Mystery Guest? guests disabled, no permissions

[Cheri]

I have disabled guests, and removed all permissions for guests, but a "guest" keeps showing up?

Under "Whos online" It lists a guest, their IP and that it is "Viewing the board index of ..."

   
• Features and Options -> Allow guests to browse the forum - is not checked
• Permissions - guests have 0 permissions

[Shambles]

Did you investigate that IP address? It probably checks out as a spider.

[Cheri]

I tried searching the first couple because I didnt want to actually boot someone that was meant to be there... but only briefly as I didnt really know what I was doing! they are different IP's...

how do you properly investigate IP's?

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Guests will show as long as they get to index.php - which is usually always. They can't see anything though if guest browsing is off.

[Shambles]

how do you properly investigate IP's?

Well, try clicking it then using one of the IP searcch links that should appear.

[Cheri]

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh   so...........

if they are on the login page, even thought they cant log in.......... they show up as a guest "browsing the index" index= index.php..

I do thank you for your replies!!

[Cheri]

Shambles,
I did do that.. I just thought you might know things I do not 
It did not tell me they were or were not spiders. I also used whatever came up at the top of a google search.

Again, thanks for your replies!

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Exactly, and sometimes you can even see guests doing other things too - if they are following old links somewhere, or just guessing where to go.
It can be a bit confusing, but as long as they can call up index.php (meaning they aren't banned on the server level) they will also show up on the whos online list as doing something.

[shadav]

yeah basically it will show guests who knock at the door but they can't come in but they still tried so they got logged

[Cheri]

Exactly, and sometimes you can even see guests doing other things too - if they are following old links somewhere, or just guessing where to go.
It can be a bit confusing, but as long as they can call up index.php (meaning they aren't banned on the server level) they will also show up on the whos online list as doing something.

But they cant actually get to any of the content by just guessing the url, correct?
When I try myself, with a link to a board, but logged out so I am only a guess.. I just get the login page.. which is exactly how I want it to work. We use this as the members only area for our website.. board members, committees etc. each have boards / member groups so they can collaborate but I dont want the content we post there to be accessible to some guest geeky enough to get around the login =)

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

Correct. You can freely test this all, open two browsers, log in one and see the whos online, test access to different pages as a guest in the other browser.

[Cheri]

YOU ROCK! Thank you again!

Now......... when will 2.1  be released? 

[Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen]

You're welcome And regarding 2.1, no promises - but it is progressing very nicely.

[efk]

Just a note from my experience, user who is using VPN can have multiple IP addresses displayed and these can be shown as guest who is searching on Who's Online list. So 1 user with VPN or don't know which tools can be used ... can be seen as few guests and 1 user, and its all just a single user.