WSN Knowledge Base

IP and Location Block Target

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 22:22:22 GMT

For IP bans and location bans, you have the choice to either make them apply to the whole site or just make them apply to submissions and registrations. Go to Admin Panel -> Settings -> General -> "IP/Location Block Target" (or Admin -> Members -> Settings -> IP Bans in versions older than 9.2.1, for which the option only applies to IP bans).

Blocking from the entire site means people with affected IP addresses will see nothing but a "you've been banned" message (the "Banned" template from your theme) no matter what page of your site they load. The one exception to this is that if you set Admin Panel -> Settings -> General -> "Allow Banned to Contact?" to "yes" then they'll be able to use the contact form to get in touch with you and request unbanning.

Blocking from submission and registration only means people with affected IP addresses will see most of your site the same as everyone else does. When they attempt to register an account, submit a article or post a comment they'll get a message saying their IP has been blocked. If invites are enabled, they can still register using an invite link. If someone is already a registered member, then they'll be presumed trustworthy and will not be blocked from article and comment submissions.

In general, it's better to block from just submission and registration so that false positives are less inconvenient and you lose less advertising revenue. Blocking IPs/locations from the whole site will also result in your long-time members being blocked if they share the IP range or they go on vacation to one of the locations.

Blocking Locations

Mon, 08 Jun 2015 21:27:09 GMT

At Admin -> Settings -> General -> "Block Locations" (or Admin -> Members -> Settings in versions older than 9.2.1) we have an option to block all visitors from a particular location. If you don't see it, you may not have activated geolocation yet and will need to do so. This can be either a whole site block or just a block from submitting or registering, depending on your selection at Admin -> Settings -> General -> "IP/Location Block Target".

Location-based blocking can be very useful for a site that gets heavy spam from certain places that never supply legitimate traffic. If the spam is too much to deal with manually and it all comes from Guangzhou, China then you can enter the location "Guangzhou" to block it at the city level. If you have a site of only regional interest and are certain you don't want anyone from China viewing it, you can enter "China" to block the entire country -- but use this carefully, because people from your country may be trying to access your site while on vacation/business in China.

If you've activated the invites system on your switches page, people who are invited by another member are allowed to register despite the IP and location blocks because someone is vouching for them. You may want to send people special invites to help them get around the block if they contact you.

Note that people who are location-banned will get a message saying their IP address has been blocked. The location is calculated from their IP address, so it is an IP-based block.

Banning IPs

Mon, 22 Mar 2004 10:51:41 GMT

At Admin Panel -> Members -> Member Settings, you have a variety of banning options. You can ban proxies, ban malicious IPs identified by stopforumspam.com, block all unresolvable host names (dangerous), block email domains, block host names, block city names, or simply block IP addresses either from the whole site or just from registering.

You can find IPs by editing the profile of a problem user to find their recorded IP, or by editing a link to see the submitter IP. You can also find IPs of people rating articles, by clicking the 'show individual votes' link on the article details page.

Note that you can ban wide IP ranges. Banning the IP 12.25.36 will also block 12.25.36.43.7, etc... if what you type in the IP ban box matches the begining of the IP, the IP will be banned.

You can also select if you wish to ban these IPs from the whole site or simply stop them from submitting articles/comments and registering. Since in banning an IP range you may often block a few innocents, it may be safer to let them continue viewing without being able to submit.