Icy Phoenix

how can i ban bots? i think my server is very slow!

i think you cannot do this :icy_lol_flag:

I did that with Yahoo bots and my site speeded up a lot ;)


First of all you will need to "study" a bit the bots that browse your site... usually they come from a limited range of IPs... like 2 or 3 classes. Take a day or two and take note of ips of all bots.


Than from ACP go to Users >>> Ban user and insert the IP ranges you want to ban.


Just to give an example, I banned the following ranges (all Yahoo's):


72.30.*.*

74.6.*.*




NOTE: surely I could ban those ips in a more accurately way, but since I have only italian users, I don't care if someone from California cannot register :D

Avoiding Bot's: A guide by Rodrigo Ferrari - phpBB Brasil Administrator (www.phpbbrasil.com.br)


OPEN
includes/usercp_register.php

FIND

Quote:

$username = ( !empty($HTTP_POST_VARS['username']) ) ? phpbb_clean_username($HTTP_POST_VARS['username']) : '';

REPLACE

Quote:

$username = ( !empty($HTTP_POST_VARS['usuario']) ) ? phpbb_clean_username($HTTP_POST_VARS['usuario']) : '';

OPEN
templates/SubSilver/profile_add_body.tpl

FIND ALL

Quote:

name="username"

REPLACE ALL

Quote:

name="usuario"

You can replace the word 'usuario' (in portuguese means user) for any other word that you prefer. This confuses bots, and they cannot register or post messages.

Tested and approved by our community.

I hope this useful for you, guys!

The original link is http://www.phpbbrasil.com.br/phpBB/...der=asc&start=0

Bye!

mih bonatto wrote: [View Post]

Avoiding Bot's: A guide by Rodrigo Ferrari - phpBB Brasil Administrator (www.phpbbrasil.com.br)


OPEN
includes/usercp_register.php

FIND

Quote:

$username = ( !empty($HTTP_POST_VARS['username']) ) ? phpbb_clean_username($HTTP_POST_VARS['username']) : '';

REPLACE

Quote:

$username = ( !empty($HTTP_POST_VARS['usuario']) ) ? phpbb_clean_username($HTTP_POST_VARS['usuario']) : '';

OPEN
templates/SubSilver/profile_add_body.tpl

FIND ALL

Quote:

name="username"

REPLACE ALL

Quote:

name="usuario"

You can replace the word 'usuario' (in portuguese means user) for any other word that you prefer. This confuses bots, and they cannot register or post messages.

Tested and approved by our community.

I hope this useful for you, guys!

The original link is http://www.phpbbrasil.com.br/phpBB/...der=asc&start=0

Bye!

Thanks mih bonatto, this could be very useful to avoid spam bot (I use captcha, till now it has been enough).


Gianni's problem was a bit different: it has problem with his site's speed, because of spider bots continuosly browsing his site. Me too I have had this problem, they don't register or post anything, they just browse every single page of your board... the steal a lot of bandwidth and resources :(


I explained that because it could be useful for someone: for me it took a while (since I am a noob :LOL: ) to understand that my site was slow because of those damn bots.





ps: replacing $HTTP_POST_VARS['username'] doesn't give problems to Firefox for the autofill function?

Hi Vortex.

I undestood Gianni's question, but this changes could help him with his phpBB XS slows. For me it worked.

I created a .htaccess to restring bots, and helped too. Just one protection doesn't help to stop bots, needs a lot of tools to do that...

I just give you, guys, one of them :mrblue:

About your question, I asked Ferrari today, and as soon he answers me, I answer topic too. Or he answers himself! I gave him link to here.

Sorry if I wrote some wrong, but I have a precary english xD

Bye bye

mih bonatto wrote: [View Post]

Hi Vortex.

I undestood Gianni's question, but this changes could help him with his phpBB XS slows. For me it worked.

I created a .htaccess to restring bots, and helped too. Just one protection doesn't help to stop bots, needs a lot of tools to do that...

I just give you, guys, one of them :mrblue:

Yes of course we're here to help each other, didn't want to insinuate you didn't understand... sorry if I gave that impression ;)


Regarding .htaccess I know nothing about it... what should I do to restrict bots access with it?

Quote:

About your question, I asked Ferrari today, and as soon he answers me, I answer topic too. Or he answers himself! I gave him link to here.

Thanks, I'll wait...


ps: don't worry about your english, it's perfectly understandable ;)

Vortex wrote: [View Post]

I did that with Yahoo bots and my site speeded up a lot ;)


First of all you will need to "study" a bit the bots that browse your site... usually they come from a limited range of IPs... like 2 or 3 classes. Take a day or two and take note of ips of all bots.


Than from ACP go to Users >>> Ban user and insert the IP ranges you want to ban.


Just to give an example, I banned the following ranges (all Yahoo's):


72.30.*.*

74.6.*.*




NOTE: surely I could ban those ips in a more accurately way, but since I have only italian users, I don't care if someone from California cannot register :D

thanks!


i have to do to Bantron, isn't it?
If i specify an IP range, it gives me an error: User does not exist.
I tried to put GoogleBot, but same thing.

I have to put an other existing username and ban it?



---EDIT---

found! i can ban only IP address! 8)

Gianni PB wrote: [View Post]

found! i can ban only IP address! 8)

Fine, let us know if your site speeds up with that ;)

Great topic... added to Docs section... :wink:

Thank you all!

I've had problems with the banning system after installing CT v5

I also got the message "user does not excist" while banning ip ranges, what i did to solve it:

Open adminadmin_user_ban.php



Now be aware this disables some functionallity is CT, however till now i've not had any problems by disableling this part.