IP Tracker catching User's IP

[Omni-Lee]

Your phpBB Version: 2.0.
phpBB Type: Integramod 141
MODs: No
Your knowledge: Beginner
Board URL: http://www.mithrilcrowns.net/

PHP Version:
MySQL Version:


What was done before the problem appeared?
Users IP address changed.


What was done to try to solve the problem?
Disabled IP watcher for the site.



De.scription and Message

I have a user who I keep receiving IP Blocked Administrative PM's about a user. This users IP address changed recently and now he is unable to gain access to the site. I have tried going through his account to disable IP Watcher as well as disabling IP Watcher for the whole site.

Below is a copy of the PM.

An account was just locked. Below are the details.

Account Locked: UserName <--changed by Omni-Lee
IP For Who Locked It: ##.###.###.## <--ip removed for the users security by Omni-Lee

This is an automated response, do not reply. If you have an IP tracker installed, check the above IP against the ones you have stored in the database.

Can someone point me to the table I can find the appropriate values for IP tracker?

[Omni-Lee]

Can someone help me please. Somehow a user's IP address got blocked from my website and I have been unable to find out where I can unblock that particular address. This user has not done anything harmful to the site, and yes is still blocked.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Helter]

this is not saying the ip is blocked. It is telling you the ip of a user who locked his account. You should be able to edit his account in the acp/user admin/user list/*username*/manage/Locked Status = unlocked

[Omni-Lee]

The user's locked status is already deselected or unlocked. Apparently the locked status is not carrying over from the database to the profile page. I know this because the page says unlocked, yet I purposely check the box to lock it. Then upon another view of the profile I found the status to still be unlocked.

I have always been able to log into that users account. Yet the user has been unable to log into his account as well as the new account he created.

[Helter]

if your sure his ip has been banned and you not having any luck unbanning him from the acp,you can look for it in your db in the phpbb_banlist table

[Omni-Lee]

Thats the rub, I've check that table numerous times. It's completely empty. There are no entries of any sort within the table.

How can a user ban/block his own IP address? The blocker as reported by the PM is his own IP not the IP of any admin or mod.

[Helter]

maybe Teelk can shed some light on where cracker tracker stores this info. I have just not had the time lately to pick it apart.

[Teelk]

CrackerTracker uses the banlist table to ban users. The only thing in CT that uses locking of accounts is the spam protection.

Most likely this is phpBB Security locking the user. Browse the users table via phpmyadmin and find the affected user. Change his/her phpBBSecurity_login_tries to 0. See if that makes a difference.

[Omni-Lee]

I made the suggested change to no effect. I'm going to try and copy the new IP into the old IP field (forgot the exact field names at the moment).

Could it be the rate at which his IP changes is being caught in some rule somewhere?

Once again I received the phpBB Security Alert (as follows)

An account was just locked. Below are the details.

Account Locked: Epi
IP For Who Locked It: 71.72.###.73

This is an automated response, do not reply. If you have an IP tracker installed, check the above IP against the ones you have stored in the database.

I have no trouble logging into that users account using his username and password.

This just doesn't make sense how a user can lock his own account.

(I'm checking to see if he is behind a Proxy)

If he is, can I unblock Proxy IP's?

[Helter]

is he using a proxy? I believe proxies are blocked by default

[Leadfoot]

Funny I now have a user banned also. Checked the banlist tables etc and no luck. Its just an ip ban and not a locked account though. Will check with webhost to see if it is on there end. I know that multiple users of the forum use the same ip. Dont know if that is the problem or not.

[Leadfoot]

Well it was my webhost who banned my user. To many connections from the same ip. The only way I could find out that he was banned was to call my webhost. There is no other way to check so maybe that is your problem also. Worth a try anyways.

[Omni-Lee]

I wish that was the case, but if that was the case he would never make it to the website. As it stands now, I am no longer receiving security PM's. Yet he is still unable to access the website according to CT Logmanager.

Not really sure where to go from here.

[DjPorkchop]

I have 1 user on my board that this is occuring with as well. I figured he was using the wrong login info so I tried it myself and was locked out. NOT banned. I then was able to unlock it via security question and answer which worked flawlessly and upon trying to log in with the exact user info, was locked out again. I then logged in as admin, checked the user and the account was infact NOT locked as I was told upon trying to login. And nothing to state otherwise in the DB.

And the only mod installed is AUCG

Never figured out a solution or asked about it because after a weeks time, it just stopped happening all of a sudden. I have checked logs and his ip has not changed so Im not sure whats up. I had my site to allow it and ofcourse my site is homepage and as soon as I got on the net it wnet to my page and was banned from my own site. <img> Lessons learned....BUT Im still curious about the locked problem.

[Leadfoot]

Yes I have had it happen occasionally also. In fact happened to one of my admins the other day. Said he was locked out on his id but not in the acp. After serveral tries it worked for him and he got in. I have the auto login working with no problems.

[Omni-Lee]

My user is still Locked out, and still shows as un-locked in the control panel.

He is obviously quite frustrated. Which I cannot blame him, as it would frustrate me as well.

To throw in another oddity, I just had a user get Locked out when her password which she says she only uses for forums and her security question were both rejected.

She stated that both are her standard that she never changes. Granted thats a security concern, but thats not the issue.

Wierdness upon wierdness