Hosting Server does not allow pixelpost because of spammers

[visualpixel]

I just got an email from my hosting server saying that they would not allow pixelpost to run on their server. Below is the email informing why I can't run pixelpost.
Pixelpost is still having problems. Seems like some spammers have a
script setup to connect to this thing on an hourly basis and spam it.
Pixelpost doesn't do anything to stop them and it is badly written. As
you have already upgraded to the most recent version, I have no option
but to not allow pixelpost on my servers.

Sorry,

Matt Bloom
AngryHosting.com

I still want to use pixelpost but I think I might have to change servers or use a different Phoblog CMS.
Did anyone ever had this problem with pixelpost and their hosting server?

-Mark

[riken]

Dawn had the same problem. Read this topic to see how she handled it. http://www.pixelpost.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1625

It's also been discovered that 1.4.2 doesn't fully stop referer spam: http://www.pixelpost.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1667

My advice, check out the first link I mentioned. It has a bunch of hints on stopping spam completely.

Finally, the granddaddy for referer spam discussion is here: http://www.pixelpost.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1252

[raminia]

Pixelpost is very badly written?

made me laugh!

[riken]

Pixelpost is very badly written?

made me laugh!

Me to, but probably not for the same reason. (Connie's gonna smack me for that one)

[raminia]

you can avoid spammers by changing the subdomain or the directory that you installed pp. The spammers have saved your url and they keep attacking. (like my site) but the will be reduced. You can avoid that by renamining the folder that you installed pp and change the image path to the new on in pp admin panel.

[raminia]

I wrote to them. I think they are over-caring the spam problem.

[optikal]

I wrote to them. I think they are over-caring the spam problem.

I don't think so. I can't allow one user's PHP script and SQL database to use up 2 of my 4 processors. It didn't take much diagnosis to determine that the problem was within the referral code sending all the requests straight to the database. Do you think spammers care what they're doing to the server? No. Basically, I was noticing that on an hourly basis, multiple Pixelpost blogs were being slammed with connections. At times, I would see over a thousand connections to visualpixel's database. Of course, this causes extreme load in MySQL, makes queries for EVERYONE slower, causes the CPU to be overrun, which makes access slower for everyone. If visualpixel were paying for a dedicated server, so be it.. let Pixelpost take the thing down; but he is not. As a business owner, you have to make sure that the best interests of ALL your clients are being met. Is it in the best interest of my clients who do not even know about Pixelpost to have their site access slowed down because of one or two users? No. Is it in my best interest to make sure this doesn't happen? Yes.

That being said, I have given visualpixel a chance to secure the site and prevent this from happening. I had him upgrade from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1 which didn't solve the problem. Now that I see there are indeed work arounds (ie. commenting out the referral function call altogether), he is welcome to do that and continue running the software as long as I can be assured that it won't be used as a DOS any longer.

[raminia]

I got a very gentle reponse from the host with good suggestions. :)
Right now I'm testing http://www.ioerror.us/software/bad-behavior/ .

[raminia]

@optikal, I do understand your concerns.

- in 1.4.2 we put ref page inside the admin page. This way the spammer bots dont' find pp as a good place to attack. but it works with new PP sites or old PP sites with modified URL.

- in 1.4.2 there are two added addons.
1) advance Stat addon that cleans up visitors tables each month and summerize it into a stat table with just keeping very small amount of data.

- I'm working on Matt Bloom suggestion from AngryHosting.com. Is that you?

- If you don't mind take a look at other forum discussion about bad-behavior
http://www.pixelpost.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=11186#11186
and the addon from that to avoid ref spammers.

[visualpixel]

Thanks for the help guys. I'm going to try out some of the advice from the forum discussions you guys directed me to and hopefully it'll stop all the spamming. I'll let you know how it goes. I've been pretty busy so there might be a delay with my response. Again thanks for all the help, I appreciate all the hard work and time you put into the development of pixelpost.

[Connie]

Visualpixel,

first step would be for sure to upgrade to PP 1.4.2
because we made these changes in 1.4.2 to stop this

but even if you upgrade to 1.4.2, the spam bots will attack PP because they have this URL of you in their lists...

so, the first steps should be:

move PP to another directory/subdomain
upgrade to 1.4.2

good luck!

[bretzelman]

Why did you finally not used the blacklist words antispam that I put on my templates since pixelpost 1.3? I'm not sure, but it seems that you talked about that when I was in the dev forum.

