Bot-Trap

Bot-Trap
Summary	Creates a honeypot or trap to block bots that do not adhere to robots.txt standards
Validation
Mod Updated	10 Jan 2025
Download link	For TNG 14.0.4 Bot-trap_v14.0.4.7.zip For TNG 14.0 TNG 13.0 TNG 12.0 Bot-trap_v12.0.0.5.zip For TNG 10.1.0 TNG 11.0 TNG 11.1 Bot-trap_v10.1.0.4.zip
Download stats	Downloads Stats
Author(s)	Bryan S. Larson Based on the Bot-Trap tool by Daniel M. Webb
Homepage	Bot-Trap (This page)
Mod Support	TNG Community Forums
Contact Developer	TNG Community Forums
Latest Mod	14.0.4.7
Min TNG V	10.1
Max TNG V	14+
Files modified	meta.php stdsitecredit.php css/genstyle.css .htaccess robots.txt Files added: bot-trap/settings.php bot-trap/.htaccess bot-trap/forbid.php bot-trap/functions.php bot-trap/index.php bot-trap/pixel.gif bot-trap/unban.php
Related Mods
Notes

Purpose of the mod

This TNG modification places a link on every page of your site that is invisible to humans, but which machines can see. Clicking on the link automatically blocks the visitor by adding an .htaccess restriction for the offending IP address. If a human is curious enough to find and visit the link, there is an easy mechanism to get removed from the list of banned IP addresses.

The way Bot-Trap works is that it adds an entry to robots.txt (and creates the file if it does not already exist) which instructs bots to avoid the bot-trap directory. If a bot does follow the robots.txt protocol, as good bots do, it will know not to visit the trap. Bad bots that do not follow robots.txt standards will see the link and visit it; thereby getting blocked via an entry to .htaccess.

Developer

This mod was developed by Bryan S. Larson. Beta testing of the original mod was done by Ken Roy and Rick Bisbee. Version 14.0.4 was developed by Steven Davis.

Requirements

• A working TNG installation.
• A backup of all affected files (see the list in the summary to the right)
• An installed current version of the Mod Manager.
• A server that supports .htaccess 2.2 for TNG 10.1-14.0.3 (most do)
• A server that supports .htaccess 2.4 for TNG 14.0.4+ (most do)

Revision History

Mod Version	TNG Version	Date	Contents
14.0.4.7	14.0.4	10 Jan 2025	Fixed syntax error in Check Files that caused a blank page on PHP 8.1+.
14.0.4.6	14.0.4	11 Oct 2024	Updated Check Files to avoid inserting multiple Bot-trap anchors if RequireAll tags are used in the Files and/or FilesMatch directives.
14.0.4.5	14.0.4	07 Oct 2024	Changed code so check files must be run first instead of creating missing files automatically. Updated code to prevent checking permissions echoing code before the header loads in bt_check.php.
14.0.4.4	14.0.4	01 Oct 2024	Fixed unescaped quotations in Dutch and Norwegian languages.
14.0.4.3	14.0.4	20 Sep 2024	Updated code to remove PHP 8 warnings.
14.0.4.2	14.0.4	05 Jul 2024	This update uses the Apache 2.4 directives Require and Require not instead of Allow/Deny. Includes instructional files for upgrading directives. Uses TNG send email function so email from was removed. Removed links from log files so admins don't ban themselves accidentally. Bot-trap link is disabled when a user logs in. Bot-Trap pages are XHTML compliant. Updated the Bot-trap link so SEO is not affected.
12.0.0.5	12.0	23 Jul 2018	This update corrects an error in the bot-trap pages as well as some updates for TNG V12 Mod Manager changes.
10.1.0.4	10.1	22 Aug 2017	Small update to better recognize TNG installations that are not in the web root. Also an update for better compatibility with modern versions of php.
10.1.0.3	10.1	30 Nov 2016	Small fix in check file; it was not checking for .htaccess as it should have been. Corrected.
10.1.0.2	10.1	08 Nov 2016	Update to use footer rather than meta.php. This resolves validation problems associated with previous version of mod.
10.1.0.1	10.1	06 Mar 2015	Initial release of the Bot-Trap.

