Val|googlebot)#si", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'])) 


Is there a solution to reduce the line with the usergroupid checks like or $bbuserinfo['usergroupid'] == in array[1, 3, 4, 8, 11] or something like that ?

[IIstix]

Is there a link explaining how to how to do this via a template?

Originally Posted by Zachery

could also be done via a template mod
in a slightly differnt way of course ;D

[maggie]

I've gotten all turned around in this thread, I'm wondering if someone can help me please?
I have one forum that I don't want ANYONE to see in any way (through searches, archives, nothing) unless they have special permission (admin or access masking).
One forum that I want registered members to have access to, and guests at least be able to see that there ARE threads in there, just not be able to view the actual threads.
And one forum that I want guests to be able to participate in.
So basically, I want the "can't view at all" AND the "open" options... pain in the rear, aren't I?

[gorman]

Originally Posted by IIstix

Is there a link explaining how to how to do this via a template?

Yes, I would be interested too...

[Raitsa]

Originally Posted by Raitsa

I am feeling really stupid cos i cant get this hack to work: my postcount remains at 0 at all forums.

Stupid i was. Again.

Of course i did not change the permissions for unregistered guests, i assumed they should see the posts automatically after applying this hack.
But since i had not given them rights to view the forum topics, i could not get this to work at all.
But now that i changed the forum rights settings they are allowed to see the topics, i get the right number of posts for them as well.
(But they still cant read the threads, only view them, as it was meant too).

[WEForums]

Nice hack and all, but I just did it this way:

PHP Code:

<if condition="$bbuserinfo['userid']">
             
                            <div>$post[message]</div>
                            <!-- / message -->
<else />Your message, blah blah.</if> 


[Natch]

Is there any way to tie in the $vboptions[spiderstrings] array into the spider-list - ???

[N00BIE]

nice hack thanx =]

[gr3g0]

I'm using this to keep out some determined fools on my site. For the benefit of anyone else who may be doing this, make sure you follow similar instructions as described in post #1 of this thread and apply the change to the following files in the same place:

• printthread.php
• search.php (it's possible to "find all posts by this user" and read posts that way)
• showpost.php (in case a direct url is "guessed" or otherwise)

ALSO - we have all new registrants moderated, however these hacks only considered unregistered users. This meant people could "apply" to join the board and thereby skip all of these measures (by virtue of moving from the "guest" usergroup to the COPPA or "wait for email confirmation" usergroup).

As a result, all pages that I changed had a longer line added to them to cover all the appropriate usergroups:

if (($bbuserinfo['userid'] == 0 or $bbuserinfo['usergroupid'] == 1 or $bbuserinfo['usergroupid'] == 3 or $bbuserinfo['usergroupid'] == 4) AND !preg_match("#(google|slurp@inktomi|yahoo! slurp)#si", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'])) 
{ 
    print_no_permission(); 
}

Don't forget to also amend the usergroup permissions for these usergroups so that they are the same as guests.

Of course, this all depends on your motives for keeping people out. Threads in our board are private so this was appropriate for us

[boiboi]

nice hack can google still index archives?

[TheOmegaCircle]

Anyone knows how get this work with 3.0.1?
(Showthread.php does not containt this code:

globalize($_REQUEST, array('perpage' => INT, 'pagenumber', 'highlight' => STR, 'goto'));

Pasting the new code below a similar place does not work...

[emtee]

Originally Posted by IndyWebDesign

Well the above worked great to tell a guest they needed to login but when I'm logged in even as an admin I get the error:

you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

Same here! After awhile banging my head to the walls trying to figure out why it also blocks other usergroups - not just the specified group which is guest/not logged in - to view threads. Too bad I had to uninstall this. I check the codes very carefully but it still refused to work! I'm using 3.0.3 and this hack doesn't let me (admin) and other usergroups view threads that are supposed to block only guests/not logged-in from viewing.

If anyone can find a fix, please post it!!! Thanks in advance. This is a very useful hack. I don't know why this feature is not default in vB3. Plain s2pid!!!!!!!!!

