[Daggas]

I use a temporary work-around for dynamic IPs. It's ugly, messy, and a bit time consuming but it does work.......unless they use a major dial-up ISP.

First thing I do is grab the IP off the ban list and copy it over into Excel. Instead of placing the whole IP in one column, I seperate it out into 4. I erase the last part and replace it with a 1, and then have Excel build the remainder of the IP list to 254, so I end up with a range like:

1 1 1 1
1 1 1 2
.
.
.
1 1 1 254

I save out the spreadsheet in comma seperated value (*.csv) and then re-open it in Word and run a search/replace for all instances of the comma with a replacement value of the period. I now have a complete list of IPs that the person could obtain as long as the first 3 parts of the IP remain static. In cases that they log in with an IP of let's say 1.1.2.254 and start pulling lame crap then I make another file just like the first with the appropriate changes. From there it is just a cut/copy/paste into the banned IP list.

One thing that I do however is run 2 seperate instances of CKs Autokick on 2 differant systems. The static ban list is run on the same server as the host game while the dynamic ban list is run on a extra server that I have access to. After some fiddling I set them up to run in sequence so that they are both running 20 second scans and both running ban checks on every second scan. With some timing I managed to get it so that they run the scans opposed time wise so that the MOHAA server doesnt get swamped with 2 requests simultaneoulsy.

Pain in the ass? Yep. A lot of extra work? Yep.
Worth it? Definately. Until another solution arises I am stuck with it and with the timing set right with the scans I get no lag at all on the server.


-Daggas