User ban

Plugin Description

The “Ban” add-on for Simple:Press provides administrators with the capability to restrict users from forums by using different criteria, such as IP addresses, hostnames, or user agents. Admins can also ban specific registered users, defining a duration for the ban and crafting custom messages to inform users of their ban status.

  • Four methods to ban users.
  • Ban registered users and control their group, ban duration.
  • Four customizable ban messages for different scenarios.
  • Banned users list accessible to Admins.
  • Option to lift bans instantly.
  • Creates a “banned” forum page viewable to banned users.

Plugin Installation

  1. Download and install the plugin from the Simple:Press website.
  2. Once installed, you’ll find a new folder named “ban” in your “forum-plugin” directory.
  3. Navigate to Forum > Plugins > Available Plugins on your admin dashboard to activate the plugin.
  4. The activation will reveal an “Options” link that allows you to configure the ban settings.

Detailed Configuration

Once the plugin is activated, the configuration process includes the following steps:

Setting up the Ban Mechanisms

  1. Navigate to Forum > Users > Ban on your admin dashboard.
  2. In the “Add IP Ban” section, you can ban IP addresses or octets, with wildcard (*) support for banning multiple IP addresses at once.
  3. In the “Add IP Range Ban” section, enter the range of IPs to be banned. Note that wildcards are not supported here.
  4. For the “Add Hostname Ban” section, input the hostname to ban. Wildcards are allowed here.
  5. The “Add User Agent Ban” section allows you to ban users based on their software identifiers. Wildcards can be used here as well.

Setting up Ban Messages

  1. Navigate to the “User – Banned Messages” panel.
  2. Fill out the messages sections: “General Banned Message” (for IP, IP range, Hostname, or User Agent bans), “User Banned Message” (for user account based bans), “User Restricted Message” (for users moved to a different user group), and “User Restored Message” (for users whose bans have been lifted).

Banning Users

  1. Go to “Users – User Bans” panel.
  2. In the “Add User Ban” section, start typing a registered user’s display name, select it from the dropdown, and then ban them.
  3. If you want to unban a user, navigate to the “Currently Banned Users” section and click on the “X” next to the user’s name.

Once all of these settings are configured, your ban system should be up and running. Banned users will see the appropriate ban message when they attempt to log in. After a ban is lifted, users will see the “User Restored Message” and will be returned to their original user groups if they had been moved as part of their ban.