[raminia]

try this new solution too. very small modification
http://www.pixelpost.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=11238#11238

[scaturan]

i'm responsible for http://negimaki.com/ hosting a few hundred PixelPost 1.4.x sites and have been following this "referer spam" for quite sometime now. there's no "one-shot" solution for this problem. a combination of log analysis, adding firewall rules and such are just some of the many ways to slow down rampant occurance.

if you are running Apache and have access to httpd.conf or php.ini on a UNIX/Linux environment, you can use PHP's auto_prepend capability to with th following tools:

Referer Karma
http://unknowngenius.com/blog/wordpress/ref-karma/

Bad Behavior
http://ioerror.us/software/bad-behavior/

for another layer of protection, you can also use this tool to create special filters.

mod_security (an Apache module)
http://modsecurity.org/

if you are a server admin, you better get to work. and if you don't have access to those files, be sure to bug your service provider for it. :)

[raminia]

Thank you for infomation and sharing your experties.

I've made an addon from Bad Behavior for Pixelpost and it seems it works somehow...
Link:
http://www.pixelpost.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=11374#11374

[Connie]

scaturan,

thanks for your suggestions

the Bad Behaviour-script will be available as AddOn very soon, but we tested it and we did not satisfy us so well
In the moment I am checking the effect of that script ...

thanks again

[blinking8s]

ban...humph, thats a little harsh, things like this do happen in ounger application. Several major hosts that noticed issues came right to us and mentioned the issue and suggested the areas to the fix. To ban it is extremely premature for the situation.

[visualpixel]

Hey guys,

Sorry for the long overdue reply but just wanted to let you guys know that I was able to get my site back up. I actually changed hosting servers, so I'm now being hosted by Eleven2. I also installed the bad behavior and the anti-comment spam addons. I'm still getting referral spam and bad behavior is stopping some of it. I did let Eleven2 know about my problem before I switched (apparently I was the first person to let them know about pixelpost being vulerable to spammers) and they said that they would try and stop it. Anyways thanks for all the help guys.

-Mark

[scaturan]

with referer spam, it's no longer an issue with just PixelPost. i can post some excerpts of my Apache logs but that'll just be pointless. system administrators and web hosting customers both have to be proactive. unfortunately, one has to filter a few sets of IP-range (cidr) originating from China, Korea and Mexico to cutdown the load. and that's just the beggining and for most, it's not an option. in addition to Bad Behavior, Referer Karma, i also have mod_security filters and special Apache directives to redirect referer spam to a separate log file for analysis. even then, it's still not enough. =)

[scaturan]

for System Admins, you might find a small tutorial i wrote to combat this problem at http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=448388

[datashark]

I set one up. I setup servers in a datacenter to host my site. I started selling hosting packages and I not only allow pixelpost but I will support the installation of it. I sell basic packages with 5GB of disk space adn 25GB a month of transfer (cPanel access and all of the good stuff) for $60 a year. I know this looks like spam and it kind of is a shamless self promotion but I figured I would let you all know about it. I have other packages as well and am more then willing to work with you to create something that works for your needs. My goal is to provide people with a hosting service that does not suck and provides them with what they want for not much money. Anyway. feel free to check it out at www.lesswired.net/portal/webstore.php or email me at nomad@lesswired.com for more information.

[Connie]

that is good to hear!

[Joe[y]]

this wouldn't be spam if you had perhaps chosen a more appropiate forum such as 'lounge'.

but 'bur report' - c'mon mate! lol

[tinyblob]

I hate to lower the tone.. but as long as you're selling hosting - not selling pixelpost - we're happy :)

[blinking8s]

i always get confused when old threads get pulled up from the dead...

glad your stuff is working visual

[ldallara]

I just got an email from my hosting server saying that they would not allow pixelpost to run on their server. Below is the email informing why I can't run pixelpost.


I still want to use pixelpost but I think I might have to change servers or use a different Phoblog CMS.
Did anyone ever had this problem with pixelpost and their hosting server?

-Mark


They might be on to something..

[Joe[y]]

They might be on to something..

what do you mean?

[tinyblob]

he's just being a pain and commenting on an archaic thread because he had problems with his account. except that as far as i'm aware his problems were caused by authenticated SMTP spam, nothing to do with Pixelpost.

it's like having your house broken into through the back door, and being angry with the company that made your windows.