ip blocking

[robmann]

when you block a IP address what does the user see for a page? does it tell them they are blocked or just get a error page not found?

[Spathiphyllum]

"HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden" in the first line of the server response header field. This manifests itself as a simple HTML server page notifying the visitor that they are forbidden from browsing your web resource. If you block IP at the top-level, this is the warning they will get for every page down the hierarchy. If you block IP at a lower, sub-directory level, only pages served from that lower level are refused with the same warning. The upper level pages will still be served and no warning page will be given.

Try it yourself but only if you are able to access your site through FTP (or SCP/secure shell). To your top-level .htaccess file, block your own IP ("Deny from www.xxx.yyy.zzz" format) and then visit your site via HTTP (browser). You will get (and should see) a warning page from the server. Just remember to comment out that line (or delete it) from your .htaccess file when you are done so that you don't block yourself out of your own site for too long.