Why are modded clients able to stay connected to a server after being successfully poll banned?

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cidentan50
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Why are modded clients able to stay connected to a server after being successfully poll banned?

Post by cidentan50 »

Recently, I was playing on The Noah's Island Hopping map and there was an unregistered player with the name "momsboy" who was TKing, stealing flags from teammates, and kept switching teams to make it 3 vs 1 with him in the majority. Once we got enough players, I initiated a poll ban. The server said the poll was successful and that momsboy was banned, but the player remained connected to the server instead of being kicked off.

I know people have previously said that the BZFlag server puts a lot of trust in the client behaving correctly, and that the client and server are both open source, but why is it that server is dependent on the client being trustworthy even in response to bans and kicks? Is it not possible for the server to kill its connection to that player, thereby forcing their removal?

PS- The player later rejoined as "yusux" and "ERGOM'S MENTAL DIARRHEA." ERGOM said he suspects this person is also the "uh huh" troll guy and the guy who sometimes flies without wings, but I don't know that for a fact.
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tainn
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Re: Why are modded clients able to stay connected to a server after being successfully poll banned?

Post by tainn »

Are you saying that he was removed after a poll ban and then rejoined, or that the poll ban had no effect and his connection remained intact?
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Re: Why are modded clients able to stay connected to a server after being successfully poll banned?

Post by blast »

This has nothing to do with their client. The player you're referring to just rejoins from new IPs to evade the ban. They probably rejoined during the poll ban so that their IP didn't match what the poll was targeting. Basically, you'll need an actual server admin to handle them since polls are too slow and/or difficult to get everyone to vote on.
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cidentan50
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Re: Why are modded clients able to stay connected to a server after being successfully poll banned?

Post by cidentan50 »

tainn wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 8:48 am Are you saying that he was removed after a poll ban and then rejoined, or that the poll ban had no effect and his connection remained intact?
I'm saying he never left. Not during the poll or after the ban. The ban had no effect, yet the server said the poll was successful and I had correctly spelled his username when creating the poll.

We also didn't have any difficulty getting people to vote. The poll was successful on the first try.
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Re: Why are modded clients able to stay connected to a server after being successfully poll banned?

Post by tainn »

Are you certain the player didn't disconnect and connect again either during or after the poll ban? The logs should show that.

Mind sharing the exact command that was issued to perform a poll ban?
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Re: Why are modded clients able to stay connected to a server after being successfully poll banned?

Post by cidentan50 »

ERGOM and I I never saw them leave, but we're not the server admins, so I don't think we have log files. This was on Island Hopping map on The Noah's server.

Code: Select all

 /poll ban momsboy 
After my successful poll ban, ERGOM did a poll kick that was also successful, but that didn't remove the player either.
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Re: Why are modded clients able to stay connected to a server after being successfully poll banned?

Post by blast »

I did check the access logs on the server list and their IP wasn't changing, so it wasn't a ban evasion. I reached out to the game server admin yesterday but haven't heard back yet.
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cidentan50
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Re: Why are modded clients able to stay connected to a server after being successfully poll banned?

Post by cidentan50 »

For the purpose of people looking at logs, I suppose I should also note that I usually play as The Tangerine Boogie Armada (unregistered). I like the silliness of that name, but the forum software doesn't let me register it, because it's too many characters. I switched over to this account to initiate the poll ban.
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Re: Why are modded clients able to stay connected to a server after being successfully poll banned?

Post by The Noah »

Sorry for the delay, server owner here.

Looking through the logs the poll was successfully created, however was never resolved.

Code: Select all

2022-11-19 05:43:25: "cidentan50" has requested a poll: /poll ban momsboy
2022-11-19 05:43:25: The arbiter says there is not another poll active
2022-11-19 05:43:25: There are 4 available players for 3 votes required
2022-11-19 05:43:25: Command is ban
2022-11-19 05:43:25: Target specified to vote upon is [momsboy]

2022-11-19 05:43:31: Player Exhaustipated [2] -> Team: /vote yes
2022-11-19 05:43:32: Player ERGOM [3] -> All: /vote yes
2022-11-19 05:43:44: Player bluecoat [4] -> All: /vote yes
2022-11-19 05:44:09: Player cidentan50 [1] -> All: Type /vote yes
There are no log messages about the polling finishing, I have no clue what happened.

Here's the IPs used for anyone interested:

Code: Select all

183.88.134.150
64.62.244.54
79.137.109.64
The last 2 appear to be VPNs.

I've blocked the 3 IPs at a firewall level, but if he's using a VPN that's easy to bypass.

Seems there was an issue with my server loading the VPNBlocker plugin, but I've now fixed that. Hopefully it helps.
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Re: Why are modded clients able to stay connected to a server after being successfully poll banned?

Post by cidentan50 »

I sent the message asking people to type /vote yes not noticing that the poll had already been successful. I scrolled up in the chat shortly afterward and then saw it.
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Re: Why are modded clients able to stay connected to a server after being successfully poll banned?

Post by blast »

I'm not entirely sure that chat messages sent by the server are logged, so that might be why you didn't see them, The Noah. The log entry for the player leaving from a poll should have /poll ban or /poll kick as the removal reason, which might show up.
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Re: Why are modded clients able to stay connected to a server after being successfully poll banned?

Post by The Noah »

It doesn't say. In fact I can't even see that he disconnected from the poll.
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