#Friends-of-irc Channel Classes

Hostmasks and Bans 2

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This page should not be taken as legal or medical counsel , but only as recommendation from a collection of sources.

This is a class about hostmasks and bans. You need to have attended the Intro to Hostmasks Class, or you will be lost.

Just as a review, a mask is a line of information about an IRC user and the user's connection. This information can easily be obtained from doing a /whois on a user. A mask is made up of 4 pieces of information: nick, user, node and host, in the form nick!user@node.host

Do a /whois and write the hostmask here. If you can't remember how, it's okay. Just attend the Intro to Hostmasks class again for further review and then you can take this class again.

A) WHY DO YOU NEED TO USE A MASK?

B) U@H - THE STANDARD BAN OR SILENCE MASK

C) REMOVING BANS OR SILENCES

A) WHY DO YOU NEED TO USE A MASK?

Masks are needed for the following IRC commands/actions

1) The ban command /mode #channel +b for Ops only

2) The /silence command /silence for all users

3) /who searches on users /who

4) Some communications with IRC network channel services (Chanserv, W etc)

5) /dns lookups to identify a user's IP address or Service Provider

The IRC servers, Channel Services and your IRC client (program) will not understand these commands if you DON'T use a mask

B) U@H - THE STANDARD BAN OR SILENCE MASK

To silence or ban on full mask or nick alone is not usually done because a nick can be changed fast and easily by the command /nick .

Instead, bans and silences are usually made against parts of the mask that are less easy to change - namely combinations of user, node and host. The most common hostmask for bans - and the one we recommend is called a U@H mask or "User at Host".

Let's use the /silence command to show the U@H mask: Example /whois: foimember is friend@12-5a.mindspring.com

Full Mask: foimember!friend@12-5a.mindspring.com

User@Host (U@H) Mask /silence *!*friend@*.mindspring.com

This mask is made by replacing the nick and node with a * symbol, and by adding a * symbol in front of the username. Since we don't care what nick we are silencing or banning we replace it with a *. Since we don't care what node is used, we also replace the node with a *.

This /silence is ONLY applied to the username and the host. It is NOT applied to the nick or the node. The use of the wildcards means that it will be effective against ANY nick and ANY node as long as the user has the word "friend" and the host is mindspring.com. This silence silences ANY nick with username containing the word "friend" and from ANY node from "mindspring.com".

As you can see in the /silence mask above, the nick is replaced by a * (meaning ANY nick), and the node is also replaced by a * (meaning ANY node), but what is the third * doing in front of the username "friend"?

Why is the /silence mask

/silence *!*friend@*.mindspring.com (3 wildcards *) ?

Why isn't the /silence mask just:

/silence *!friend@*.mindspring.com (2 wildcards *) ?

The reason is that sometimes when a user logs onto IRC their username gets given a "tilde" or ~ symbol in front of it, and sometimes not.

Sometimes the /whois might read foimember is friend@12-5a.mindspring.com

and sometimes foimember is ~friend@12-5a.mindspring.com

If you have /silence on

/silence *!friend@*.mindspring.com

and then foimember logs on as foimember!

~friend@12-5a.mindspring.com

then your /silence will no longer work because it was set to silence (friend) NOT (~friend).

Since you never know if that ~ symbol is going to be there or not, you need to put in a wildcard (*) when you use a silence or ban mask on U@H. The * here means that the ban or silence will work on the username with or without the ~.

So what exactly is that ~ and why is it put on to your Username sometimes and sometimes not? This is part of what is called "identd", and is a separate class all on its own. Suffice it to say at this stage that the ~ (tilde) may or not be there so always put a * before the username when silencing or banning.

A note on the host: You notice that in the example above we silenced @*.mindspring.com and NOT @*mindspring.com

Why do we keep the period in between the * and mindspring.com? Wouldn't @*mindspring.com work just as well as @*.mindspring.com?

Both masks would effectively silence the person we targetted for silencing, BUT a /silence against *mindspring.com would also silence anyone using other ISPs that contained the word "mindspring.com", e.g. surfmindspring.com, northmindspring.com, bluemindspring.com etc. By leaving in the period . you make sure you only ban on the host "mindspring.com".

C) REMOVING BANS OR SILENCES

To remove a /silence Using IRCle, mIRC and pIRCh: Repeat the command but this time use a minus sign before the mask, e.g.

/silence -*!*user@*.host

To remove a ban Using IRCle, mIRC and pIRCh:

Repeat the command but this time use a minus sign before the "b", e.g.

/mode #channel -b *!*user@*.host

A) NAMESERVERS AND IP ADDRESSES

B) U@H BANNING AND /SILENCE USING IPS

C) REMOVING BANS OR SILENCES ON IP MASKS

A) NAMESERVERS AND IP ADDRESSES

Not every Internet server uses nameservers like "mindspring.com" or "sprint.net". Another kind of IRC connection line is a line of 4 numbers, separated by dots, called an IP address. IP stands for Internet Protocol.

