[CMS] Help, Post length too long, getting a Forbidden no permission error

[giskard]

Hello

I have recently installed Vbulletin Suite V4.1.2 on a new host i moved to a few days ago. This is the first live install of the software and whilst my local install worked fine, a fresh and new install on my host seems to have problems with long guides and tutorials.

When I post a long document or add it to an area in the cms or forum, I get this error

Forbidden
You do not have permission to access this document.

If i remove some text, the post or document is accepted and displays correctly. So it appears to be the length of the document at fault.

Does anybody know any solutions for this problem ?

Thanks.

[giskard]

Just so you know, my site is basically a document provider, meaning it provides guides and tutorials. So if most will not work with Vbulletin due to this error, that i have actually wasted my money on Vbulletin and will have to find other software. So its very important I find a solution to this problem because I cannot put most of my documents back online until this is solved.

[giskard]

Okay I just did a check on the tutorial lengths and I have some tutorials longer than the ones that are giving the error. After some tests, I found this section is preventing the tutorials from being posted.

This will sound like spam but its actually part of a game called Fallout New Vegas, and something in this section is stopping me guides from being posted.

Other people having problems posting to my site also have this same game are also modders and hit the same problem I have hit. So I think its some sort of bad word filter or anti spam feature.

I use Glowhosts Spam O Matic, its been installed for a day and is working great so far.

Gambling in the Casinos.

Most players do not touch their luck stat and leave it at 5 which is the default value. But a luck of 5 is just enough to ensure you lose most bets in a casino and miss out on most critical hits. Where as a luck of 7 is just enough to ensure you win most card games in a casino. The slot machines may need a luck of 8 to win most of the time but you can still do well with a Luck of 7 if you are smart.

Black Jack is a game you can win most of the time with a Luck stat of 7 if you "Stay" when your had reaches 17 or higher. In Black Jack, anything over 17 makes it risky to take another card where as anything lower than 17 makes it likely the house will beat your hand. So 17 is the magic number, you stay once you hit 17 or over. The advantage of 17 is you force the house to risk it rather than risking it your self. Whilst you may lose with a hand of 17 some of the time, you will also win some of the time. But the winning hands are usually 18 or over. 17 just about breaks even.

Looks like the words "Slot Machine" and "Casino" are to blame.

Not sure what is stopping those words for working but at least I am getting to the bottom on this now.

[Lynne]

Do you have suhosin or mod_security set up on your server? It could be that the rules for one of those is triggering the error.

[giskard]

My current host provided very few details like that to its customers, the most detailed list I have available to me comes from Vbulletin it self.
Is it possible to find that out using Vbulletin ?
If so any idea where I should look ?

I have identified it as a form of anti spam system going on, its like certain popular spam words are causing the error to appear. I checked both anti spam systems and one is turned off and the other is not setup to do scan posts. So I am clueless as to why it does it. I did work around the problem by spelling Casino C.a.s.i.n.o and that worked but its not ideal and i still have to work out which words cause the error out of an entire tutorial. And thats the hard part.

[Trevor Hannant]

Try running the Problematic Webserver Modules check in AdminCP > Maintenance > Diagnostics

[giskard]

Thats a cool feature, thanks for sharing.

I got this when I ran the test.

Suhosin Module Loaded No

mod_security AJAX Unicode Issue No

Results The above setting will indicate if mod_security is preventing some AJAX requests from being submitted to vBulletin. If this shows Yes then you either need to disable mod_security or change the AJAX settings with the vBulletin Options and disable Problematic features.

I still have no idea whats causing it, its definately some spam filter somewhere but not of the installed ones are set to interfer with posts this way. Glowhosts spam filter is doing too good a job on its own to need the others.

[Trevor Hannant]

Sometimes Suhosin isn't picked up correctly in there or if the host is running mod_security2 on the server, it won't display. Check for these in the PHP info page (AdminCP > Maintenance > Diagnostics > View PHP Info) or speak to your host on this.

[giskard]

Thanks Lynn, Trevor

I had another issue with the host and mentioned some of your points and they told me they know what is causing it and if I take out a new support ticket, they would resolve it for me.

I'll post the answer here when I learn the cause of the problem or post a request for further help if it doesnt work.

[giskard]

Hello Again

My host disabled mod security for me and the problem has disappeared.

I can now say Casino and Slot Machines and post staff email details to my hearts content and it appears on the forum normally without any issues at all. I strongly suspect some of the time outs I have experienced may also be a little less common too because the forum feels a lot faster this morning. Mind you that could be because its morning and thus less busy.

Thank you everybody for the help.
I appreciate it.

I am coming for IPBoard and this is my first time using Vbulletin so after a few weeks I'll post some feedback for you. In the mean time if you want to see what my users think of the new Vbulletin based website. You can read their comments in my poll about the Guild V2. Version 2 of my website is the Vbulletin software, Version 1 was Joomla + IPBoard.

Anyway here is are some of my users comments for Vbullein staff to browse.
http://www.theengineeringguild.co.uk...uild-V2-so-far

The part we are really enjoying is after 4 or 5 days Glowhosts Spam o matic has done this. I cannot tell you have happy that one thing makes me
Spam-O-Matic Statistics

539 Spammers Denied Registration

[Phaedrus]

I was getting this... ModSecurity set to "on" in CPanel. This cleared it up when I changed it to "off". The diagnostics didn't see it, I had to find it in CPanel...

[Phaedrus]

Though I am uncomfortable simply removing a security setting. Can somebody post an example of some ModSecurity rules that do not interfere with vBulletin?

[Mark.B]

Though I am uncomfortable simply removing a security setting. Can somebody post an example of some ModSecurity rules that do not interfere with vBulletin?

Not really possible...you'll need to go through the rules, disabling them one by one until you find the culprit.