Forum Topic: how to test banned ip’s

Forum: .htaccess Forum : General • Posted by RememberToForget • Updated:

Once you ban somebody (or redirect them or whatever it is) based on their IP address, how do you test your work?

I’m googling “browse with specific IP address”, but everyone says it can’t really be done. Yet I can’t think of another way to test ban settings.

2 Replies to “how to test banned ip’s”

Posted by Jeff Starr •

Spoofing IPs requires advanced skill, see this post for a quick explanation:

http://superuser.com/questions/619477/how-do-i-spoof-the-ip-that-my-computer-sends-a-server-without-using-something-li

Further, in my opinion, blocking by IP is the least effective way to control traffic — they just change too much and are not always legit.

It’s difficult to test blocked IPs directly, but again the server logs should reveal whether the IP is effectively blocked with a simple search of the file. For example, a log containing 3 days worth of request data should contain no instances of the blocked IP.

Also, I’ve never seen an IP block via .htaccess that does not work, so should be nothing to worry about.

Posted by RememberToForget •

Got it; thanks.