Introduction

The blacklist feature of LinkX allows you to create and manage a list of items that you do not want to appear in your link directory. The blacklist will be checked for all new link, user account, and comment submissions. This document will give an overview of the blacklist features in LinkX.

Blacklist Types

There are several different blacklist types which allow you to configure your blacklist to accurately find and reject the items that you do not want to appear in your link directory. Each of the blacklist types are described below.

Submitter IP	This will search the IP address of the user submitting the link, comment, or user account
E-mail Address	This will search the e-mail address submitted for a link, comment, or user account
Domain/URL	This will search the URLs submitted for a link
Domain IP	This will search the IP address of the URLs submitted for a link
Word	This will search for words that have been submitted for a link, comment, or user account
HTML	This will search the HTML code of a URL submitted for a link

Blacklist Checked Items

The items that get checked against the blacklist will depend on what information is being submitted (new link data, new account data, etc). Each of the blacklist items that get checked for each type of submission are listed below.

Link Submission/Editing	Submitter IP E-mail Address Domain/URL - Both the site URL and recip URL are checked Domain IP - Both the site URL and recip URL are checked Word - The title, description, and keywords are checked HTML - The site URL and recip URL HTML code are checked
Comment Submission	Submitter IP E-mail Address Word - The comment text and submitter name are checked
Account Submission/Editing	Submitter IP E-mail Address Word - The submitter name is checked

Blacklist Search Type

When you add a blacklist item you have the option of specifying if it is a regular expression. Regular expressions are more complex than standard searches that simply look for the item as-is, but they add a great amount of flexibility. In LinkX the Perl Compatible Regular Expressions format is used for regular expressions. If you are not familiar with regular expressions, please see the Pattern Syntax portion of the PHP manual for additional information. If you check the Regular Expression box on the blacklist add/edit form, the item(s) you enter will be treated as regular expressions and used to match against the values that are submitted by the user.

If the values you enter are not regular expressions, be sure to leave that box unchecked. This will cause a normal search to occur which will match the item you enter anywhere within the field that is being searched. For example, if you enter the word "car" as a blacklisted word and someone submits a site title of "Carpool to work to save gas", this will match the "car" blacklist word item since it appears in the site title. Note that the search is case-insensitive and will match not only exact words, but also portions of words.

Viewing/Searching Blacklist Items

To view or search your currently configured blacklist items, access the Settings > Blacklist function from the control panel menu. This will display a page where you will be able to see the currently configured blacklist items and search them if you wish.

In the table that displays the blacklist items, you will find a couple of functions that you can run on a single blacklist item. Each of those functions are described below.

	Click this icon to edit the blacklist item. A window will appear where you will be able to edit all of it's settings.
	Click this icon to delete this blacklist item.

In addition to running these functions on single blacklist items, you can also run the delete function on multiple blacklist items at once. To run the delete function, put a check in the checkbox next to the blacklist items you want to delete, then press the Delete button at the bottom of the page.

Adding a Blacklist Item

To add a new blacklist item access the Settings > Blacklist function from the control panel menu. This will display your currently configured blacklist items. Near the top of the page in the header bar that reads "Blacklist Items" click on the icon. This will display a popup window where you will be able to enter the data for the new blacklist item that you want to add. Each of the form fields are described below.

Value(s)	The value(s) you want to add to the blacklist. You can enter one item per line to add multiple items at once.
Regular expression	Check this box if the value(s) is a regular expression
Type	Select the type of blacklist item you are adding (described above)
Reason	Enter a reason why you are blacklisting this item, if you wish. If this value is provided, it will be displayed to the user.

Once you have filled in all of the fields as you want them, press the Add Blacklist Item button. This will add the new item to the database, and it will be activated immediately.

Editing a Blacklist Item

To edit a blacklist item you will fist need to locate it through the View/Search interface. When you locate the item you want to edit, click on the icon to bring up the blacklist item editing interface. This interface is nearly identical to the blacklist item addition interface, and has the same form fields with the same properties. You can make the changes that you want, and then press the Update Blacklist Item button to save your changes.

Deleting a Blacklist Item

To delete a blacklist item you will fist need to locate it through the View/Search interface. When you locate the item you want to delete, click on the icon, which will ask you to confirm the deletion.

You can also delete several items at once by putting a check in the box next to the items you want to delete, then pressing the Delete button at the bottom of the page.