Here's a couple questions for the mods here, or anyone familiar with running phpbb.
I use phpBB for my forums. Don't know if I just need some education on how the settings work, or if it's even possible.
I'm having a problem with lots of spambot (or something similar) users creating accounts. Fortunately they aren't able to post anything.
Q1: Is there some way to prevent these users from signing up?
Similarly, I suspect a lot of these are from small handful of domain/ips. But I can't find the user's ip anywhere in the system, let alone anywhere that I could block ip ranges.
Q2: Am I missing something, is there a way to block users by IP?
Over the last ~2 months, I've had more than 1200 new "spambot" user accounts created.
In the general board settings, I have "Enable account activation" set to "Admin". I suppose that means an account can't be used until the admin (me) approves.
Because of this, I'm supposed to get an email whenever a new account is created so I can approve the user.
I haven't really kept count, but I think I've had less than 10 new account emails during that time. That's 1200+ new accounts, with < 10 emails.
Q3: How are these accounts being created without an activation email being sent to me?
Please help!!
phpBB Administration question
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- Grunt
- Posts: 22
- Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2007 5:03
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I'm not expert on this, haven't set this board up, either. This board currently uses custom, I guess, script in the registration that the spam bots can't pass, that already keeps them out. I think there is some way to block certain IPs, but don't know. No idea about the third... Well, this wasn't very helpful. Perhaps asking at the phpBB forums (I guess there are ones) might help.
My newest mod - Commander Keen: Sunset: viewtopic.php?t=8568 | codename H.Y.E.N.A.
In our "Administration Panel" under "User Admin" the selection "Ban Control" lets us ban ip addresses or even ranges. As far as I know, this is the default phpBB setting, but as I didn't set it up, I can't be positive.
To check the IP address, there is a box on each post next to Quote and Edit that has a little "ip" written on it.
As for your other questions, I can't really be of help, sorry.
To check the IP address, there is a box on each post next to Quote and Edit that has a little "ip" written on it.
As for your other questions, I can't really be of help, sorry.
- entropicdecay
- Mad Mushroom
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- Grunt
- Posts: 22
- Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2007 5:03
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Thanks! Very helpful!
I missed a very important detail:
These "users" haven't posted anything. So I can't see their ip by looking at a post.
Also - This was about my own forum, where I don't have time to waste on pruning the user list daily. I wasn't suggesting changing the pckf - this forum seems to be well-managed and doesn't have 1300+ fake users. (It's over 1300 now.) But I just might look into this SMF myself...
I missed a very important detail:
These "users" haven't posted anything. So I can't see their ip by looking at a post.
Also - This was about my own forum, where I don't have time to waste on pruning the user list daily. I wasn't suggesting changing the pckf - this forum seems to be well-managed and doesn't have 1300+ fake users. (It's over 1300 now.) But I just might look into this SMF myself...
- DaVince
- lazy/busy Keener
- Posts: 1476
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Another forum I know of moved successfully, everything being kept intact (except maybe some special characters since the default character set is different on SMF). I'm not sure what tool they used for that, maybe I could ask?elecdude33 wrote:If we switched to SMF, would we keep the posts, postcounts, users' accounts, etc.?
Oh yeah, you can always see the users' IPs in peoples' profiles in SMF, though spambots tend to have randomized IPs.
Wow look at me I'm lurking
- entropicdecay
- Mad Mushroom
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Hmm. Well, good to know it's possible, at any rate. But I don't think many people would be all that comfortable with changing forums again this soon.DaVince wrote:Another forum I know of moved successfully, everything being kept intact (except maybe some special characters since the default character set is different on SMF). I'm not sure what tool they used for that, maybe I could ask?elecdude33 wrote:If we switched to SMF, would we keep the posts, postcounts, users' accounts, etc.?
Oh yeah, you can always see the users' IPs in peoples' profiles in SMF, though spambots tend to have randomized IPs.