Too many periods in email address

[Snowhog]

MOD Request

When we were on vBulletin 4.2.5, I had a custom MOD created for me that prevented the use of emails that contained 'too many periods' from being used when trying to create a new account.

Real world example (got this one this morning):

h.i.nde.rk.r.u.ca.ga.wi.lehe @ gmail.com (white space added to prevent this from being recognized as a real email address)

These 'constructed' emails are almost ALWAYS associated with spammers or BOTS. Email addresses like these are 99.999 percent (or greater) never caught by Stop Forum Spam, for which we have an active API in use in vBulletin.

Can you create a MOD that will block the use of these 'too many periods' in email addresses? The MOD should allow us to specify how many periods are 'too many' before the email address will be blocked.

[glennrocksvb]

That's a good suggestion for a mod. I'll check if that can be done in vB5/6.

[glennrocksvb]

Snowhog, watch out for this mod. I'm in the process of creating it.

[glennrocksvb]

Snowhog, here you go...

https://vbmods.rocks/forum/vbulletin-6-modifications/vbulletin-6-products-and-extensions/33041-block-gmail-alias-tricks-mod-for-vbulletin-5-and-6

[Snowhog]

Thank you!

[Snowhog]

The MOD is preventing registrations when more than the specified number of periods are used in the email address, and I have Log Blocked Users to a CSV File setup, but when I test the MOD, while I do get the pop-up error message, the attempt isn't being logged (the file isn't created) and I don't see the entry in error.log either.







What do I need to do?

[glennrocksvb]

You didn't see any entry in the error.log file that indicates the reason why the CSV file wasn't created? You should also see the blocked user information there along with the reason.

[Snowhog]

You should also see the blocked user information there along with the reason.

Okay, you are correct. I just now grep'd the error.log file: grep TestingToManyDots error.log and it did find the data.

This is the telling content of the entry:

[Block Gmail Alias Tricks] Cannot write to log directory: /var/log/apache2 (directory does not exist or is not writable)

Obviously the directory exists. It must therefore be a permissions issue?

I am aware of your note in the MOD:

NOTE: The specified directory must be readable, writable and executable (e.g., permissions set to 750 or 755) by the web server.

What specifically do I need to do to ensure that the MOD can write to the directory? Do the permissions on /var/log/apache2 need to be changed?

[glennrocksvb]

The apache error log directory is writable by root but not by Apache's user (e.g. www-data, apache, or nobody), which is what PHP runs as. It's not recommended to change permissions on /var/log/apache2 as it is a security risk. I recommend creating a new directory dedicated to the mod and set its permissions with the Apache user.

To find the Apache user, run this command:

ps aux | grep apache

Then create a custom directory. See sample below:

sudo mkdir /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations
sudo chown www-data:www-data /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations
chmod 755 /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations

Then set the error log path in the mod to /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations/blockedusers

[Snowhog]

Okay. Thank you.

[glennrocksvb]

You're welcome! Does it work now?

[Snowhog]

I've done what you said to do, exactly. I attempted to register a new user with too many periods in the email address. The MOD produced the pop-up, but again, the file isn't being created, and the data was logged to error.log.


Note that the path is still listed as /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations and not what is specified in Log Blocked Users to a CSV File which is /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations/blockedregistrations

The created directory:

root@kfn1:/var/log/apache2# dir
ls: cannot access '.*/': No such file or directory
drwxr-xr-x 2 www-data www-data 4096 Sep 22 19:46 blockedregistrations/

​

So what am I doing wrong?

[glennrocksvb]

The red part in the path /var/log/apache2/blockedregistrations/blockedregistrations you set is the directory and the remaining part is the filename part of the CSV file. So the path mentioned in the log entry is correct. Are you sure there is a directory exactly named "blockedregistrations" in /var/log/apache2?

[Snowhog]

So the path mentioned in the log entry is correct.

Okay. Makes sense. So is the 'is not writable' pertinent? I did chmod the directory to 755.

[glennrocksvb]

I wonder why you have this output in the terminal?

ls: cannot access '.*/': No such file or directory

Is the dir command aliased to "ls -l .*/"?

Can you just run the "ls -l" command directly?