vent of the day

i have a new member who was on the forum for all of 2 seconds then starts posting his forum all over my d*mn board...how annoying is that! he did it in the middle of the night when i was asleep. i don't mind when people put their forum, website in their sig but this is ridiculous.

and he is a guy and my forum is a wedding forum for crying out loud!

and to top it off, he emailed me to ask me if i could help him with his forum because he liked my arcade and layout. SHEESH!

needless to say, i banned him. :D

i have a new member who was on the forum for all of 2 seconds then starts posting his forum all over my d*mn board...how annoying is that! he did it in the middle of the night when i was asleep. i don't mind when people put their forum, website in their sig but this is ridiculous.

and he is a guy and my forum is a wedding forum for crying out loud!

and to top it off, he emailed me to ask me if i could help him with his forum because he liked my arcade and layout. SHEESH!

needless to say, i banned him. :D

You banned his account name and IP address?

i banned his name but not IP...should i do that also?

unless you want him to register under another username and do the same thing, yes.

I'm with the girls on this one. Kick his butt out for good.

I usually put those guys on Tachy goes to Coventry. They see their posts and think all is well, and dont try to reregister.

If you really want to screw him up, you can do a replacement variable for his domain...

Yeah, give him the deluxe package.

ok, i'm doing it now.

ok, i am in admincp and dont know how to ban IP address...i have seen this here before but of course now cant find it :(

acp --> vBulletin Options --> User Banning Options
Type his IP address in the box beneath Banned IP Addresses

If he accesses via AOL or a cable provider that uses dynamic IPs, banning his IP wont matter because it'll change after a few days or less.

well bleh, I forgot about that.

If he accesses via AOL or a cable provider that uses dynamic IPs, banning his IP wont matter because it'll change after a few days or less.

She can ban the email account right? That's what I did not too long ago. I banned some of Russia.

I usually put those guys on Tachy goes to Coventry. They see their posts and think all is well, and dont try to reregister.

If you really want to screw him up, you can do a replacement variable for his domain...

why keep him around? just get rid of him

Be aware that if he's using AOL, you'll not only ban him but a whole lot of other members or potential members - AOL uses a series of proxies.

hmmm...i'll just wait to see if he comes back...he seems relatively harmless...and i am on the forum about 16 hours a day...

Another little mod I found on .org, was the ability to prevent users from posting URL's in a thread/post unless xx number of posts has been reached.... works well and doesn't seem to add any noticable load on the server.

I can dig you up a direct link if you'd like.... it's on my other lappy at the office...

Another little mod I found on .org, was the ability to prevent users from posting URL's in a thread/post unless xx number of posts has been reached.... works well and doesn't seem to add any noticable load on the server.

I can dig you up a direct link if you'd like.... it's on my other lappy at the office...

can't you just do that in the usergroup permissions?

what he did was post in the title: his-site.com so i dont think it would have caught it.

Personally I never ban IP addresses unless a repeat offender - as above, you could block not simply AOL, but entire university/school/library subnets if you're not careful.

ewww...the annoyance is back...got the banned warning and is trying to reregister so i had to ban his IP address...
it is this...does it look familair?
n021.dhs.gov

That TLD is registered to the US Department of Homeland Security, wich I find truly odd... perhaps it's a public proxy?

i am not sure...i banned the IP and he hasn't been back. did i do something wrong?

Nope, unless you get a nasty letter/email from Homeland Security... (just kidding)

You're of course entitled to remove any disruptive element from your website. I don't think you'll get into any trouble for that.

Looks like your guy has been making a pest of himself elsewhere, too.

See http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-29,GGLJ:en&q=%22n021%2edhs%2egov%22

ok, some of those sites you can kind of understand why dept. homeland security is watching...like the palestinian liberation one...or the hacking forum..

but my forum is a bunch of brides...talking about wedding cakes and flowers...so weird.

