Miscellaneous Hacks - Check E-mail Address Before Registration

This mod checks that the user supplied e-mail address is a real address before allowing registration to continue.

Even though we use Verify Email address in Registration, I still get tired of cleaning up bad e-mail addresses.

This mod integrates with the user registration process and performs the following tasks:

1. Syntax checking (configurable) to make sure what was entered is an e-mail address.
2. Looks up the MX records for the e-mail address.
3. Cycles through the mail servers by connecting to each mail server and tries to verify that the e-mail address is a valid address. The cycling stops as soon as a mail server returns a valid or invalid user.

Installation

Install the attached xml product file. The product is active at installation and most sites should run fine with the default settings.

If you run the default configuration, e-mail addresses will be rejected when:

• Syntax doesn't look like an e-mail address
• MX record or A record does not exist for the e-mail domain
• A mail server reports that the e-mail address is invalid

If you run the default configuration, e-mail address will pass when:

• Syntax looks like an e-mail address
• MX record or A record exists for the e-mail domain
• All mail servers timeout or a mail server reports that the e-mail address is valid.

Configuration

This mod is managed from the vBulletin Options -> User Registration Options page. The following options are added to the page:

• Validate Registration E-mail Addresses - Enter a regular expression to use when validating e-mail addresses. Leave the field blank to disable validation. The recommendation is to use the default value.
• Treat E-mail Address As Valid If All Mail Hosts Timeout - If all the mail hosts timeout, should the e-mail address be treated as valid?
  
  NOTE: Changing this to no will reject valid users when your hosting provider doesn't allow fsockopen calls or when the timeout value is too short. The SMTP RFC's allow for a connection request response wait time of up to minues, since this test is real-time with a waiting user, waiting minutes is impractical. Just because a host timesout doesn't mean the host is not there.
• Mail Host Timeout Value (Seconds) - Length of time to wait when trying to open a session with a mail host.
  
  NOTE: Don't set this value too large, if a domain has more than one MX record, the user will have to wait for each connection attempt.
• Does This Host Support fsockopen? - A PHP fsockopen call is used to try and connect to the remote mail servers. Some systems may not support or block these calls. With the value set to Yes, the connection attempts will timeout. GoDaddy's Shared Hosting is an example of a hosting provider that blocks outbound connection attempts.
  
  With this value set to no, the system will try to look up the MX records, but will not attempt to connect to each mail server.

[BadgerDog]

Has anyone installed this mod along side this:

ajaxReg - Ajax Registration, with instant field checking
https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?p=1280844

I was wondering if there are any conflicts and if this mod will still work with the one above?

Thanks

Regards,
Badger

[kollam003]

thnaks installed

[obmob]

This one looks interesting, thanks!

[BadgerDog]

Ok, I think this is one of the first cases of this mod that I've seen reacting to a user registration, but I thought I'd check here to make sure.

User tried to register as johnsmith@patmedia.net (not his real name of course, but domain is real)

He's rejected with a message that says:

Please enter another e-mail address. We were unable to contact your e-mail server and verify that your e-mail address exists. If you continue to have registration problems, please contact us for assistance.

He's able to send me personal complaint email and I can respond to that same email address without a problem. I'm able to "ping" that domain as well. He's tried to register six times over the last week using our regular system. If it is this mod sending that message, it would be a nice add-on to have it also automatically send the same message (copy) to a designated webmaster address too.

So, any idea why it rejects him (if it is this mod?) and now do I simply add him manually to get him registered?

Any feedback would be appreciated....

Regards,
Badger

[sabrawy]

is that working with vr 3.6.7???

[aakhan136]

thanks

[rinkrat]

This is rejecting a lot of my aol registrants and other legitimate addresses.

UNINSTALLED.

[Stax]

thanks for this product

[Antyrael]

No matter what emailaddress I try, every registration failed with "Please enter another e-mail address. We were unable to contact your e-mail server and verify that your e-mail address exists. If you continue to have registration problems, please contact us for assistance.".

I changed

if (!$vbulletin->options['os_email_fsockopen_support']) {

(on line 17) to

if ($vbulletin->options['os_email_fsockopen_support'] != '1') {

and after that registrations work again.

[BadgerDog]

Originally Posted by rinkrat

This is rejecting a lot of my aol registrants and other legitimate addresses.

UNINSTALLED.

Anyone else getting a LOT of rejections on AOL?

It seems that every person who signs up withe their @aol.com gets rejected?

I spend more time handling email complaints than necessary. Thought I'd check to see if there's anything I can do before I un-install this.

Otherwise, it's an excellent idea and I appreciate the coder's efforts. :up:

Regards,
Badger