Conflicts and Issues

The End Of Life for Apache 2.2 was January 2018. So Apache created the mod_access_compat_module so 2.2 directives can be used with Apache 2.4.
Trouble is, some servers do not have this module installed. Additionally using mixed directives will cause a Server 500 ERROR in some cases.
If this version of Bot-trap causes issues, uninstall and use an older version.

Installation

1. Uninstall and delete previous version of this mod (if installed)
2. Download the appropriate zip file as shown in the mod summary in the upper right corner of the page.
3. Extract the file from the downloaded zip file into the mods folder or FTP the extracted file to your mods folder.
4. IMPORTANT: In many cases, the mod manager may give an error indicating that the mod cannot be installed. THIS IS NORMAL.
   • You must click on the "Run Checks" button BEFORE installing the mod. This step creates the files and folders needed for the mod to work if they are not already present.
5. Follow the normal automated installation for Mod Manager, as shown in the example Mod Manager - Installing Config Files to install the mod.

In the event of a problem

• Try using the Mod Manager Remove capability.
• Copy the backup of the affected files back to your TNG directory.
• Retry installing mod.
• Contact us through the TNG Community Forums.

Uninstalling the mod

If you want to completely Remove (uninstall) this mod and any tables if created, you should

1. click the Uninstall button to uninstall the mod
2. click the Delete button to delete the config file from the mods folder.
3. delete the Bot-trap folder from the mods folder.
4. manually delete the blacklist.dat file from the TNG root folder.
5. manually delete the robots.txt file from the TNG root folder. (unless you want to keep it)
6. manually delete the .htaccess file from the TNG root folder. (unless you want to keep it)

Upgrade

• Uninstall and eventually Delete the current Mod.
• Proceed as for an installation with the new Mod.

Optional Parameters

This mod has 4 optional parameters which can be modified using the Mod Manager Edit capability.

1. Send an email alert when a new IP address is ADDED to the bot-trap: When enabled, this option causes an email to be sent to the specified email address any time a new bot is added to the IP block list. This is enabled by default, but will not work unless a valid email address is entered.
2. Send an email alert when a new IP address is REMOVED to the bot-trap: When enabled, this option causes an email to be sent to the specified email address any time a blocked IP address is removed from the block list via the escape mechanism. This is enabled by default, but will not work unless a valid email address is entered.
3. Email bot-trap alerts TO the following address: This is the email address where you wish to have bot-trap alerts sent.
4. Email bot-trap alerts FROM the following address: This is the email address you wish to have bot-trap alerts sent from. Normally, both email addresses would be the same, but in some cases it makes sense to differentiate them.

Sites using this mod

If you download and install this mod, please add your TNG site to the table below:

