GeoIP

[DuvalM]

Can vBulletin5 integrate GeoIP? This would be a relief for the people that do not have access to their web servers. I have access to mine, but for some reason it sends empty pages from time to time, actually quite often. Having the PHP solution would be really nice.

Thanks for the consideration

ETA: I want to use it to block entire countries, like Russia, Ukraine, China, etc. (I am sure that nobody wonders why).

[Zachery]

There is no support for GeoIP blocking in vBulletin 4 or lower at this time, I cannot answer any questions about vBulletin 5.

Though doing this would require custom modules that do not have wide spread support on webhosts.

[liamwli]

Can vBulletin5 integrate GeoIP? This would be a relief for the people that do not have access to their web servers. I have access to mine, but for some reason it sends empty pages from time to time, actually quite often. Having the PHP solution would be really nice.

Thanks for the consideration

ETA: I want to use it to block entire countries, like Russia, Ukraine, China, etc. (I am sure that nobody wonders why).

Actually, I do wonder why.

[DuvalM]

Actually, I do wonder why.

Because these are spammer heaven and they make our lives miserable.

[Zachery]

You can do so with ip bans in your htaccess a lot easier.

[DuvalM]

You can do so with ip bans in your htaccess a lot easier.

Not really when you need to blacklist entire countries. The ip blocks list can be enormous. It is easy to do with geoip. It just need to include the geoip php routine into the login system. It would be easy for you. In the blacklist no registration, or reg only to the whitelist.

Sorry, just realized that I posted in the wrong forum. Please move if needed.

[Zachery]

GeoIP is not a very common lib for php. Its unlikely to be included anytime in the near future. And large blocks of ip's should be stopped on the server level anyway.

[DuvalM]

GeoIP is not a very common lib for php. Its unlikely to be included anytime in the near future. And large blocks of ip's should be stopped on the server level anyway.

I will disagree with what you say here, but it is your product after all. That would have been a nice anti spam feature since the spammer go thru the actual security as easy as a Hot knife thru butter.

Thanks for your time.

[Zachery]

Well, I've not seen it on any webhost I've interacted with off the top of my head, which includes: Godaddy, HostGator, 1&1, and asmallorange. Its come up a few times in the past.

Requirements

This extension requires the GeoIP C library version 1.4.0 or higher to be installed. You can grab the latest version from » http://www.maxmind.com/app/c and compile it yourself.

By default, you will only have access to the Free GeoIP Country or GeoLite City databases. While this module can work with other types of database, you must buy a commercial license from » Maxmind.

[beishe8]

By default, you will only have access to the Free GeoIP Country or GeoLite City databases. While this module can work with other types of database, you must buy a commercial license from » Maxmind.

They are not shy:

$370 site license fee and $90 per month of updates.

[DuvalM]

They are not shy:

Geolite it the only thing needed and it is free.

Again, no worries, I am not trying to convince anybody. I was just asking a question.

[Wayne Luke]

ETA: I want to use it to block entire countries, like Russia, Ukraine, China, etc. (I am sure that nobody wonders why).

You don't need GEOIP to ban these countries.

[DuvalM]

You don't need GEOIP to ban these countries.

You're going to tell me to stuff my .htaccess with almost 1Mb of ip blocks?? Or do you have a better solution?

[Wayne Luke]

You're going to tell me to stuff my .htaccess with almost 1Mb of ip blocks?? Or do you have a better solution?

Access Control Lists and iptables. If you really need it, iptables has a GEOIP patch. You don't want to block at the Application level like vBulletin since that is very resource intensive. Even to block by IP, vBulletin is going run 10-14 queries per page load. So they can just hammer your site and DOS it if they want to. If you block at the server level or better yet the router/switch level then you can keep that traffic from hitting your applications altogether. Since you most likely have better bandwidth at the router/switch level, you can shrug off some of the traffic into the ether and keep your site running anyway.

If you're on shared hosting then you should talk to your host about solutions for this. They have them and they are more robust than a vBulletin plugin or GEOIP functionality built into an application.

[DuvalM]

I'll look into that. Thanks