Installation Process For Simple Machines Forum (SMF) Version 3.5.x

[Randem]

In order to get the most out of BotBanish, you may want to do a clean install. This comprises of completely uninstalling the old BotBanish, this will delete all BotBanish tables and data; then installing BotBanish 3.5.x. Installing over the old data tables will not give you all the protection that you can get from the start, but will eventually generate the protection on the fly which will take time. BotBanish 3.5.x will convert old BotBanish entries in your htaccess file to the newer version if running on Apache 2.4. If you decide to switch to from Apache 2.2 to Apache 2.4 later you can run the convert htacess to 2.4 process from the BotBanish menu then.


The installation of BotBanish for SMF is fairly straight forward. The installation is delivered as a MOD that is to be installed via Package Manager in SMF. BotBanish's analytics will work most effectively with an SEO URL MOD installed and  active.

        BotBanish is a client/server application and will check regularly with the BotBanish server for information regarding a bot attack and any maintenance that will need to be done to keep the system is a high state of readiness.

        BotBanish is your first line of defense and will supersede other bot protectors to help aid in the reduction of bot traffic and access to your forum. We also suggest that you add CAPTCA to your forum's login page to help with bot denial

BotBanish for Simple Machines Forum Requires PHP, Apache & SMF supported databases
and the installation process is as follows:

• Check to see if PHP Version 5.4.19 is installed (Probably at least PHP version 5.3.x) with mysqli version 5.5.19. You can execute the included info.php file to check for these installations. Place the info.php file in the root folder of your hosted site then type in your browser http://your_domain.com/info.php your_domain.com is your actual hosted domain name, use http:// or https:// accordingly. BotBanish has been designed to work on PHP 7.2. You should make sure that your SMF forum has the proper MODS to aloow it run on PHP 7.2 properly.
  
  
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  BotBanish will automatically use the SMF database for it's tables unless the Settings_Client.php file is changed to use a different database.  If a different database is desired, create a mySQL database on your host then modify the Settings_Client.php file to match your new database parameters in the SMF Section of the file. The BotBanish installation will create all the tables that it needs in the database prefixed with botbanishclient_
  
  
• Report to BotBanish.com the URL of the pages that you want to protect (normally Login & Registration pages). We may already be protecting them but it is better to be sure. We currently protect the SMF login and registration pages.
  
  
• Upload the BotBanish MOD zip file using Package Manager then install it. BotBanish is not designed for the core file system but for the default theme. If a different theme is used and the BotBanish installation does not recognize the theme files, the install package will need to be modified to recognize this theme. This installation will also install BotBanish in the root of your hosted site to protect your domain.
  
  
• BotBanish will create the needed tables then attempt to import from your root .htaccess file into the BotBanish ip table any IP firewall rules that are present for future use.
  
  
• BotBanish is now protecting you from bots, spiders and user attacks. Each time someone or something is accessing your site BotBanish is checking them out and monitoring them for suspicious behavior.
  
  

BotBanish Black / White List Tables Created in Your Database:

• botbanishclient_ip_dnb: Used to allow a known IP to access your system even though BotBanish may attempt to monitor and block it.
  
  
• botbanishclient_htaccess: Used to cache htaccess entries to keep CPU usage low on htaccess file writes.
  
  
• botbanishclient_spiders_bad: Used to allow a known bad spider to access your system even though BotBanish may attempt to monitor and block it.
  
  
• botbanishclient_spiders_good: Used to allow a known good spider to be blocked from accessing your system even though BotBanish will allow it.
  
  
• botbanishclient_domain_bad: Used to allow a known bad domain to access your system even though BotBanish may attempt to monitor and block it.
  
  
• botbanishclient_domain_good: Used to allow a known good domain to be blocked from accessing your system even though BotBanish will allow it.
  
  
• botbanishclient_url_dnc: Used to disallow BotBanish from monitoring a URL for bad behavior.
  
  
• botbanishclient_ip: Used to record ip's that have been blocked from accessing your system.
  
  

BotBanish Analytics Tables Created in Your Database:

• botbanishclient_website_downloads: Used to retain user file download analytics.
  
  
• botbanishclient_website_visits: Used to retain user webpage visit analytics.
  
  

To access BotBanish Analytics; from the BotBanish menu select Analytics.


Download the latest version at https://botbanish.com