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

[lazytown]

Does this have an option to just block registrations?

[ozzy47]

No, blocking the bot, in affect stops them from your site all together, which is what you want to do with bad bots.

[Simon Lloyd]

When you've blocked a useragent they offender cannot even load a page on your site, so they cannot register or do anything.

[ggrimes620]

I used to see upwards of about 100-200 bots/guests on my board at all times of the day. I installed Simon's MOD last week and it has practically eliminated all the bad bots from seeing my website! I only see legit bots/guests viewing my website now!

Very happy with this MOD!

[Simon Lloyd]

Nice to hear its doing its job as well ad expected :-)

[ozzy47]

Ok I got a question, every once in awhile, I notice bots that are in the list, showing up in WOL, it is not often, but it does happen.

180.76.5.24 - Whois
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Baiduspider/2.0; +http://www.baidu.com/search/spider.html)

199.21.99.109 - Whois
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; YandexBot/3.0; +http://yandex.com/bots)

Is it possible that at the exact moment those spiders are hitting that a cron is running, and allowing the bots to bypass the check?

[Simon Lloyd]

The bots aren't bypassing the check and the mod is live, it doesn't use cron, the mod runs at every page call. You'll see them now and then as they do actually have to make a call for a page of some sort in order to be checked then redirected, it may be at this moment of redirection that they get on the WOL list, but as you are aware the list isn't live and is subject to the timeout period you set in admincp (mines set for 900 seconds), one other reason you could see them is if you use a mod for who visited ...etc like Paul M's one, they will always show there as his mod is doing it's job recording them but mine is equally doing it's job by transporting them anwhere but they're intended page

[ozzy47]

I know they show in his mod, but it is just strange seeing them show up in online.php page.

I remember back in 2011 when I beta tested this for you, that never happened.

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by Simon Lloyd

The bots aren't bypassing the check and the mod is live, it doesn't use cron, the mod runs at every page call. You'll see them now and then as they do actually have to make a call for a page of some sort in order to be checked then redirected, it may be at this moment of redirection that they get on the WOL list, but as you are aware the list isn't live and is subject to the timeout period you set in admincp (mines set for 900 seconds), one other reason you could see them is if you use a mod for who visited ...etc like Paul M's one, they will always show there as his mod is doing it's job recording them but mine is equally doing it's job by transporting them anwhere but they're intended page

I use that Mod on two boards and never, ever saw a spider on this list, appear there. I have also never seen a spider on this list, showing up in WoL.

I am on vB3.8 though..... And they do not and never have shown up in Paul's Mod.

[ozzy47]

Strange, they have always showed in Paul's mod for me. Which is fine, I just don't get the WOL deal.

Visitors (359),
Logged In (6),
Google Spiders (51),
Majestics MJ12bot Spiders (12),
Bing Spiders (12),
Whois Source Spiders (1),
Baidu Spiders (111),
A Bot Spiders (1),
Wayback Machine Spiders (15),
Squider Spiders (29),
AhrefsBot Spiders (6),
BLEXBot Spiders (1),
Exabot Spiders (1),
Galaxy Spiders (1),
Xenu Link Sleuth Spiders (2),
AboutUs:Bot Spiders (1),
MSNBot Spiders (1),
EasouSpider Spiders (3),
Alexa Archive Spiders (1),
Sucuri Spiders (5),
Ezooms Spiders (2),
Indy Library Spiders (1),
Wget Spiders (1),
Google Favicon Spiders (1),
Nutch Spiders (1),
Crawler4j Spiders (1),
Alexa Bot Spiders (3),
Yahoo! Slurp Spiders (1)