Looks like your guy has been making a pest of himself elsewhere, too.

See http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2006-29,GGLJ:en&q=%22n021%2edhs%2egov%22

Perhaps it's time to contact the Department for Homeland Security and send them the IP and dates and times he/she was connected?

It seems strange to me.. If DHS was watching you surely they realize admins can see IPs and resolve them. Wouldn't they at the very least try and hide who they are and watch anonymously

Seems like whom ever this is, is spoofing their IP.

Seems like whom ever this is, is spoofing their IP.
I'm certain that's the case, DB.

ok, some of those sites you can kind of understand why dept. homeland security is watching...like the palestinian liberation one...or the hacking forum..

but my forum is a bunch of brides...talking about wedding cakes and flowers...so weird.


Do you remember what happened to www.weddingchat.com (biggest non-corp wedding board)??? They got hacked badly and reopended four months later after being hacked. It is possible! They are down now forever for other reasons, but before this issue they got them badly.

Do you remember what happened to www.weddingchat.com (biggest non-corp wedding board)??? They got hacked badly and reopended four months later after being hacked. It is possible! They are down now forever for other reasons, but before this issue they got them badly.

tanya, when did this happen? what happened?

tanya, when did this happen? what happened?

You are a wedding professional and you don't know about this?? LOL! OK let me tell you around late September 2005 Ultimate Wedding board was hacked into and taken over by people overseas. They ripped up Carrie's database and since she was not doing backups (which is beyond me) she lost all of her posts. I believe it was over 5 million (or maybe more) since 2000. That was the first board for wedding planning I knew about and posted on frequently and every Bridezilla knows about wedding chat. When you type in "wedding" in either yahoo or google, her page comes up and it still does. It was a sad day, I didn't know what to do. I ended up finding refuge at a small board, became a Super Mod, quit and started my own board because nothing compared to Ultimate Wedding boards. So it's basically history. Bad people do go after Wedding boards...and yep, my site was hacked once too. I lost 10k in posts over that incident.

I don't think they go after wedding boards, per se. I think they go after popular sites, the bigger the better because that translates into more notoriety. It's the same reason all the kiddie-script virus-writers go after Microsoft - inconveniencing the maxiumum number of people possible and garnering the maximum publicity for the exploit - if they went after Mac OS-X or Linux desktop, only about 4 people in the world would even know they'd done it. :)

I don't think they go after wedding boards, per se. I think they go after popular sites, the bigger the better because that translates into more notoriety. It's the same reason all the kiddie-script virus-writers go after Microsoft - inconveniencing the maxiumum number of people possible and garnering the maximum publicity for the exploit - if they went after Mac OS-X or Linux desktop, only about 4 people in the world would even know they'd done it. :)

I agree with you, but some women tend to think that wedding boards are harmless to the world so they will be least likely to get hacked or get any attention for that matter. And it was such a big inconvenience. I lost my original 600 page wedding journal :( over at wedding chat.

You are a wedding professional and you don't know about this?? LOL! OK let me tell you around late September 2005 Ultimate Wedding board was hacked into and taken over by people overseas. They ripped up Carrie's database and since she was not doing backups (which is beyond me) she lost all of her posts. I believe it was over 5 million (or maybe more) since 2000. That was the first board for wedding planning I knew about and posted on frequently and every Bridezilla knows about wedding chat. When you type in "wedding" in either yahoo or google, her page comes up and it still does. It was a sad day, I didn't know what to do. I ended up finding refuge at a small board, became a Super Mod, quit and started my own board because nothing compared to Ultimate Wedding boards. So it's basically history. Bad people do go after Wedding boards...and yep, my site was hacked once too. I lost 10k in posts over that incident.


well, i was just newly engaged in sept. 2005 so didnt start planning my wedding until oct. became a weding forum owner just this year.

that is so sad. i guess you just need to back up often. :(

well, i was just newly engaged in sept. 2005 so didnt start planning my wedding until oct. became a weding forum owner just this year.

that is so sad. i guess you just need to back up often. :(

I do a backup every night. I've learned my lesson the first time around.

