I was looking around and noticed some odd queries (bans) that still mostly relied on the IPv4 schema (some RLIKE).
So I started wondering: is IPv6 complete or still only partially working?
On the interweb it's mentioned varbinary(16) as the way to go for IPv6 in mysql, we are currently using (a bit inconsistently) either CHAR or VARCHAR (in 16, 19 and 255 variants IIRC).
Sooo... dunno, any experience?
I wish I knew more about IPv6, I know just enough to use AAAA in the nameserver config. Can we even ban based on IPv6?
lol
We are at the same level then. xD
I had a look at:
https://github.com/SimpleMachines/SMF2.1/pull/3373
but still my head hurts a bit by that.
Looks straight forward enough really, just updating what is stored in the db ... most the the complexity is in the upgrade scripts. It uses the built in php function inet_ntop to convert the binary stored IP (4 or 6) back to a string when needed.
As for the bans, I disapprove of banning by IP in general, or if you must it should be for like a day or two. What was done will work of course but I'm uneasy about V6 bans as I'm not sure how some of those blocks work.
I'd suggest to remove ban by ip but one can always have troublesome ip range monitored.
The idea is to warn user from that ip whrn post or put his post on hold / for aproval or something, so that spammers may be educated or something? I am really not sure what I am trying to say. ;D
Honestly, banning by IP is probably antiquated anyway. All anyone has to do to have a different IP is drive to the other side of town. Or power cycle their home modem. ;)
Or jump to a different VPS server ... I can use a server from just about anywhere that I want and get new IP's along the way. Right now I'm on a Georgia server, guess where I am not :D
And now I'm in Austria :P
Italy is nice too
I still use ban IP for spammers but I don't know how useful it is. Probably zero