Unregistered users are hammering my site!

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  • Meestor_X
    Senior Member
    • Apr 2006
    • 637
    • 3.8.x

    [Forum] Unregistered users are hammering my site!

    Is there any way to stop unregistered users from hammering my site and overloading the mysql server? I have a forum with very few visitors and only a cheap shared host, which is plenty for the 1 or 2 people that visit the site legitimately. However, I keep getting "mysql has gone away" errors, and I'm sure my host will shut the site down soon if the mysql load doesn't get reduced.

    So, is there anyway to limit queries or other database load for unregistered users?
    -Andy.
    http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com
    http://www.mindplacesupport.com
  • Graham Walters
    Senior Member
    • Feb 2013
    • 143
    • 5.1.x

    #2
    Originally posted by Meestor_X
    Is there any way to stop unregistered users from hammering my site and overloading the mysql server? I have a forum with very few visitors and only a cheap shared host, which is plenty for the 1 or 2 people that visit the site legitimately. However, I keep getting "mysql has gone away" errors, and I'm sure my host will shut the site down soon if the mysql load doesn't get reduced.

    So, is there anyway to limit queries or other database load for unregistered users?
    There are plenty of anti- spam Mods on VB.org

    Comment

    • Meestor_X
      Senior Member
      • Apr 2006
      • 637
      • 3.8.x

      #3
      Thank you for your reply. I have several ant-spam mods installed and do not have an issue (anymore) with spam registrations. Are there some things I can do to keep unregistered users from causing queries?
      -Andy.
      http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com
      http://www.mindplacesupport.com

      Comment

      • donald1234
        Senior Member
        • Oct 2011
        • 1953
        • 4.1.x

        #4
        How many visitors are on your site when the database crashes?, I looked at the two sites in your sig and you had 23 and 44 guests, even the most basic hosting package should handle that. Anti spam mods don't really stop visitors visiting your site and neither should they, if it is bots repeatedly trying to login etc all you can do is ban their IP's or ranges. ...and be careful not to link to spammy sites as these bots don't find your site from google, they follow links from one spammy site to another.

        Comment

        • Meestor_X
          Senior Member
          • Apr 2006
          • 637
          • 3.8.x

          #5
          I don't know, but I have to assume it's too many unregistered users visiting the site. I have had one of my sites shut down due to too much database activity. I moved that site (mindplacesupport.com) as it was a business site. My personal site (checkcheckonetwo.com) is the one I'm having issues with.
          Here is an example of the errors I'm getting:
          Database error in vBulletin 4.2.0:
          Invalid SQL:
          SELECT title, template FROM template WHERE templateid IN (0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0 ,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0);
          MySQL Error :
          MySQL server has gone away
          Error Number : 2006
          Request Date : Sunday, June 8th 2014 @ 05:58:12 AM
          Error Date : Sunday, June 8th 2014 @ 06:01:14 AM
          Script : http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com/forum/register.php
          Referrer : http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com/
          IP Address : 46.249.58.68
          Username : Unregistered
          Classname : vB_Database
          MySQL Version :
          Database error in vBulletin 4.2.0:
          Invalid SQL:
          SELECT template FROM template WHERE templateid = 19464;
          MySQL Error : MySQL server has gone away
          Error Number : 2006
          Request Date : Sunday, June 8th 2014 @ 07:13:26 AM
          Error Date : Sunday, June 8th 2014 @ 07:16:21 AM
          Script : http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com/foru...3118-GBoucicau
          Referrer : http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com/
          IP Address : 5.135.209.6
          Username : Unregistered
          Classname : vB_Database
          MySQL Version :
          Database error in vBulletin 4.2.0:
          Invalid SQL:
          SELECT phrasegroup_contenttypes AS contenttypes,phrasegroup_global AS global,phrasegroup_vbcms AS vbcms,phrasegroup_search AS search FROM language WHERE languageid = 1;
          MySQL Error : MySQL server has gone away
          Error Number : 2006
          Request Date : Sunday, June 8th 2014 @ 07:16:25 AM
          Error Date : Sunday, June 8th 2014 @ 07:19:51 AM
          Script : http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com/forum/content.php
          Referrer : IP Address : 74.86.158.106
          Username : Unregistered
          Classname : vB_Database
          MySQL Version :
          Database error in vBulletin 4.2.0:
          Invalid SQL:
          SELECT * FROM navigation WHERE state & 4 = 0 ORDER BY navtype, displayorder;
          MySQL Error : MySQL server has gone away
          Error Number : 2006
          Request Date : Sunday, June 8th 2014 @ 02:51:03 PM
          Error Date : Sunday, June 8th 2014 @ 02:55:36 PM
          Script : http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com/forum/content.php
          Referrer : http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com/foru...38a434a8e3832&
          IP Address : 198.100.158.213
          Username : Unregistered
          Classname : vB_Database
          MySQL Version :
          Database error in vBulletin 4.2.0:
          Invalid SQL:
          SELECT searchcore.searchcoreid, searchcore.dateline FROM searchcore AS searchcore WHERE searchcore.dateline >= 1397073319 AND searchcore.contenttypeid IN (1);
          MySQL Error :
          MySQL server has gone away
          Error Number : 2006
          Request Date : Sunday, June 8th 2014 @ 03:55:19 PM
          Error Date : Sunday, June 8th 2014 @ 03:57:41 PM
          Script : http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com/forum/content.php
          Referrer : http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com/foru...eb923d6ecbe85&
          IP Address : 170.130.58.72
          Username : Unregistered
          Classname : vB_Database
          MySQL Version :
          -Andy.
          http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com
          http://www.mindplacesupport.com

