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Ban File
The banfile is a file in which a list of banned player accounts and IP addresses are saved. Server administrators may issue bans to players who use foul language, Team Kill, use a cheat client or who behave inappropriately or against the spirit of the game.
Creating a Banfile[edit]
A server administrator wishing to use a banfile (eg: filename.txt) would add:
-banfile filename.txt
to the BZFS configuration.
It is also possible to specify a Master Ban URL location like so:
-masterBanURL http://www.bzflag.org/master-bans.txt
Note that the URL specified includes the master bans the BZFlag developers have noted as cases where a Master Ban was necessary.
Managing the Banfile[edit]
If the ban files are ever updated outside of the game, or if you have multiple servers using the same ban files, they will need to be updated manually every time they change.
One method of doing this with administrative privileges is to run the /reload command in-game like so:
/reload bans
The second method is to load the Server Control plugin which would automatically perform a ban reload upon ban updates. You can view the plugin's wiki page for more details on setting it up.
Layout[edit]
A banfile follows a specific layout, which can also be written or modified by hand.
Example entry:
12.34.56.* end: 1282088135 banner: admin reason: (badguy) cheating.
The first line can either be an IP, a ranged IP, a host, a ranged host or a BZID (Syntax: 'bzid: 12345'). The second line 'end:' defines the expiry date with a unix timestamp. The third line 'banner:' defines the callsign of the privileged player who executed the ban. The fourth and last line 'reason:' specifies a reason why the specific subject was banned and classically contains the banned callsign. Each ban block is divided from the others by one empty line.
Unix timestamps can be generated on this website: http://www.unixtimestamp.com/index.php