Final Steps for NukeSentinel & Unbanning IP's

Regular Joined: Sep 26, 2007 Posts: 60

Hey, I have almost finished setting up Nuke Sentinel but I can't seem to get past the final steps. I have everything uploaded, and I can get to the module through my admin panel. But when I change the sample.htaccess to just .htaccess I get the login popup, and even when I enter the correct login details I set I can't login. Also NukeSentinel is banning me from my website, FTP access, and my control panel. I know this for a fact since I can login to my website, control panel and get FTP on one computer, but I can't do all three on a computer where my ip has been banned.

Is there a way that I can reset the ip bans on NukeSentinel too? If I get on a computer where my ip hasn't been banned I can log in and change the .htaccess to something like sample.htaccess and then I can log into my site.

One more thing. On the Nuke Sentinel Module main page, it shows what should be the path to all the .access files. I have all the .access files in those exact locations, but it says below that they are not there. Everyone except the sample.htaccess has the right permissions and name, the .htaccess has "sample" in front of it.

Is there any steps I could be missing?

Subject Matter Expert Joined: Feb 23, 2004 Posts: 358

.htaccess will deny anything from the webroot on down, and therefore any HTTP request will be denied. Sentinel's IP ban from the database will deny any HTTP request with your domain in the request that sends it to any script that invokes Nuke's mainfile.php. So, if an IP was in Sentinel's IP ban table, and you uploaded a test.html file, you should be able to call that file. If you rename the .htaccess back to sample.htaccess, and you STILL cannot access FTP or web control, you have a problem elsewhere... it's not either Sentinel or .htaccess. I have seen one server (XO Communications) where making changes to the .htaccess file take several minutes to 'take' (as much as 15-30 mins).

Web control panels are generally bound to a different port and are not in your actual webpath. FTP login should be controlled by a FTP server, again, on a separate port. Therefore, I've never heard of Sentinel or .htaccess locking one out of their web panel or [ Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! ] That's quite bizarre, and barring any answer you get here, you really need to contact your web hosting support and ask them why a .htaccess deny would behave this way (for certain, Sentinel is not the culprit here).

I've seen hosts who do not provide phpMyAdmin, and so then typically the client (you) would have to download it and install it on your webpath, and then yes, that .htaccess would block you from that, but again, Sentinel would not...

To answer your question about clearing the IP bans, you would need to load up phpMyAdmin or similar. Load the table {prefix}_nsnst_banned_ips. If you don't have a ton of valid IP bans in there, just EMPTY the table. If you have IPs in it you want retained, search for your ip and then remove it.

Lastly, as for what you should do to finish the install, well, I have certainly seen servers that do not allow Sentinel to see the .htaccess file (but also therefore not allow Sentinel or any script to write to it). I can offer to go into your server and get it working, if not the traditional way, using other workarounds. PM me if you would like that.

Understand that Sentinel works -without- any Admin logins protected by .htaccess. If you shut off the admin check, Sentinel will protect your site just fine from all other direct domain attacks. The Admin authorization is just one little extra nice thing it does, but it isn't necessary for Sentinel's main purpose.

PHrEEk

Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 5:38 am

If you can access your site from another computer you will be able to logon and remove the banned IP through the NS admin, but you will also need to check your .htaccess, if it has been there by NS you will need to delete this also.