I do a backup every night. I've learned my lesson the first time around.

tanya, do you have an easy way to back up? i have a back up of the forum but haven't backed up the database...i don't know how to...any tricks?

friscogal, do you have phpmyadmin in your website control panel - ie, CPanel/Plesk, etc?

You can do easy frequent backups directly from the Admin CP (at least in version 3.6x). I backup to the server as often as I remember. Then periodically, I download a recent copy to my hard drive just in case.

Making a Backup of Your Database
There are three backup options on this page. The first is to make a selective backup of certain tables. This will make a backup of the tables you select and dump it to screen. You then save the resulting page to your local computer. This is likely to make your browser time out if your database is of any significant size. We recommend you check the integrity of this type of backup after you make it and before you would actually need to restore it. e.g. Do It Now. :)

Save data to file on server is similar to how mysqldump works on the command line. This is still subject to PHP timing out, so we cannot recommend this one either if you have a choice. If you must use it, enter the path to and filename of the backup file you want to create. It can have any extension, though you might want to name it .sql to remind you what it is. As is noted on that page, PHP must have write access to the directory you specify. Usually this means you must CHMOD the directory 777. Consult your FTP documentation on how to do this.

CSV Dump of data produces a CSV (comma-separated values) file that can be imported via the command line or phpMyAdmin. This is also subject to PHP timeout as well as browser timeout since this, like the first option, is dumped to screen. You choose one table at a time, the separator character (note this; it is important when you import the file later), what quotes around the data should be, and whether or not to show column names.


It looks like you can also automate the process with this add-on: vB Database Backup Pro (Lite) for vb 3.6 (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=126925)

tanya, do you have an easy way to back up? i have a back up of the forum but haven't backed up the database...i don't know how to...any tricks?

I do it the long way using Cute FTP when I backup my website. I go into vBulletin and download my database to my hard drive (some people say to use a disk). When I try to download from Cpanel it times out so this is why I do this.

Brian is putting you on the right track.

i was worried about doing it from admin cp because it has that warning
Database backup via PHP is only recommended for those with small databases as timeouts may occur. Saving to the server or backup via command line is more reliable.

maybe i will try in the middle of the night and see what happens...i backed up my forum to my computer but didnt know how to do the database...

1. You can use the Admin CP to back up to a write-enabled folder on your server - that's a lot faster than trying to download it so you avoid the time-out issue. If you want a local copy, you can then use FTP to download it when you have time to your hard drive.

2. As I understand it, the problem of using PHP backup to directly download the backup to your hard drive is (a) with a slower internet connection and (b) with a large database, i.e., a lot of members and a lot of posts.

If you backup to the server, this allows you to do more frequent backups - that's my logic. I'm on dialup so to do a phpMyAdmin backup to my hard drive is slow - that means I don't do it as often as I should. The Admin CP option of saving it to my server means daily backups are easy and feasible.

1. You can use the Admin CP to back up to a write-enabled folder on your server - that's a lot faster than trying to download it so you avoid the time-out issue. If you want a local copy, you can then use FTP to download it when you have time to your hard drive.


I save to that option as well as download to my hard drive. Not sure why, but it makes me feel better :o.

i was worried about doing it from admin cp because it has that warning


Database backup via PHP is only recommended for those with small databases as timeouts may occur. Saving to the server or backup via command line is more reliable.


maybe i will try in the middle of the night and see what happens...i backed up my forum to my computer but didnt know how to do the database...

I ignore the error and download anyway. It doesn't time out for me and I have 110k posts on my board. *shrugs* Just click on Go and that will save your forums and posts to your hard drive. The option to save to the server does the same thing but it saves it on your servers vs. your hard drive.

thanks tanya and minstrel, it worked and didnt time out!