Support

Admin Tools

#31209 Unblock my Ip in backend but I don't seem blocked

Posted in ‘Admin Tools for Joomla! 4 & 5’
This is a public ticket

Everybody will be able to see its contents. Do not include usernames, passwords or any other sensitive information.

Environment Information

Joomla! version
n/a
PHP version
n/a
Admin Tools version
n/a

Latest post by on Saturday, 10 August 2019 17:17 CDT

PeterAnthony
I am seeing the big red "Unblock my Ip" button in the back-end even though it seems that i can do everything I need to do.

I would prefer to not go through the hassle of clicking on the button, at least until I understand why it's there.

Thanks.
Peter

tampe125
Akeeba Staff
Hello,

I suspect you have a proxy in front of your server.
Can you please enable the option IP Workarounds inside the Configure WAF page?
That should fix your issue.

Davide Tampellini

Developer and Support Staff

๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡นItalian: native ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งEnglish: good โ€ข ๐Ÿ• My time zone is Europe / Rome (UTC +1)
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

PeterAnthony
I've been on the road all day. Just tried to make that change and discovered it was already enabled. See the attachment.

PeterAnthony
Toggled it off and still no change. I still have the big red button "Unblock my IP"

PeterAnthony
Gents. I'll be advertising my site on social media on Wednesday and I would really appreciate having this sorted before then. Would hate to have to take my site offline even if it's for a minute when it's live.

Thanks.

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
First, I'd like to explain why this reply came late to you. You contacted us around 11pm and again around 5am our time. Support is provided by the same developers writing the software, all of which live in Europe. We typically work between 9 am and 7 pm Cyprus timezone (EEST). Tickets or replies filed after around 6 pm are unlikely to be responded to until the next day, when we're back at the office.

Regarding your first question, this button appears when your apparent IP address is in one of the following pages:
  • Auto IP blocking administration. These are the temporarily blocked IP addresses.
  • Auto IP blocking history. This is the history of previous temporarily blocked IP addresses. Most likely your IP is here since you are currently not blocked (obviously!) but you still see the button. Why? Most likely because you did get blocked at some point and that automatic block expired.
  • Site IP blacklist. This is a list of permanently blacklisted IP addresses. Your IP might also be here if you have also white-listed it (white-listing takes priority over blacklisting).


Clicking the button removes records with your IP from all three places and also the Security Exceptions Log. This will make the button go away. Therefore you should click on it.

If you are not sure which is the apparent IP address, i.e. the IP address Joomla and your server see, please go to Components, Admin Tools, Web Application Firewall, Geographic Blocking. In the "What is this" box at the top of the page you will see what is your IP address, as reported by your server. If that IP, despite using Enable IP Workarounds, is NOT the IP address you use to connect to the Internet you need to contact your hosting provider and let them know that their server is behind a misbehaving proxy which does not generate an X-Forwarded-For HTTP header (or generates an incorrect one). Since they'd probably take a while to get back to you, you will probably have to disable Admin Tools' system plugin to prevent your site becoming blocked while you are advertising it. Far from ideal but in this case your host would be to blame for this.

That said, I am pretty sure that the simplest resolution to your issue is actually clicking the button, something that Davide assumed you did. Reading your ticket, especially the first message, I know you never tried. So Davide was trying to figure out why the button keeps appearing after clicking it whereas you wanted to know why it's there and whether or why should you click on it.

As a side note, if you think that clicking that button is a "hassle" as you said, what would you say about the manual alternative (Step 2 on that page)? I think that the manual process is a hassle, indeed. Clicking a button is not. If you see a way to improve it, please do tell me. We appreciate user feedback. Some issues, even obvious ones, are easier to spot when you're not the one who introduced them in the first place :)

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ทGreek: native ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งEnglish: excellent ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ทFrench: basic โ€ข ๐Ÿ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

PeterAnthony
Hi Nicholas,
No worries about the late reply. I would only have been disappointed if I had not found your reply this morning my time.

You were correct about my not clicking the button. I anticipated incorrectly that I would have to go through the process of access the main.php file by ftp etc. If I realized that clicking the button was all that was required I would not have asked for support.

Definitely not a hassle.

I attach the page showing the "What is this" box. It shows no IP address. Is that correct?

Thanks
Peter

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
Hm, I am not sure if we added the IP display after the last release. It seems to be the case, so you're right, the IP is not there. If you have enabled the IP blacklist feature in the Configure WAF page you will see the IP if you go to the Site IP Blacklist page in the Web Application Firewall page. I don't think we display the IP anywhere else.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ทGreek: native ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งEnglish: excellent ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ทFrench: basic โ€ข ๐Ÿ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

PeterAnthony
No problem Nicholas. I hope the next release will solve the problems I had with geographic blocking. Dale can explain if you aren't aware.

Thanks for the support. Despite all the problems I had at the start, I feel better with this in place and knowing I can get help when I need.

Be well.
Peter

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
Yes, I read the other ticket. It sounds like something weird is going on with the way the host reports the IP. The next version will tell you what IP the server reports but beyond that there's nothing we can do. We have to rely on the IP – relayed to Joomla by your host – and the third part MaxMind GeoIP database to resolve IPs into countries. The free MaxMind database only claims 90% accuracy. Their commercial version goes up to 95%. That's the main reason I have said that GeoIP blocking is a bad idea to begin with. How easy it is to bypass for anyone who can use Google is the other.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ทGreek: native ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡งEnglish: excellent ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ทFrench: basic โ€ข ๐Ÿ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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This ticket has been automatically closed. All tickets which have been inactive for a long time are automatically closed. If you believe that this ticket was closed in error, please contact us.

System Task
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This ticket has been automatically closed. All tickets which have been inactive for a long time are automatically closed. If you believe that this ticket was closed in error, please contact us.

System Task
system
This ticket has been automatically closed. All tickets which have been inactive for a long time are automatically closed. If you believe that this ticket was closed in error, please contact us.

System Task
system
This ticket has been automatically closed. All tickets which have been inactive for a long time are automatically closed. If you believe that this ticket was closed in error, please contact us.

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Working hours: We are open Monday to Friday, 9am to 7pm Cyprus timezone (EET / EEST). Support is provided by the same developers writing the software, all of which live in Europe. You can still file tickets outside of our working hours, but we cannot respond to them until we're back at the office.

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