Administrative and Maintenance Tools - Troll/ip-tracker, detect multiple accounts/trolls [3.6 compatible]

Continuosly information about updates can also be found here.

Edit 2007-08-07

Since the script needs to be rebuilt from scratch due to some problems with it, I've decided to temporarily stop the distribution. On larger sites, this script may cause heavy lagging when active. There has also been reports on "duplicate keys", that should be fixed. To prevent more problems cause by this hack, it's removed and cannot be downloaded.


History

In 2005 a forum was founded, for a short period of time that was intended to work as a service for people with a common interest - a reality show. The forum grew big and the traffic was very intensive. Moderators worked day and night to assist the forum. Traffic and events in the show made people show different kind of feelings and some of them showed this in strange ways. They said "I'd better register 10 nicknames, just to secure that noone can ban me". Sometimes, when they got banned, they registered new nicks and sometimes they switched ips but they didn't post anything the same day. Next day, they switched ip again and it suddenly got much harder to trace their nicks back to the start.

In 2006, the forum opened again (new season) and we was prepared for this. A script, specialized to trace trolls, was written and the main purpose was to trace things that vBulletin missed. This plugin was requested at the vBulletin forums.


Now, it's here, as a beta production - a trolltracker that stamps all visitors even if they don't post anything. It also, partially, checks if an ip-address can be traced from anonymous proxies by reading headers that proxies are sending to he server (HTTP_VIA and HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR).


Templates to change (Optional): 3


Attached

trolltracker-2.0.3beta.zip - the main archive with the tracker and extras
iptracker.php - A quickfix for the coming version 2.0.4 that changes the SHOW COLUMNS-behaviour-bug in the tracker


The archive

The zip should contain the following files

• The product, currently named product-trolltracker_beta.xml because of it's beta status
• iptracker.php, the tool that makes it easier to trace nicknames and ip's
• iptracker_search.php, htmlcode - the searchform that iptracker.php is using (old code that never used templates)
• trollpost.php, a quite slow script that imports ip's and usernames from the post-table to make it possible to trace older data. (If you run this over a web-interface, it might not work, because of timeouts --screendump--)

How to install

1. Copy *.php to your forumroot
2. Install the product code (choose overwrite if you're upgrading)
3. Check the configuration from your admincp (settings for usergroups that can run the iptracker.php is made from there)

Additional information


Track older ips (2.0.x)

If you want to import older posts, you can do that, but because of timeouts (and bad scripting) trollpost.php may timeout if you run the script from a web-browser. This part is, currently, unsupported, but if someone has any ideas here, feel free to notify me.

OPM Support

The ip-tracker supports RBL Monitor.


How to use it

Use the tracker by calling http://your-forum.com/iptracker.php


Database

The installation creates a table named user_troll for your forum.
The FQDN-support also adds a table called user_trollresolver for the resolver cache (like the one used in the OPM monitor)

Information and issues

• There is no version 1.x - that version was private (this is not an issue)
  
• It's still a beta, so bugs may still annoy us
  
• Testing on vBulletin 3.6.0 rc1: Works fine
• Importing posts with trollpost.php might give strange results if you are using the multiple account detector (AE): reports in forum that are posted with a specific userid makes it look like a troll is using other usernames too

To do

See CHANGELOG for full details


Show the tracker in navbar (v2.0.1+)

To show the tracker in the navbar (only for the admingroups that can be found in the options), edit your template 'navbar' and add this code where you want it to be shown:

 <if condition="$show['trolltracker']"><td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="iptracker.php">Trolltracker</a></td></if>

I chose to put it in the end of navbar, right after this code:

        <if condition="$show['member']">
<td class="vbmenu_control"><a href="login.php?$session[sessionurl]do=logout&amp;logouthash=$bbuserinfo[logouthash]" onclick="return log_out()">$vbphrase[log_out]</a></td>
        </if>

How to show trolls in the onlinelist

Edit template:
whosonlinebit

Find:
</tr>

Add above:

    <if condition="$show['trolldata'] AND $userinfo['trolldata'] != ''">
            <td class="alt1">
            $userinfo[trolldata]
            </td>
        </if>

Edit template:
WHOSONLINE

Find:

</tr>
$onlinebits

Add above:

    <if condition="$show['trolldata']">
            <td class="thead">
            <b>Trolldata</b>
            </td>
        </if>

Support, help, contact

Any questions, requests and bugreports can be sent to me by PM, mail or via threads at http://vbulletin.tornevall.net/


Don't forget to install this plugin

[Hollanda]

Originally Posted by TMM-TT

No, that's probably on me. I'll check it out

Okay thank you, I'll be waiting for it

The problem is caused bij two users on the same ip.

[Quiz]

Originally Posted by TMM-TT

Yes, but blocking users is optional and can be turned off. I only block specific usernames myself but the function is there for paranoid admins

Hi,

I have a question. I tried to turn off the user-blocking function. I just want to recive a message in a forum.

