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

[Delphiprogrammi]

Hi,

I have the impression this hack is blocking pingdom bots (i'm a pingdom customer)

Ping
PingALink

Pingdoms uses this useragent "Pingdom.com_bot_version_1.4_(http://www.pingdom.com)"

[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by Delphiprogrammi

Hi,

I have the impression this hack is blocking pingdom bots (i'm a pingdom customer)

Ping
PingALink

Pingdoms uses this useragent "Pingdom.com_bot_version_1.4_(http://www.pingdom.com)"

Then just, remove those from the definitions in options.

Although, hard to see how those definitions are blocking that UA.

[Simon Lloyd]

"Ping" would certainly block pingdom, PingAlink would not.

[ozzy47]

I had the Create New Thread turned off for about a year now, and I just re-enabled it, and for some unexplainable reason, it refuses to write a new thread when a bot visits the site. Also when I enable that option it stops writing to the log, I am puzzled.

Yes I have it set to a valid userid, and a valid forumid.

[Simon Lloyd]

Are you using any kind of extra caching mod or optimising mod? Dbtech vboptomise can cause anomalies like this, an uninstall then reinstall could fix it, I suggest before you reinstall you change the version number to say 3.0.4 just to prompt a datastore change.

[ozzy47]

Yeah using the vBoptimize mod.

I changed it up a bit, instead of adding a thread, I have it writing to the DB now, so I can pull the number of blocked bots/spiders from there.

[Simon Lloyd]

Just as long as you're only logging the count as other entries...etc could bloat your database ein no time at all let alone the number of calls to the database could impede a users experience on a large board.

[ozzy47]

Yeah I am going to have to monitor it and see how it goes.

[Black Snow]

Is there a new more up-to-date list of spiders to ban?

[Black Snow]

Originally Posted by ozzy47

Yeah using the vBoptimize mod.

I changed it up a bit, instead of adding a thread, I have it writing to the DB now, so I can pull the number of blocked bots/spiders from there.

Could you share the code to store them to the database?