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Misc questions.

Started by Antwerp, April 23, 2013, 12:18:05 PM

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Antwerp

Hi there,

I help out on a new forum (2.0.4) and I was hoping you could help me out with a couple of things.

1) Can I assume that mods for 2.0 will probably work with a 2.0.4 forum?

2) Can you suggest a (hopefully simple) way of preventing a banned IP from repeatedly hitting (probing?) the forum? The forum is not much more than a month old but this particular IP has hit the forum over 400 times. It is obviously automated, as seen from the frequency and pattern of hits. The hits occur a few times daily and are in groups of 8 fast hits. The error log will also include '?action=login2'.

3) Is there a way to download/print logs and reports?

Thanks in advance.


Matthew K.

Hey there and welcome to the SMF Community!

1) Yes, 2.0.1, 2.0.2, 2.0.3, and 2.0.4 are all security patches and most of the edits made with the patches should not affect anything a mod touches. You can always try installing a mod using version emulate, and just stop if you get any errors.

2) You could ban their IP server side - in cPanel for instance, which would stop them from getting on the SMF logs. Although I do have to agree it's soo annoying getting banned errors...

Kindred

on the matter of logs....   no, ther eis no "print page" or download  for logs
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Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

Antwerp

Thanks for the fast reply :)

Regarding your suggestion for 2) I have not come across an option to ban at server side in the Admin centre. Could you point me to it please?

Thanks.

Arantor

There's no 'server side' ban in the admin panel, because SMF can't do that. It can only ban within SMF itself.

If you want to ban at server side, you'll need to go to your hosting control panel.

Antwerp

Thanks Kindred. I wondered if there might be a way of locating the logs themselves and d/l manually perhaps?

Arantor

The logs are in the database. They are likely not in a format that would be easily usable to you.

Matthew K.

For reference, the table is {db_prefix}log_errors. Although as has been said, the format isn't quite as friendly and probably not suited for your needs.

kat

Quote from: Antwerp on April 23, 2013, 12:18:05 PM1) Can I assume that mods for 2.0 will probably work with a 2.0.4 forum?

Please... Read my sig. :)

For the "How?", click it.

Matthew K.

@Kat - When you install a modification it automatically backs up any files that it changes before it makes those changes...so you're pretty safe to not backup any files before you install a modification via Package Manager.

Arantor

Users should make backups *anyway* of both files and database.

Antwerp

Quote from: Arantor on April 23, 2013, 12:41:34 PM
There's no 'server side' ban in the admin panel, because SMF can't do that. It can only ban within SMF itself.

If you want to ban at server side, you'll need to go to your hosting control panel

Ahh... thought the 'cPanel' might have referred to the Admin Centre :)

I do not have access to the forum server - the owner is very new to running a forum. Would it be a fairly obvious process (I'm guessing it would be) if I were to suggest it to him to implement? And this would stop the IP from even reaching the forum?

Thanks again, and thanks for the welcome :)

Arantor

It is not necessarily that difficult, depends on the hosting as to what options they will give out.

But yes it would stop the IP even reaching the forum.

Matthew K.

It'd be simple to do, really easy if you have cPanel. And yes, it would stop them from reaching SMF as I said in my first post.


Edit: Ninja'd

Antwerp

Backups: I have been careful to use the backup function before making changes. Though, if I remember correctly, it only saves database. Arantor, you mentioned database and files?

Arantor

Yup, you need to backup *both*.

kat

I always think in a "Belt'n'braces" way, Doodle. Better safe than sorry and all that. :)

Arantor

Especially as it's possible to disable the auto backup, especially when you have a heavily modded site and find a gigabyte of auto backups.

Antwerp

Ok, thanks to all for the friendly and speedy support - very much appreciated :)

I'll checkout the files backup. I just assumed that the backup feature (database) was the extent of the backup option.

Got some very welcome advice to go away with now.

Thanks again.

Kindred

also, be aware - the backup database option in the smf admin tools is problematic in many situations.  A database backup done from CPanel or phpMyAdmin is the better choice
Слaва
Украинi

Please do not PM, IM or Email me with support questions.  You will get better and faster responses in the support boards.  Thank you.

"Loki is not evil, although he is certainly not a force for good. Loki is... complicated."

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