Bad Behavior 2.1.0
December 19th, 2009 by Michael Hampton
The first 2.1 development release of Bad Behavior is now available. It contains a number of new and frequently requested features, and may be appropriate for you. Please review the information given, and if you do not find it appropriate for you, then continue to use the latest 2.0 stable releases.
Who should upgrade?
Users who use Bad Behavior’s whitelisting features, or who customize Bad Behavior’s settings on a platform other than WordPress or LifeType, should upgrade to take advantage of new features offered in this release.
What’s new?
Development of Bad Behavior 2.1 generally follows the roadmap outlined earlier. In this initial release, the following features have been implemented:
- Bad Behavior now reads whitelists from a separate file which is preserved through updates. See below for preliminary instructions on using this feature.
- On platforms where Bad Behavior cannot store settings in the host platform’s database, Bad Behavior now reads settings from a separate file which is preserved through updates. See below for preliminary instructions on using this feature.
- Bad Behavior’s core has been reworked to facilitate testing its core logic. While the actual logic tests have not yet been written, a test mode is available for developers to experiment with. See below for preliminary instructions on using this feature.
Whitelists
Bad Behavior now reads its whitelists from a separate file named whitelist.ini. This file is not distributed with Bad Behavior, so that future upgrades do not disturb the whitelist. This means that anyone who wants to use the whitelist must download the whitelist.ini, customize it, then upload it to their server. Place the whitelist.ini in Bad Behavior’s top level directory (the same directory that contains bad-behavior-wordpress.php, README.txt, etc.).
Note for IPv6 users: At this time, single IPv6 addresses can be whitelisted, but IPv6 networks cannot be. This will be fixed in a future release.
Settings
On some platforms, such as WordPress and LifeType, Bad Behavior stores its settings in the host platform’s database and provides an interface through the host platform for changing the settings. On other platforms, Bad Behavior is not capable of storing its settings in the host platform’s database, either because there is no database, or because the database cannot be used in that way.
On these platforms, Bad Behavior can now read settings customizations from a settings.ini file. This file is not distributed with Bad Behavior, so that future upgrades do not disturb your settings. This means that on those platforms, anyone who wants to customize their settings must download the settings.ini, customize it, then upload it to their server. Place the settings.ini in Bad Behavior’s top level directory (the same directory that contains bad-behavior-wordpress.php, README.txt, etc.). This feature has been implemented for the MediaWiki and generic ports; other platforms will need to implement the feature in their platform connectors before it is available to you.
Testing
Bad Behavior’s core logic now supports “black box” testing. This won’t be of much interest to most people, except that testing will help improve the quality of the product. A test suite is still planned and will be released later.
In addition, Bad Behavior now supports a live “test mode” in which it will not actually block any requests, but will report on whether they would have been blocked. This is fully implemented in the WordPress port; to use it on other ports, the platform connector must provide a method for the platform to report the results. To enable test mode, define a PHP constant BB2_TEST.
Download
The 2.1 development releases will not be offered through the WordPress automatic upgrade facility.
Download this development release of Bad Behavior now! You can install Bad Behavior using the usual installation instructions; there are no special requirements for this release.
Remember to subscribe to the Bad Behavior RSS feed to receive notice when Bad Behavior development updates are available.
Support
This release would not have been possible without the support of people like you who find Bad Behavior valuable enough to make a financial contribution to ensure its further development.
Your contributions ensure that I can continue to devote time to bringing you the features you want, as well as continuing work on making spammers’ lives hell.
If you haven’t already done so, consider setting up a recurring contribution for as little as $5 per year, or make your most generous one-time contribution for any amount.
Thank you again for supporting Bad Behavior development!
Andrew Zhang Says
Hi Michael,
This bad-behavior plugin is very useful, it has blocked hundreds of bad requests which impress me a lot.
But I found a bug with wordpress plugin, it’s in the function bb2_db_query, as it used $wpdb->show_errors(), so actually as soon as this plugin actived, wordpress will print any db errors to the screen, it’s not supposed for the end users, and it has security issues. I don’t see why you use these funcs here.
Dec 20th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Michael Hampton Says
Thanks for reporting this. I don’t remember why that’s in there. It must have solved a problem sometime in the past. It will be changed in the next release.
Dec 20th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
WSz Says
Nice plug-in. I have some suggestions that might help improve the overall feel that you might consider.
In the http:BL section, you may want to write what the range of values of the threat level. I know from installing http:BL that it’s 0-255, but I doubt most ordinary users do. Including the range can help them better choose a setting that works for them… and puts into perspective what ‘30′ really means. This might also be useful for age of data (I have no idea how far back in history I can set this field too).
Another feature that would be highly useful is the inclusion of whether http:BL is working. On their site, you get a little green icon that signals the key is valid and working. It would be nice if the plugin queried the site and informed you everything with your key is functioning properly. As it stands, there is no way whether the key works…
Lastly, another feature that may be useful would be to add an option to put statistics not only in the footer, but maybe a box in the admin dashboard.
Anyway, great plugin. I’ve tried others and they were not nearly as clean, simple, and to the point. Great job!
Dec 21st, 2009 at 1:18 pm
WSz Says
Oh, two minor suggestions.
Put a link to view the log in the settings area. People would more logically go to Settings > Bad Behavior than Plugins.
Also make links to your site open via target _blank. Yes we can all middle or control click but its just better to not be taken away from your site.
Dec 22nd, 2009 at 5:55 am
Luis Says
Michael: I don’t use any of those features, but if it would be useful for other (normal?) users to run and test 2.1.x in the wild, would you mention that in the next 2.1.x announcement? I’d be happy to test it in production if you think that would be of use.
Dec 29th, 2009 at 3:19 am
Greg P Says
If you rename the whitelist.ini file as whitelist.inc instead, it would not be served directly by the server by default on Drupal installations.
As whitelist.ini, one must modify the default Drupal .htaccess file to enable the server to hide it from prying eyes.
Jan 4th, 2010 at 12:42 am
Michael Hampton Says
Greg, Drupal is not one of the platforms that I expect to be using the files. This really needs to be implemented in the Drupal module itself, so that you can go to, e.g., Site Configuration + Bad Behavior + Whitelist and just modify it online like everything else in Drupal.
Unfortunately, the Drupal module maintainer doesn’t seem to be very active, and I’m not even sure if it is being actively maintained anymore. If you’re interested, you might check into this.
Jan 4th, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Brendan Says
Hi Michael-
Great plugin, thanks for your contribution to the wordpress community. Quick question for you- Should i be able to use the same http:BL key on separate wordpress sites?
Thanks,
Brendan
Feb 26th, 2010 at 10:01 pm
am sikis Says
one more suggest to you
Put a link to view the log in the settings area. People would more logically go to Settings > Bad Behavior than Plugins.
May 30th, 2010 at 2:44 pm