[boiboi]

Google for some reason has stop indexing my site after I blocked the archives from being viewed by non members. The purpose of the archive is has nothing to do with archiving but instead it's work around to make vb3 search-engine-friendly. So the solution would be to uninstall the hack from archive and remove the archive link in the footer?

[Onkel_Tom]

Originally Posted by boiboi

Google for some reason has stop indexing my site after I blocked the archives from being viewed by non members. The purpose of the archive is has nothing to do with archiving but instead it's work around to make vb3 search-engine-friendly. So the solution would be to uninstall the hack from archive and remove the archive link in the footer?

You can also replace your line in index.php of /archive directory to let Google and other important search engines in your archive but not unregistered persons

$grouparray = array ( 3,4); 
if (in_array($bbuserinfo['usergroupid'],$grouparray) OR $bbuserinfo['userid'] == 0 AND !preg_match("#(google|slurp@inktomi|yahoo! slurp|lycos|ask jeeves|scooter|fast-webcrawler|turntinbot|msnbot|webcrawler|Infoseek|W3C_Val|googlebot)#si", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']))
{ 
	  echo "<center><font face=verdana, arial, helvetica size=3>You are not allowed to show our archive.<br><br>Your have to <a href=\"$vboptions[bburl]/register.php?\">register</a> first at $vboptions[bbtitle] to show threads in our forums.<br><br>If you are registered at our forum it could be that you are not logged in our your account must first be checked and enabled from an Administrator.</font></center>\n<hr />\n";
	 
    print_no_permission(); 
}

just replace the usergroups in $grouparray you want to disallow to have access to your archive.

For my Board Google is idexing all threads in archive and it works great

[DarknessDivine]

Originally Posted by Onkel_Tom

You can also replace your line in index.php of /archive directory to let Google and other important search engines in your archive but not unregistered persons

$grouparray = array ( 3,4,8,11); 
if (in_array($bbuserinfo['usergroupid'],$grouparray) OR $bbuserinfo['userid'] == 0 AND !preg_match("#(google|slurp@inktomi|yahoo! slurp|lycos|ask jeeves|scooter|fast-webcrawler|turntinbot|msnbot|webcrawler|Infoseek|W3C_Val|googlebot)#si", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']))
{ 
	  echo "<center><font face=verdana, arial, helvetica size=3>You are not allowed to show our archive.<br><br>Your have to <a href=\"$vboptions[bburl]/register.php?\">register</a> first at $vboptions[bbtitle] to show threads in our forums.<br><br>If you are registered at our forum it could be that you are not logged in our your account must first be checked and enabled from an Administrator.</font></center>\n<hr />\n";
	 
    print_no_permission(); 
}

just replace the usergroups in $grouparray you want to disallow to have access to your archive.

For my Board Google is idexing all threads in archive and it works great

Will this also work with 3.0.1???

[Onkel_Tom]

Originally Posted by DarknessDivine

Will this also work with 3.0.1???

Why not ?
$bbuserinfo, $usergroupid and print_no_permission() is the same for vB3 in all Versions right now.

[emtee]

Hi Onkel Tom,

Does it work with 3.0.3 ? I have tried Gary W's code but unfortunately it works for all usergroups (don't know why???) not just guest/not logged in, so if you could post the instruction from scratch for all the files, it would really help me. I think I'm in the same boat with IndyWebDesign.

Originally Posted by IndyWebDesign

Well the above worked great to tell a guest they needed to login but when I'm logged in even as an admin I get the error:

You do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:

Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.

Thanks.

[Onkel_Tom]

Originally Posted by emtee

Hi Onkel Tom,
Does it work with 3.0.3 ? I have tried Gary W's code but unfortunately it works for all usergroups (don't know why???) not just guest/not logged in, so if you could post the instruction from scratch for all the files, it would really help me. I think I'm in the same boat with IndyWebDesign.
Thanks.

As I wrote one post before my code is working for all vB 3 Versions right now. I using vB3.0.3 on my Boards too and it works.

Your find the instruction of the Hack in the first post. I only changed some parts for better fitting on my own wishes, so I posted my code which is working for the most recent search engines.

