Many of you will already be familiar with reCAPTCHA via other websites – where it is often used to block spam comments on blogs or on user registration forms. Basically, it requires you to recognize two words in a picture and to type them into an input box as a means of proving that you are a human and not a spambot. You can see an example of reCAPTCHA in action in the screenshot provided.

I currently have the plugin setup so that it is activated on:

• New user registration
• Creation of new pages
• Anonymous edits that contain new external links
• Brute-force password cracking

If you are interested in implementing the plugin on your own blog, there is more information available here. It is a very straightforward and simple procedure.

The best way to deal with the spam is to force wiki users to register before editing. Even better is to force them to confirm their email address before they can start editing any of the pages. To force users to register before editing, you will need user permissions such as these in LocalSettings.php:

# Edit Permissions

// Implicit group for all visitors
$wgGroupPermissions['*'    ]['createaccount']   = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['*'    ]['read']            = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['*'    ]['edit']            = false;    // Stop unregistered users from making edits
$wgGroupPermissions['*'    ]['createpage']      = false; // Stop unregistered users from making edits
$wgGroupPermissions['*'    ]['createtalk']      = false; // Stop unregistered users from making edits

// Implicit group for all logged-in accounts
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['move']            = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['read']            = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['edit']            = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['createpage']      = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['createtalk']      = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['upload']          = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['reupload']        = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['reupload-shared'] = false;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['minoredit']       = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['user' ]['purge']           = false; // can use ?action=purge without clicking "ok"

// Implicit group for accounts that pass $wgAutoConfirmAge
$wgGroupPermissions['autoconfirmed']['autoconfirmed'] = true;

// Implicit group for accounts with confirmed email addresses
// This has little use when email address confirmation is off
$wgGroupPermissions['emailconfirmed']['emailconfirmed'] = true;

// Users with bot privilege can have their edits hidden
// from various log pages by default
$wgGroupPermissions['bot'  ]['bot']             = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['bot'  ]['autoconfirmed']   = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['bot'  ]['nominornewtalk']  = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['bot'  ]['autopatrol']      = true;

// Most extra permission abilities go to this group
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['block']           = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['createaccount']   = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['delete']          = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['deletedhistory']  = true; // can view deleted history entries, but not see or restore the text
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['editinterface']   = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['import']          = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['importupload']    = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['move']            = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['patrol']          = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['autopatrol']      = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['protect']         = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['proxyunbannable'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['rollback']        = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['trackback']       = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['upload']          = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['reupload']        = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['reupload-shared'] = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['unwatchedpages']  = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['autoconfirmed']   = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['upload_by_url']   = true;
$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['ipblock-exempt']  = true;

// Permission to change users' group assignments
$wgGroupPermissions['bureaucrat']['userrights'] = true;

To implement the force email confirmation feature, you simply need to add this line of code to LocalSettings.php:

$wgEmailConfirmToEdit = true;

Make sure that the following value is also true in LocalSettings.php

$wgEmailAuthentication = true;

Users will be notified when they try and edit a page to first confirm their email address. This only has to be done once.

Hopefully this should keep the spammers at bay for a little while and give me some peace on my holidays!

Here is where I found the information.

Whats it about?

The guide goes into a lot of detail, both in installing the server on the WL-HDD/WL500g to installing and setting up the client on the windows XP computer. Furthermore, all the key and certificate generation is also covered. I have tested the guide fully and from it, I have a fully working setup with no errors encountered along the way.

OpenVPN allows you to access windows shares over the internet, securely! This is great if you need to access files on the office network or want to be able to share photos or documents with other members of your family.

All credit for this guide goes to Propa who was the original contributor to the Wiki. All I have done is make the guide more user friendly and have restructured it a bit.

If you don’t know what the WL-HDD is, it is a small Network-attached storage device that runs an embedded version of busybox linux. However, with an unofficial firmware installed on it, you can ‘unsling’ the linux OS and install other packages on it and configure it to do whatever you want.
For example, mine currently has SSH access, runs an FTP server (with username and password), runs User-based Samba and also updates a Dynamic DNS name server. However, it can be used for lots of other things.

Hope this might be useful to somebody out there!