I put an IP address on the blacklist, but I notice through SiteMeter that this person is still getting to my blog with the IP address I banned.
Did I do something wrong?
My apologies if this issue has already been discussed.
Posted by Groovyvic at September 9, 2006 01:57 PM | TrackBackNope you did it right. The IP Banning in MT only blocks them from commenting.
To keep them from accessing your site you'll need to use the IP Deny feature in your Control Panel.
Posted by phin at September 9, 2006 05:45 PMGroovyVic and everyone...
There is absolutely NO POINT in adding IP addresses to MT Blacklist. Blacklist does absolutely nothing with IP addresses - it was not designed to.
If you want to ban an IP address from commenting, you must do it from your own Admin Panel. Click on the Config button on the left side of your admin page, then look for the link at the top right of the next page that says IP Banning. Clicking it will give you the location to properly enter an address to ban.
If you want to ban an IP address from even viewing your site, you need to do as Phin points out and do it in the IPDeny Manager in CPanel.
Note though that getting around such bans is pretty trivial for a human user, (and some will get it around it automatically because they are assigned a new IP by their ISP each time they log on - dialup users for example) and totally ineffective against spammers, who have literally thousands of IP addresses at their disposal.
And Phin, you really need to learn to use the Blacklist properly. It's totally useless (and badly clogs the Blacklist) to enter dozens of subdomains of the same primary domain. Simply entering the primary domain will block every possible subdomain as well. The way you're doing it, the spammer simply has to increment his subdomain by one and none of your dozens of entries will block the new one.
Paul
Posted by Light & Dark at September 10, 2006 12:49 AMPaul,
I misread the Blacklist Part, I thought it said she'd banned them in MT. Yes I know that adding an IP to the blacklist doesn't accomplish a whole lot, if anything at all.
For the subdomains vs the primary domain.
The last time I added an entry to the blacklist I was trying to get it added asap to hopefully help cut back on the spam flood while I was at work with limited time to spare.
If you'll look back through the logs you'll see that 9 times out of 10 I only enter the primary domain. So yeah, I do know how to effectively use the blacklist and in this instance made an exception to the rule trying to help others out.
I do apologize for any inconvenience I may have added with the duplicate subdomains. So don't worry about it, I'll be sure not to do it again.
Posted by phin at September 11, 2006 07:02 PM