This code can be placed in /archive/index.php to allow search engines which are written in the code to index this pages.

If you want to use my code instead of Gary W's code for the archive just replace in /archive/index.php:

if ($bbuserinfo['userid'] == 0 AND !preg_match("#(google|slurp@inktomi|yahoo! slurp)#si", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'])) 
{ 
    print_no_permission(); 
}

With my code:

$grouparray = array ( 3,4); 
if (in_array($bbuserinfo['usergroupid'],$grouparray) OR $bbuserinfo['userid'] == 0 AND !preg_match("#(google|slurp@inktomi|yahoo! slurp|lycos|ask jeeves|scooter|fast-webcrawler|turntinbot|msnbot|webcrawler|Infoseek|W3C_Val|googlebot)#si", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']))
{ 
	  echo "<center><font face=verdana, arial, helvetica size=3>You are not allowed to show our archive.<br><br>Your have to <a href=\"$vboptions[bburl]/register.php?\">register</a> first at $vboptions[bbtitle] to show threads in our forums.<br><br>If you are registered at our forum it could be that you are not logged in our your account must first be checked and enabled from an Administrator.</font></center>\n<hr />\n";
	 
    print_no_permission(); 
}

You can add or remove search engines by editing this line:

!preg_match("#(google|slurp@inktomi|yahoo! slurp|lycos|ask jeeves|scooter|fast-webcrawler|turntinbot|msnbot|webcrawler|Infoseek|W3C_Val|googlebot)#si",

for each new spider add his user agent identification to the line with a "|" between like "spider1|spider2|spider3"

The echo syntax is only for index.php of archive because if you use this code and a unauthorised person will access the archive only a white page is shown. Therefore I added the echo information to the screen to show "what is wrong".

I used the "$grouparray = array ( 3,4); " function to define my usergroups which are not allowed to access the archive. You can put here any usergroup ID you want not to access your archive separated by ",". Usergroup 8 and 11 are defined groups from my board, just remove that both group ID's.

I hope I could help and the instructions are easy to understand

[emtee]

Very cool, I will try this. Thanks a lot man!!!

[DarknessDivine]

Tried it, looks great! Many thanks to you....

[DoKoK]

great job,

Install

[DoKoK]

I read a few pages of this topic and I don't see my question answered.

It might be in the other pages but anyway here it is:

Is there a way to let my guests see the News forum topics and not be able to open the others?

[PAINTBALLM]

installed

[nonet]

I've been playing around with this hack and MAY have come up with a forumula to allow spiders to still view threads while denying permission to guest. I am not a coder by trade so please check this code out and see if it works for you. I've been running it about 3-4 hours and it seems spider friendly on my site.

There are three files to change and one file to upload.

archive/index.php
includes/functions.php
showthread.php

Upload this file and place in your forum root directory and the archive directory.
spiders.txt



Open archive/index.php and find:

$title .= ' - ' . $foruminfo['title'];
}
else
{
$do = 'index';
}

Below, add:

if (restrict_guest($bbuserinfo['userid']))
{
print_no_permission();
}

Open showthread.php and find:

globalize($_REQUEST, array('perpage' => INT, 'pagenumber', 'highlight'
=> STR, 'goto'));

Below, add:

if (restrict_guest($bbuserinfo['userid']))
{
print_no_permission();
}

In the same file find the lines:

if ($bbuserinfo['userid'] == 0 or $bbuserinfo['usergroupid'] == 3)
{
print_no_permission();
}

And replace them with:

if ($bbuserinfo['userid'] == 0 or $bbuserinfo['usergroupid'] == 3 and
!$spider_flag) 

{

print_no_permission();

}

In the same file find the lines:

if (!($forumperms & CANVIEWOTHERS) AND ($thread['postuserid'] !=
$bbuserinfo['userid'] OR $bbuserinfo['userid'] == 0)) {
print_no_permission();
}

And replace them with:

if (!($forumperms & CANVIEWOTHERS) AND ($thread['postuserid'] !=
$bbuserinfo['userid'] OR ($bbuserinfo['userid'] == 0 AND
!$spider_flag))) {
print_no_permission();
}