URL	User	Note	Mod-Version	TNG-Version	User-language
Our Family Histories	Bryan S. Larson	Mod developer	12.0.0.5	12.0.3	EN
WMGS Member Trees	Roger Moffat	Public Site	13.0.0.5	13.1.0	EN
Ryken and Rosenau Famly Tree	Paul Ryken	Public Site	13.0.0.4	13.0.4	EN
Our Family Links	Chuck Filteau	Public site	10.1.0.1	10.1.2	EN
Our Roy and Boucher Families	Ken Roy	Beta tested the mod for Bryan. Now using Steven Davis version	14.0.4.3	TNG 14.0.5	EN,FR
Bobbyfamilytree	Bobby		10.1.0.1	10.1.0	EN
Hooley Family Links	Rick Hooley	Public/Private	See here	See here	EN
A Bisbee Family History	Rick Bisbee		10.1.0.1	10.1.0	EN
Kemp(e) Family History	Andrew Kemp		See here	See here	EN
MOTYER Family Genealogy	John Mark Motyer	Public site	See here	See here	EN
Robison and Blythe Genealogy	Jeff Robison	Public Site	10.1.0.1	10.1.2	EN
Martius Family History	Hendrik Martius	Half-public site	10.1.0.4*	12.0.1	DE,EN,FR,NL
Kleinmann Genealogy	John Kleinmann		12.0.0.5	14.0	EN
R G Strong Family Genealogy	Russell G Strong	Modified the mod to validate at XHTML 1.0 Transitional	12.0.0.5	14.0.4	EN,DE,FR,NL
Extended Craxford Family Genealogy Magazine	Alan D Craxford	Using Russell's XHTML1.0 Transitional mod (may interfere with favicon)	10.1.0.1/2	11.0.2	EN
The Duttons of New England	Darrin Dutton	Pubic / Private	14.0.4.6	14.0.5	EN
Crawford County Genealogy Gateway	Frank Bernosky	Pubic Site	10.1.0.1	11.1	EN
Our Acadian Family	Randal Suire	Public/Media Private	10.1.0.4	11.1.2	EN,FR
McCarty-McCoy Family	Kelly Booth	Public	10.1.0.4	11.0.2	EN
Genealogy of the Weir and Drain Families	Beverley Stimpson	Public Site	10.1.0.4	11.1.2	EN
tobbes familje sidor	Torbjörn Åkerman	Public site	10.1.0.4	11.1.2	SV,EN,FI
The Cole / Tanner Family Tree	David Cole	Public/Private	See here	See here	EN,DE,FR,ES,NL
Racines Luxo-hennuyères	Michel Kirsch	Public site (registration)	12.0.0.7	14.0.3	FR,EN,DE,NL
Family Trees worldwide	Hans Weebers	Public, Private Site	10.1.0.4	12.0.1	NL,DE,EN,FR
FAMILY STORY BOURDEAUX / BORDEAUX	JPB	Public Site	See here	See here	DE,EN,FR
The Severijns / Timmer Familytree	Rob Severijns	Public / Private	See here	See here	NL, EN
Genealogy of a Dutch Community Losser	Peter Heerink	Public	14.0.4.2	14.0.5	NL,EN,DE
Familieboekonline	Janneke Helling	Private	12.0.0.5	13.1	NL,EN
Your Roots are Showing	Harold Craswell	Public / Private	See here	See here	EN
The Annals of a Humble Race	Gerald Apperly	Public / Private	12.0.0.5	14.0.1	EN
Osage County Cousins	Larry G Banks	Public/Private	14.0.4.2	14.0.4	EN
Solem Genealogy	Jan-Thore Solem	Private	14.0​.4​.6	14.0.5	EN,NO
GénéaKat	Katryne	Public & Private	12.0.0.5	14.0.4	FR,EN,SP
Carr’s Garage	Regis Carr	Public	12.0.0.5	14.0.3	EN,DE,NO
Jarocinski Family Database	Michał Jarociński	Public/Private	12.0.0.5	14.0.3	EN,PL
Stammbaum der Familie Datschetzky	Christian Datschetzky	Public	12.0.0.5	14.0.3	DE,EN
Jagos and Barron Family History	Emily Jagos	Public/Private	12.0.0.5	14.0.4	EN
The House of Kings	Søren Wendt	Public	12.0.0.5	14.0.2	EN,DE,FR,NL,IT
stone/mott genealogy	Albert Stone	Private	12.0.0.5	TNG 14.0.4	EN
Old Dead Relatives	Kate Montressor	Public	12.0.0.5	14.0.4	EN
Racine d'Alsace	J-Louis Valory	Public (registration)	14.0.4.2	14.0.5	FR
Genealogy family van Seeventer and more	Sandor van Seeventer	Public	14.0.4.2	TNG 14.0.5	NL,EN,DE
Chris Korte's New Zealand Genealogy Project	Chris Korte	Public / Private	14.0.4.3	TNG 14.0.5	DA,EN,FR,DE
Family HIstories	Steven Davis	Public	14.0.4.7	TNG 14.0.6