htaccess ip banning

[simoncox]

Is there any good online references to banning IP address ranges available. I am getting tons of referer pings to my site from idiot spammers trying to get thier dodgy sites listed on automated last referer lists. I don't have those listst bu these referers and messing up my logs with false hits.

[WHSP-Mark E]

Hi Simon,

What method you can use would really depend on your account type.  If you have a shared account you can use a .htaccess file to block IP addresses and ranges (you can also use this if you have a VPS account).  This will still cause some entries in log files but they will get an error of access denied.  A good guide to using .htaccess files to block IP address I think is:

http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess5.shtml

If you have a VPS account you can actually use iptables.  This however is a more advanced way and if you're not familiar with it I wouldn't recomend trying it as it's possible to create a bad rule that would prevent yourself or possibly anybody from connecting to your account at all.  There are many guides on this if you do a search in search engines however as stated, unless you're already familiar with it it may not be the way to go.

Hope this helps!