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

[fly]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

I suspect accounts held on some of their servers are of no use to your forum and are scrapping content or emails..etc

Banning bots, as i've always said is a personal thing

Okay, but if I recall correctly this only bans by user agent, not IP block and therefore would be ineffective to ban 'AWS'.

[Simon Lloyd]

Why would it be ineffective banning them? every device that accesses the internet...etc has a UserAgent, you just need to find the useragent and i show you how to do that in the links in the mod description.

Read this: http://www.webmasterworld.com/search...rs/4368965.htm

If you really want to ban ip's then https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=268146

[fly]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

Why would it be ineffective banning them? every device that accesses the internet...etc has a UserAgent, you just need to find the useragent and i show you how to do that in the links in the mod description.

Read this: http://www.webmasterworld.com/search...rs/4368965.htm

If you really want to ban ip's then https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=268146

Because since Amazon runs a cloud hosting service, anyone can own an AWS server. Hell, I have one. There is no ONE service and user agent on AWS, so its not possible to ban all AWS servers by user agent.

[Simon Lloyd]

But not ALL AWS users are bad, are you? , agreed you cannot ban a server but every bot, spider, person or device that comes your way will have a UA that you can ban.

[fly]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

But not ALL AWS users are bad, are you? , agreed you cannot ban a server but every bot, spider, person or device that comes your way will have a UA that you can ban.

The request was to ban AWS servers by user agent. That's not possible.

(And technically you don't even have to send a user agent.)

[Simon Lloyd]

The request wasn't specifically to ban the servers by UA , if you send a malformed or blank UA then you can ban those too

As a side note i noticed that you haven't downloaded the latest version of this mod or marked it installed, have you uninstalled it, if so could i ask why? just helps me develop more robust things in the future.

[fly]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

The request wasn't specifically to ban the servers by UA , if you send a malformed or blank UA then you can ban those too

As a side note i noticed that you haven't downloaded the latest version of this mod or marked it installed, have you uninstalled it, if so could i ask why? just helps me develop more robust things in the future.

I started with this mod. However, my server at the time was so resource starved that I needed to block the spiders before it got to PHP/MYSQL. Nothing wrong with it. It worked well. I just couldn't afford the resources.

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by fly

The request was to ban AWS servers by user agent. That's not possible.

(And technically you don't even have to send a user agent.)

Yes it is. Enter it exactly like it appears in the user agent string.

"amazonaws"

[fly]

Originally Posted by Max Taxable

Yes it is. Enter it exactly like it appears in the user agent string.

"amazonaws"

Yes, but no one is using that UA. Amazon has no reason to crawl *any* site.

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by fly

Yes, but no one is using that UA. Amazon has no reason to crawl *any* site.

Amazon AWS is their hosting they sell. And yes they also crawl the web: http://aws.amazon.com/search-engines/

I have it blocked as well, using this Mod.

Here is how I decide what UAs I block:

1.) Is it beneficial for my site to have it crawling?

2.) Does it behave nicely? Does it obey robots.txt?

3.) If in any way suspicious, it goes in this Mod.

Like the developer says, it's all about personal choice.