Sticky How to protect my forum from spam

K 1.6.0-RC1 is very old but, even if you upgrade to K 1.7.1 the idea of implementing a ban user by IP address was never fully implemented in Kunena. Besides, spammers often use multiple IP addresses and so this approach actually is not 100% foolproof either. Banning by IP address is something that can be achieved by building a plugin - something that was not possible to do during the development of K 1.6/1.7 and I don't think it's something that is necessarily easy to do.

Even so, it's a good idea and if there are other Joomla extensions (or mechanism you can build into your .htaccess file) those are still worthwhile ones to pursue. Sorry, I'm not able to give you any definite solution but I encourage you to upgrade to K 1.7.1 anyway.

As sozzled said, "spammers often use multiple IP addresses" but using .htaccess's "deny from" is by far the best solution I have come across.

Using this method allows you to block not only a single IP address but also a full range which is what spammers do, they stay within a certain range, when they try to access a site and see that their IP has been banned they try a 2nd one, most of the times those IPs are in the range and therefore they either say "screw this" and not try again or if they really want to spam your forums they may use "proxy servers".

I recommend you use the .htaccess method, this is very easy to use and set up if you have cPanel access to your server. If you don't just go to your sites root directory and find the .htaccess file.

I agree with CheechDogg. Not only block IP ranges but you could also deny access from specific browser agents, too. However, this is where things really start to get quite involved and they're beyond the scope of this forum to deal with the vexed question of how to eradicate spam. Kunena is not the real target; the real target is your site, your forum is merely one way that spammers use to promote their "message", and Kunena is just one of many forum products that can be used as a vehicle for spam. Kunena is no worse or more vulnerable than other products (although there's room for improvement in this area) but there's still a lot that you can do to make things more difficult for spam merchants .

Yes sozzled, getting into deny access to specific browser agents is a more complicated method especially for someone who is just learning about spam and how to block it.

With proper research on the internet and with some good reading patience this can be done.

MonkeyDragon I understand this can be quite confusing and pretty darn frustrating especially after being ripped off "The last option then opens up a whole can or wroms though as I am trying to keep expenditure to a minimum having been ripped off to the tune of a few thousand pounds by a rather scrupilous company who I commissoned to originally build the site" this alone would of really got me heated.

But if you want I can help you out with this. Let me know if you would like me to help you out and I will give you more information as to how we can make this happen.

CheechDogg wrote: But if you want I can help you out with this. Let me know if you would like me to help you out and I will give you more information as to how we can make this happen.

Thanks for the offer, I shall take you up on that.....it'll be like 'Cheech and Chong Do Spammers'!

Unfortunately, I'm away for a few days on business so unable to do anything at the moment. I do have Cpanel access to my server, although quite what to do once there I don't know. My intial consultation with Mr Google about htaccess merely served to leave me a tad confused.

I may switch to a newer version of Kunena too, having seen CheechDogs site I was mightily impressed.

Thanks for your help all.......I'm sure you;ll hear much more from me!

No problem MonkeyDragon, just let me know when you get back and I can help you then.