Ip Deny

[gilseg]

Hi,

I just moved my site over to TotalChoice Hosting this weekend, partly to be able to activate an IP Deny (which my old web hosting service didn't offer) against a all-too-regular visitor to my site. For the last 8 wks, I've had a hit on my home page every half-hour, seven days a week.

(thanks to WHOIS, I found that the visitor came from British Columbia Hydro, and I've sent them several messages but they "can't find the source...")

 

So now that my site is on the TotalChoice Hosting server, (this mornning) I copied the unwanted IP ADdress into the IP Deny box and the IP Deny Manager shows that IP Address under "Current IP addresses being blocked" --- but my [Extreme Tracking] home page hit counter still shows the same IP Address hitting the home page every half-hour.

 

Am I missing something here?

 

Thanks in advance...

 

Gilles Seguin

Canadian Social Research Links

http://www.canadiansocialresearch.net/

[ThumpAZ]

I will look into this a bit further, and call it to the attention of the other mods.

Until we can come up with a definitive answer, please bear with us.

 

EDIT: Moving for better organization.

Edited August 17, 2004 by TCH-Glenn

[TCH-Andy]

Hi,

 

Welcome to your new home

 

Can you submit a help desk ticket, and we'll have a close look at it for you.

[TCH-Bruce]

Welcome to your new family, Gilles!

 

Glad you could join us.

[TCH-Don]

Welcome to the Family Gilles

 

and your new home!

yes submit a help desk ticket, and they will try to help.

 

We really are like family here.

So if you need anything,

just ask your new family!

We love to help

[gilseg]

Wow --- thanks for all of this support, moderators!

 

I've just sent a ticket to the Help Desk as you've suggested, providing more detail, a link to my Extreme Tracking hit counter and a screen capture of this month's top 25 visitors' host addresses (from Awstats).

 

Because I didn't want to sound like a total dummy re. site stats and IP Deny in my earlier posting to this forum, I didn't mention that my TCH Awstats don't even include the offending IP Address that I keep seeing in my commercial counter.

 

In any event, I thank you for your warm group welcome and your encouragement.

 

I'll post back when things get sorted out.

 

BTW - I'm sorry it took me a couple of days to get back into the Forum --- I'd activated the feature that sends an e-mail notification of replies, as confirmed by the note under this text box ("You are currently receiving email notification of replies") --- but I've never received any such notification. Admittedly, I do receive a lot of spam (~300/24-hr period), and I may have deleted one message by accident, but I should have received four such messages and I don't remember getting a single one...

[i created a Desktop shortcut to this Forum topic, so I won't wait for e-mail notification - I'll just pop by from time to time...]

 

Jeez, I already *do* feel like part of the family!

Don, can I borrow the car tonight? --- (:-)

 

Regards,

Gilles

[TCH-Don]

LOL, if you gas it up

[gilseg]

Just rec'd a reply from TCH - hmmmm.

 

-----------------------

 

Hi Gilles,

 

I checked the logs of your site to check if 142.52.194.11 was accessing your site and could not find any hit in the site. You can check that the ip has been blocked from accessing the server.

#iptables -L | grep 142.52.194.11

DROP all -- 142.52.194.11 anywhere

 

So i can assure you that the IP 142.52.194.11 is not accessing you site. I am not very sure how exterme tracking works so i can't tell you as to why you are still seeing the hits on that site.

 

 

Thank you for choosing TotalChoice Hosting

 

Best Regards,

Chet Sharma

Technical support services

------------------------------

 

Hmmmm. Not impressed.

I told them in my ticket that IP 142.52.194.11 didn't appear to be accessing the site, according to my Awstats "Top 25 Visitors" (att.) but that Extreme Tracking nonetheless showed the same hit on my home page every half-hour.

See http://extremetracking.com/open?login=gilless - click "Unique Visitors" then scroll down to "Last 20 Visitors"

 

I did the IP Deny correctly (it's pretty much a no-brainer, eh...), but obviously it's denying access to the wrong IP Address. Chet says he doesn't know how Extreme Tracking works so he can't tell me etc. - but what's a guy supposed to do? I moved my site from another hosting service because that place didn't offer IP Deny to let me get this 142.52 character off my case --- now I'm still stuck with half-hour visits.

 

The other side of the coin is that now that I'm with TCH I have WAYYYYYYY more server space and bandwidth than I did with my old web hosting service, so it's more of a nuisance to me than a danger or an extra cost. Screws up my site stats, though...

 

I'm still not receiving e-mail notification of replies posted in the forum so I'll check in from time to time to see if one of you kind folks has managed to solve this mystery based on some of the additional info I've provided.

 

Thanks for taking the time to check this out for me - and don't knock yourselves out - like I said, I have the bandwidth and the space now...

 

Cheers!

Gilles

 

Special reply to Don --- Good comeback, spoken like one of the family!

[TCH-Andy]

Hi Gilles,

 

Part of the issue may be propagation (or the 142 IP address is using your old IP address not the site here). Since you only just changed your site here, it will typically take up to 72 hours for the domain name changes to propagate. The 142 IP address could still be going to your old site, and hence it shows up in your Extreme Tracking, but it is not coming to the site hosted at TCH. Only time will tell on that one.

 

As to the notification. You will only get one notification of replies (not one per reply) and only if you have logged out and closed your browser.

[gilseg]

Thanks for this, Andy - I'd kept my old Web hosting account live just in case; I cancelled it yesterday, so I'm hoping that all will fall into place within a few days.

 

Thanks also for the info on the e-mail notification feature - I did receive an e-mail late on Thursday to say that there were new postings on my forum topic...

 

I won't post again on this topic unless the issue isn't resolved. It's reassuring to know that the offending IP ADdress isn't showing up on my TCH webstats.

 

Thanks for all your assistance, mods!

 

Cheers

[gilseg]

IP Deny Update - August 24

 

According to my Extreme Tracking counter, I'm still receiving hits on my home page every half-hour. I met a network techie friend recently, and told him about the situation, including the TCH Help Desk reply that the offending IP Address wasn't showing up on my TCH logs. He suggested that the hits will not likely stop because the cached version keeps getting hit every half-hour and the cache refresh keeps starting over each time (or some such technical mumbo-jumbo). He suggested that I terminate my existing Extreme Tracking account so that the hit counter on the cached page is disabled, and then and set up a new hit counter account, with Extreme Tracking or elsewhere. I don't really want to lose all of my ET counter history, going back to April 2001, but now that I have TCH's Awstats I can live without my ET counter (although I DO like the "Last 20 Visitors" feature of ET...)

 

Bottom line: I just wanted to say thanks to you mods for jumping in there with your words of welcome to this forum and with your helpful observations and suggestions.

 

Merci!

Gilles

[TCH-Don]

Gilles, I know what you mean.

I used a third party tracker before I came here,

but after seeing the stats in cpanel

I gave it up.

The cpanel last visitors is not as pretty but still useful.