phpBB 2.0.18 and Bots

[Lyndsay]

All forums on my boards are hidden to registered users only.

But 66.249.66.x is looking at each forum. I haven't had a lot of time to investigate, but so far it looks like it isn't going past the post listing in each forum.

Still - if it is set it Registered [hidden], how is GoogleBot getting even that far?

[rogerd]

So the bot is visiting forums that you can't see yourself if you are logged out? You might look at the raw logs and see if they give you any clue as to the referrer and whether the page is loaded successfully.

[Lyndsay]

Ugh I wish... unfortunately we're using a free provider. I doubt they're too willing to offer up their logs. I'm guessing GoogleBot is just going after the AdSense. But, again, it's a free serve so I can't get rid of them.

I'm not the admin, I've just been recruited to help wit the technical side of things. I suggested spending the $30 or whatever per year so to not have to deal with this... but no, they wanted to keep it free.

Thanks anyway Roger.

[Ivun]

Are you sure the robot is not registered?
phpBB (even the latest versions) have very weak bot protection and I have seen many modifications of robots registering and posting automated messages.

[edited by: jatar_k at 5:49 pm (utc) on Feb. 21, 2006]
[edit reason] no urls thanks [/edit]

[Lyndsay]

No, the bot isn't registered. It's a private forum, and every registered member must be referred by a current member before they are activated.

It's not posting, which is good, just reading.

[PeteM]

phpBB forum id's are allocated numerically so it wouldn't be difficult to guess.

E.g.

http://example.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=1
http://example.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=2
http://example.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=3
http://example.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=4

etc

Pete

[edited by: rogerd at 5:41 pm (utc) on Feb. 22, 2006]
[edit reason] examplified [/edit]

[Ivun]

Lyndsay there must be a security flaw in your forum then. What version are you using?

[Lyndsay]

2.0.18

Frustrating, because I can't even do an upgrade because it's on one of those "forum for free" services.

I offered to host it myself, so I could do upgrades and tweaking when necessary, but got turned down.

I'll try what you suggested Pete - getting into the forums by URL without logging in.

Thanks again for all your help guys. It's much appreciated.

[camweh]

Still - if it is set it Registered [hidden], how is GoogleBot getting even that far?

I often have googlebots appearing to be Posting Messages, viewing the hidden members list and and even Viewing Private Messages. According to the folks at phpBB this is what appears to be happening but the bots are really only seeing a login or 'not authorised' screen.

[Ivun]

In order to see what google sees. Go to a page on your forum (hidden memberlist for example), copy the URL (strip out the SID), search for cache:{URL} in google.