Host Name Checker

Version 0.3.0

This is still a very limited plugin, that does only a few things, and it is very Noirland specific

Lists

Basically, there are 4 types of connection addresses:

1. Ones we know of, work, and recommend
2. Ones we know of, work, but don't recommend
3. Ones we don't know of, which work, and would likely not recommend.
4. IP-only versions of the above.

For this plugin

1. • nz.noirland.co.nz - For NZ Users
   • au.noirland.co.nz - For Australian Users
   • us.noirland.co.nz - For International users.
2. • www.noirland.co.nz - An ugly quirk of how things exist, but effectively US
   • noirland.co.nz - ^

3. These will turn up if people are creating domain names for us without our knowledge and pointing them at our IP addresses, or people are doing nasty shit with /etc/hosts.

   Either way, we need to know people are doing this.

4. People from time to time do the silly thing of hard-coding the numeric IP address.

This is inherently fragile and threatens our support model.

How it behaves

1. Nothing strange happens, login occurs as normal. 99% Of our users.

2. User gets a notice during login saying they probably should use a more appropriate server address to get the best performance for where they are.

   Admin console logs that a user came via this entry point.

3. User is NOT warned. Admin console logs the hostname the user arrived from.

4. User is informed that they are connecting via IP, and that it is not recommended, Admin console logs that a user came via a direct IP.

And in cases #2 and #4, user gets also told the list of servers that are deemed relevant.

SO RECAP

Average Users going via approved addresses

This is a whitelist, containing nz.noirland.co.nz,au.noirland.co.nz,us.noirland.co.nz

Login, nothing weird happens, nothing weird happens on the console.

Users going via unrecommended addresses

This is a blacklist, containing noirland.co.nz , www.noirland.co.nz

Login, Warning given to user saying they should change, with a list of alternatives.

Admin console reports user comming from a "bad" address.

Users going via server names we've never heard of

User doesn't notice we're doing anything weird.

Admin console reports the weirdness.

Users going via direct IPs

User is told "thats a bad idea", with a list of alternatives.

Admin console logs the IP the user came by.