Open functions.php and at the end before

?>

Add:

function restrict_guest($user_id)
{

global $_SERVER, $spider_flag;

$user_agent = strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);

$spider_flag = false;

if ($user_agent != "")

{

$spiders = file('./spiders.txt');

for ($i=0, $n=sizeof($spiders); $i<$n; $i++)

{

if (!empty($spiders[$i]))

{

if (is_integer(strpos($user_agent,

trim($spiders[$i]))))

                                {

                                      $spider_flag = true;

                                       break;

                               }

                       }

               }

       }



       if ($user_id == 0 AND !$spider_flag)

       {

                return true;

        }

       return false;

}

DONE!

[dorkus]

Thanks Gary.

[cschuck3]

Yea I needed this, I was waiting for this!!

[Neutral Singh]

Originally Posted by cschuck3

Yea I needed this, I was waiting for this!!

Hi

I have installed this hack with gr8 results... my only problem is that i have a links partner section on the main forum itself... now what is happening is that when these link partners try to periodically locate their links in the forum they get the access denied message and they remove my links from their website.

Just as we did with archive section... Can we also exclude a selected forum from being affected by this hack. i mean that single particular forum should available as usual to anyone and everyone without any restriction.

Please guide me otherwise i am left with no option but to compromise on this hack.

Regards

[Sleepyk]

before i install this, does it work with vb 3.0.3?

[bamaster]

Originally Posted by Sleepyk

before i install this, does it work with vb 3.0.3?

Works on mine!

See here, for a protected forum:
http://www.allbowling.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=11

[Oreamnos]

Originally Posted by bamaster

Works on mine!

See here, for a protected forum:
http://www.allbowling.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=11

BTW, who has access to this forum on your site? all registered users? special usergroups? admins?

I am just about to install this and just wanted to check what you were doing.

[jzewatsky]

Where do add the code for showthread.php in vb 3.0.3? I've searched the php several times for the "globalize....." line and have not found it. Thanks in advance for the help.

[bamaster]

Originally Posted by Oreamnos

BTW, who has access to this forum on your site? all registered users? special usergroups? admins?

I am just about to install this and just wanted to check what you were doing.

Yes, all registered users. Actually, Registered and Imported users... since I imported my users from phpBB.

[bamaster]

Originally Posted by jzewatsky

Where do add the code for showthread.php in vb 3.0.3? I've searched the php several times for the "globalize....." line and have not found it. Thanks in advance for the help.

Read post #111 in this thread to see the altered code. He said it didn't work for him, but it did for me.

[rushabh]

Hi,

I have v3.0.3 too and really cant understand the part about the showthread. Am a beginner in .php so please understand.

What exactly do I find in the showthread and what do I add/replace?

Thanks much

R

[jzewatsky]

bamaster,

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried it (post 111) and am still not working. Would you mind posting exactly how you got it to work? Are we working with different VB ver's?

[MauriceReed]

Hi we have got this hack installed on our forum www.gob++++es.co.uk and it seems to be working fine.

Question, does anybody know what impact, if any, this has on google spiders etc? I have submitted our site to google and some other search engines but vey little evidence of google spiders appearing. On another forum to which I belonged they were regularly visiting.


cheers

[boiboi]

no impact on yahoo whatsover.

[glock22]

Well, I installed the initial code on my 3.0.6 board that I just installed and it worked great.. I thought it was bulletproof... Well , there seems to be a problem. When users are logged in they do not have access to their subscription panel and they cannot use the drop down menu for subscribing to thread or forum. When they click they get a message that they do not have suffiecient privilages etc.... They can read and reply to threads... They cannot use the subsciption.php correctly. I even tried the fix that got posted for the subscription.php.. Still nothing

Nikos

This hack is integral to the success of my forum. ANy help is appreciated.

[glock22]

It seems like admin and supermoderators can access the

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/subscription.php? page

but normal users cannot.. I can't figure it out

Nikos

[boiboi]

Strange.. works ok on mine. you shouldn't have edited subscription.php