I get the messagge, but the user gets blocked automaticly all the time... can you help me?

greetings
Quiz

[Morning Glory]

This banned everyone this morning. I imported the product-trolltracker_beta_blockdisabled.xml and then tried to overwrite it with the original product and get this error. Now I have no product showing and can't import either of them.


Invalid SQL:
CREATE TABLE user_troll (
`idx` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
`userid` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
`username` varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
`userlink` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
`forwarded_for` varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
`browser` varchar(255) NOT NULL default '',
`http_via` varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
`realip` varchar(15) NOT NULL default '',
`owner` varchar(128) NOT NULL default '',
`timestamp` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
`date` date NOT NULL default '0000-00-00',
`time` time NOT NULL default '00:00:00',
`external` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
`opm` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
`imported` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
PRIMARY KEY (`idx`),
KEY `uscan` (`username`,`realip`)
);
MySQL Error : Table 'user_troll' already exists
Error Number : 1050

[geppeto]

Originally Posted by TMM-TT

Interesting.. Doesn't exit? Try reinstalling the hack

I get the same error. Reinstall de product and the same...

nvalid SQL:
UPDATE user_troll SET alert = 1163771597 WHERE userid = '13' AND deleted = 0 ORDER by alert DESC LIMIT 1;

MySQL Error : Table 'xxxxx_forum.user_troll' doesn't exist Error Number : 1146

One question... my prefix is not in xxxx_forum.(prefix)user_troll, I don't know if this is the problem.

Regards

[Alfa1]

To the posters above: Are you shared hosting? If yes: see my posts in earlier in this thread. All errors sustained until I moved to dedicated hosting. That took care of the problems.

Originally Posted by TMM-TT

Ahh, the amount it shows is the total amount of registered usernames/ip the database has registered since the install. Maybe the nickname you're looking for hasn't been "catched" yet?

The same problem persists. For some obscure reason the tracker lists certain users and does not catch others. Tracking for members which have been posting for some time does not give the expected results, while I can trace them in the adminCP. For this reason I am considering installing version 2.0.0 again, since that did allow me to track all members.

Originally Posted by TMM-TT

Hmm, I think you have a point there... The thing I told you about just disables tracking of proxyusers. You just want to skip reports of the proxied ones. That type of function doesn't exist yet. I'll fix that too

Is there any update for this? Without this feature you simply get swamped in useless reports of dialup/AOL/proxy users.

Originally Posted by TMM-TT

If you use the tracker together with the OPM-hack theres an option called "Ignore OPM-users" you can use. Described:

If the OPM-monitor is installed, use this option to avoid register users using proxies (Keeping track of users that using multiple accounts from anonymous proxies might give unreliable results in the tracker). OPM Monitor is required for this option

Looking at the OPM hack and the errors reported, puts the fear in me. I have been trying the troll tracker out from the beginning, as I would love to have this functionality. Some things are just not working yet. I have much respect for the great effort that you have put into both hacks. The following is meant as constructive and not negative in any way:

I think it would be a great idea if you would get help from an advanced vbulletin coder, to work out the issues with both hacks. I really hope that there is someone willing to review the code and work out the bugs with you. This is a very valuable hack, but it needs a full revision.

[fxs158]

can you keep people from accessing iptracker.php? Is there a way to get the entries for the last day or so?

[white_2kgt]

Is it possible for this to just log those 'trolls' and not block them? I installed this and within a few hrs I started getting emails from people that live together (husbands/wifes/roommates) saying they could get to the forum because they are on 2 usersnames. I just want it to log but not block anyone.

[WATRD]

Originally Posted by DannyBoy8406

Ok, this seems to work for me for so long but then it gives me a DB error:

Same thing here...

Database error in vBulletin 3.6.0:

Invalid SQL:
UPDATE user_troll SET alert = 1167326811 WHERE userid = '3' AND deleted = 0 ORDER by alert DESC LIMIT 1;

MySQL Error : Table 'xxxxxxx.user_troll' doesn't exist
Error Number : 1146
Date : Thursday, December 28th 2006 @ 10:26:51 AM
Script : http://www.xxxxxxx.com/forum/
Referrer : http://www.xxxxxxx.com/home/
IP Address : xx.xx.xx.xx
Username : xxxxxxx
Classname : vb_database

[WATRD]

Originally Posted by WATRD

Same thing here...

It looks like it decided I was a troll, then did something that caused me to get a database error. It looks like everyone it determines to be a troll was getting that DB error until I disabled the product.

I have "Block Trolls" set to "0" with version "trolltracker-2.0.4" and my user id is included in the "Specific users to exclude" section.

Any suggestions?

[WATRD]

Originally Posted by geppeto

I get the same error. Reinstall de product and the same...



One question... my prefix is not in xxxx_forum.(prefix)user_troll, I don't know if this is the problem.

Regards

Same here. I see that it installed to the DB using the table prefix of "vb_", but for some reason when it runs, it's using the DB name.