          Comment

          • Lee G
            Senior Member
            • Jun 2006
            • 290
            • 3.8.x

            #6
            Paul M has a mod on vbulletin org for tracking guest visits

            Set that up on your forum and you can then see who or what is hammering your forum
            Then block the ip's accordingly, either via htaccess or in vbulletin

            I used it to track a couple ip ranges that was hitting my own forums recently

            One was AhrefsBot bot that had been hitting 4,000 pages a day, the other an idiot running a link building program with 1000 different user agents
            .

            Comment

            • donald1234
              Senior Member
              • Oct 2011
              • 1953
              • 4.1.x

              #7
              Definately a server restriction on the database, if your host is not willing to increase these values, maybe you should be looking at another host for that site too.

              Comment

              • Meestor_X
                Senior Member
                • Apr 2006
                • 637
                • 3.8.x

                #8
                Lee, that would require blocking of 1000's of IPs. You can see from the small sample that they are coming from all over. There is no single places that these unregistered users are coming from.

                So... back to my original question...

                Is there any way to block unregistered users from causing queries, other than making the forum private?
                -Andy.
                http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com
                http://www.mindplacesupport.com

                Comment

                • Lee G
                  Senior Member
                  • Jun 2006
                  • 290
                  • 3.8.x

                  #9
                  If you use the mod I linked to above, you might find its a simple case of blocking a limited ip range
                  The AhrefsBot that was hitting me all day long 24/7 was a simple block 37.58.100.
                  That was easy enough to spot using the mod

                  You might be unlucky enough to appear in a scraped list of vbulletin sites and the link script kiddies are hitting hard
                  If that's the case, you will be dealing with people rotating proxies, which are ni on impossible to block
                  .

                  Comment

                  • Meestor_X
                    Senior Member
                    • Apr 2006
                    • 637
                    • 3.8.x

                    #10
                    Sure, I can give that a try, but I already know that all IPs are completely different, as I showed above.

                    So you know of no way to block unregistered users from causing queries?
                    -Andy.
                    http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com
                    http://www.mindplacesupport.com

                    Comment

                    • donald1234
                      Senior Member
                      • Oct 2011
                      • 1953
                      • 4.1.x

                      #11
                      Like you have already said if you are going to start blocking visitors you may as well close your forum, you can however as mentioned block bots as mentioned, bots are programmed to try and register and login all the time, look in whos online if they are trying to register/login with errors block there IP's or the range of IP's but really you need to ask your host to increase the wait_timeout for mysql, that's why it's "going away"

                      Comment

                      • Meestor_X
                        Senior Member
                        • Apr 2006
                        • 637
                        • 3.8.x

                        #12
                        Originally posted by donald1234
                        Like you have already said if you are going to start blocking visitors you may as well close your forum, you can however as mentioned block bots as mentioned, bots are programmed to try and register and login all the time, look in whos online if they are trying to register/login with errors block there IP's or the range of IP's but really you need to ask your host to increase the wait_timeout for mysql, that's why it's "going away"
                        Thank you. I don't think my host will change the mysql settings. I went through my admincp and turned off searching and some other settings for unregistered users and I added a mod that lets me know what bots are hitting the site, so we'll see how that goes.

                        Thanks everyone.
                        -Andy.
                        http://www.checkcheckonetwo.com
                        http://www.mindplacesupport.com

                        Comment

                        • Sherrie
                          Senior Member
                          • May 2006
                          • 117
                          • 4.2.X

                          #13
                          See if they have a common user agent and block them in .htaccess that way.

                          Comment

                          • Lee G
                            Senior Member
                            • Jun 2006
                            • 290
                            • 3.8.x

                            #14
                            Another free option that can reduce unwanted traffic a bit is Cloudflare
                            Its also fairly straightforward to set up
                            Use them as a firewall and you can also block ip's to your hearts content
                            But, when I used them a few years back, I found you loose the option to htaccess block ip ranges
                            .

                            Comment

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