'phpbb_sessions' full errors

Post by **sinbad** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 1:07 pm

For info, we're getting this because some guest is repeatedly hammering the server with temporary sessions. Unfortunately phpBB2 does not have automatic protection from this in the stable version yet.

I have the IP of the source that's causing this and will be investigating.

Post by **sinbad** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 1:26 pm

Single IPs are now limited to 50 sessions at a time. This should resolve the problems we've been encountering. It does mean that there can only be 50 users online at a time from behind a single corporate firewall, but I think we can live with that

Post by **sinbad** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 1:36 pm

And for info, the IP/domain responsible for the recent problems is dsic.upv.es.

I'm ready to ban the IP responsible unless anyone from that domain can give me a damn good reason why I shouldn't.

Poldi · Post by **Poldi** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 4:22 pm

I had this error once 1-2 weeks ago

but I am not from that domain you mentioned.

It happens if you use Opera or Konqueror in the mode where it reopens the last opened windows and many of them are (your favourite) ogre forum threads. You can do this up to maybe 10 threads and then get/cause this error. I closed many thread tabs and did not get this error again.

leedgitar · Post by **leedgitar** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 4:31 pm

FWIW, last night I encountered a real strange problem after posting a reply to a message here. IE started going crazy and spawning new windows left and right, which halted after I ended the iexplore.exe task. I've only seen that happen once, and am at a loss to explain what would cause that to happen (the Ogre forums was the only IE window I had open at the time).

Post by **sinbad** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 5:18 pm

@Poldi: I doubt it was your fault

While watching this IP in action I've seen it create 28 session in 5 seconds, and 900 in a couple of minutes. Seems to be sporadic since there's none of them on right now, but when they do come on they flood the system. 10 sessions wouldn't do it - we can have 2500+ of them if need be.

Looking at their access patterns today, they seem to be browsing developer profiles rather than forum threads. That makes me pretty sure this is an email address harvester, perhaps being run by someone at that university. We should be insulated against it now, but if I see it again and it's the same access pattern, I'll ban it, and anyone wanting to access these forums from that uni will just have to find the b*stard who's been doing this themselves and give them a well deserved kicking.

@leedgitar: I've never seen this happen, but then I rarely use IE. Get a decent browser mate

Ctaesis · Post by **Ctaesis** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 5:41 pm

IE started going crazy and spawning new windows left and right, which halted after I ended the iexplore.exe task.

The solution to your problem is here.

Antiarc · Post by **Antiarc** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 5:52 pm

sinbad wrote:Looking at their access patterns today, they seem to be browsing developer profiles rather than forum threads. That makes me pretty sure this is an email address harvester, perhaps being run by someone at that university. We should be insulated against it now, but if I see it again and it's the same access pattern, I'll ban it, and anyone wanting to access these forums from that uni will just have to find the b*stard who's been doing this themselves and give them a well deserved kicking.

If you'd like, I can write you a script that can be used to intercept requests from that IP, and which will just read garbage from /dev/random and pipe it to his browser

PeterNewman · Post by **PeterNewman** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 12:05 am

@leedgitar: Not to hijack the thread, but that sounds like a virus/work thats going around. It infects unsecure IIS servers (often add banner servers) then uses a vulnerability in IE to spread to more IIS servers.
Although if OGRE forums was the only place you had open, it shouldn't have been that, but who knows with IE?

Snugglebear · Post by **Snugglebear** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 3:33 am

leedgitar wrote:FWIW, last night I encountered a real strange problem after posting a reply to a message here. IE started going crazy and spawning new windows left and right, which halted after I ended the iexplore.exe task. I've only seen that happen once, and am at a loss to explain what would cause that to happen (the Ogre forums was the only IE window I had open at the time).

Hunt for spyware. IE is that drunk high school cheerleader at the fraternity party. You would not believe how much is going around and how long it takes to dislodge it once you contract something.

Antiarc · Post by **Antiarc** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 4:36 am

Snugglebear wrote:
leedgitar wrote:FWIW, last night I encountered a real strange problem after posting a reply to a message here. IE started going crazy and spawning new windows left and right, which halted after I ended the iexplore.exe task. I've only seen that happen once, and am at a loss to explain what would cause that to happen (the Ogre forums was the only IE window I had open at the time).
Hunt for spyware. IE is that drunk high school cheerleader at the fraternity party. You would not believe how much is going around and how long it takes to dislodge it once you contract something.

Not to mention that you can now catch a certain keylogger just by pulling up carefully-crafted images.

leedgitar · Post by **leedgitar** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 2:33 pm

Ctaesis wrote:
IE started going crazy and spawning new windows left and right, which halted after I ended the iexplore.exe task.
The solution to your problem is here.

Bwahaha. I was actually going to post a smart ass response to that, but instead I downloaded it and I'm hooked

dermont · Post by **dermont** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 5:44 pm

I just received the following error trying to access the forum:

Code: Select all

phpBB : Critical Error Error creating new session DEBUG MODE
SQL Error : 1114 The table 'phpbb_sessions' is ful

Post by **temas** » Fri Apr 01, 2005 6:14 pm

Thanks, I'll look into it, and turn off debug mode