Every Internet connection has its own unique 4 number address but some are translated into a connection number and a nameserver. For example the IP address of the hostname 12-5a.mindspring.com is 206.117.206.53

So it's perfectly possible when doing a/whois that instead of:

foimember is friend@12-5a.mindspring.com

you find a /whois line like:

foimember is friend@206.117.206.53

All nameservers also have IP addresses, but not all IP addresses have nameservers.

Each Internet Service is assigned whats called a NETBLOCK of IP numbers that they can use. For example:

Los Nettos

USC Information Sciences Institute 4676 Admiralty Way Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6695 Netname: LOS-NETTOS-BLK Netblock: 198.147.64.0 - 198.147.127.255 Maintainer: LNET

LN.NET

The Netblock shows you the range of IP numbers that they have been assigned.

Making masks for /silence and ban is *different* for an IP address than for a hostname because the NODE and the HOST are 'backwards'.

With foimember!friend@12-5a.mindspring.com the hostname reads node.host.

With foimember!friend@206.117.206.53 the IP reads host.node.

In the IP address: 206.117.206.53, the 206.117.206. is the host and the 53 is the node.

Since the node changes each time foimember logs on (dynamic IP) this means one day foimember's IP could read:

206.117.206.139

while the next day it could read

206.117.206.74

and the next

206.117.206.91

As you can see, the part 206.117.206. (host) remains the same while the connection node changes on each log on.

Most users on IRC will be using services with IP addresses that start with a number between 192 and 223. These are called "Class C Networks" and with Class C networks only the last number changes (the node).

There are however other (larger) network IPs where the last TWO numbers change each time the user logs on. These are called Class B networks and the IPs start with a number between 128 and 191, e.g.

130.114.23.74

In this example of a Class B network the numbers 130.114 are the Host and the numbers 23.74 are the node.

Finally the largest networks are called Class A networks. Their IP numbers begin with numbers OTHER than 128-223. For example:

17.112.86.91

With a Class A network the last THREE numbers are the Node and only the FIRST number indicates the Host.

In the example above the number 17 is the Host and the numbers 112.86.91 are the Node.

Summary:

Class C Networks' IPs start with 192-223 and change last number only.

Class B Networks' IPs start with 128-191 and change last two numbers.

Class A Networks' IPs start with other numbers and change last three numbers.

B) U@H BANNING AND /SILENCE USING IPS

The correct mask for a U@H ban or silence on an IP address is as follows:

U@H mask for Class C IP addresses: IP 206.117.206.91

*!*friend@206.117.206.*

This mask is made by replacing the nick and node with a * symbol, and by adding a * symbol in front of the username.

This /silence or ban is ONLY applied to your user and your host. It is NOT applied to your nick or your node. The use of the wildcards means that it will be effective against ANY nick and ANY node as long as the user has the word "friend" and the host is 206.117.206. This silence/ban silences or bans ANY nick with username containing the word "friend" and from ANY node from "206.117.206". This example shows a Class C IP address (the most common for users on IRC)

U@H mask for Class B IP addresses: IP 137.117.46.72

*!*friend@137.117.*

This mask is made by replacing the nick and node with a * symbol, and by adding a * symbol in front of the username.

This /silence or ban is ONLY applied to your user and your host. It is NOT applied to your nick or your node. The use of the wildcards means that it will be effective against ANY nick and ANY node as long as the user has the word "friend" and the host is 137.117. This silence/ban silences or bans ANY nick with username containing the word "friend" and from ANY node from "137.117.".

It is not necessary to use 137.117.*.* for this mask, even though you are removing 2 numbers. 137.117.*.* and 137.117.* are the same thing.

U@H mask for Class A IP addresses: IP 17.45.72.99

*!*friend@17.*

This mask is made by replacing the nick and node with a * symbol, and by adding a * symbol in front of the username.

This /silence or ban is ONLY applied to your user and your host. It is NOT applied to your nick or your node. The use of the wildcards means that it will be effective against ANY nick and ANY node as long as the user has the word "friend" and the host is 17. This silence/ban silences or bans ANY nick with username containing the word "friend" and from ANY node from "17.".

It is not necessary to use 17.*.*.* for this mask, even though you are removing 3 numbers. 17.*.*.* and 17.* are the same thing.

Static IPs

Some people have a connection with a node that never changes. These are commonly people whose computers are permanently online and never disconnect.

A connection node that never changes is called a STATIC IP. Procedures for /silence and banning however are exactly the same as with Dynamic IPs

C) REMOVING BANS OR SILENCES ON IP MASKS

To remove a /silence Using IRCle, mIRC and pIRCh: Repeat the command but this time use a minus sign before the mask, e.g.

/silence -*!*user@host.*

To remove a ban Using IRCle, mIRC and pIRCh: Repeat the command with a minus sign before the "b", e.g.

/mode #channel -b *!*user@host.*

Cyberangels are a wonderful orginization on the web that can help anytime you find yourself in trouble , many thank to them for much of the informatin I will be presenting in these classes.

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