Blockall 1.0.1 README
---------------------

Blockall is a palace server plugin that prevents many unauthorized
clients from accessing the server.

It was developed primarily by Martyn Gilbertson, with some assistance
from Alex Bibizadeh and Bill Frantz.

Questions about this plugin? Write to Martyn at plugins@palacebox.com or
Joseph Rock at joe@avatarpalace.net.

Copyright (c) 2003 Martyn Gilbertson. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.



Changes in Version 1.0.1
------------------------

Bug fixes
---------

* Added additional page types to "page off" (susrmsg).



Installation
------------

The following installation instructions assume that the Palace server
has been installed in /usr/local/palace.

Blockall is a standard Palace server plugin. It is installed by
placing the plugin file, blockall.so, in the Palace binary folder,
/usr/local/palace/bin, and adding the following line to the plugin
configuration file, /usr/local/palace/<palace-name>/psdata/plugin.conf

../bin/blockall.so psdata/blockall.txt

The parameter file is placed in /usr/local/palace/<palace-name>/psdata.
Note that Blockall only reads this file. Therefore, it can be edited
while the server is running and reloaded with the `blockall reload
command to Blockall.



The Parameter File
------------------

The parameters and their function:


action [disconnect|roomid]

"action" can be set to 'disconnect,' which will disconnect users running
prohibited software and give them a warning message, or it can be set to
a specific room ID which will prevent them from leaving the room.


discmsg [<message>|off]

"discmsg" is the message which will be sent to the user running
prohibited software when they are immediately disconnected.


log [on|off]

"log" is a parameter which can be set to 'on' to provide additional information
in the PServer.log file when a user is disconnected or moved to a specific room.
This can also be toggled 'off.'


page [on|off]

"page" is an optional paramter that can be toggled 'on' or 'off'. When 
toggled 'on' it allows users that are using an illegal client to page
and when toggled off it disables users that are using illegal clients 
to page.


pagemsg [<message>|off]

"pagemsg" is the message which will be paged when a user tries to enter with a 
bad client this can be toggled 'off.'


rank [number]

"rank" is an optional parameter that can be be set to 0-3.
0  = every one can use blockall commands
1  = only members wizards and gods can use  blockall commands
2  = only wizards and gods can use blockall commands
3  = only gods can use blockall commands


roommsg [<message>|off]

"roommsg" is the message which can be sent to the user running
prohibited software when they are moved to a specified room ID.


unicode [on|off]

"unicode" is an optional parameter that can be toggled 'on' or 'off'. When
toggled 'on,' it will permit additional special characters in screen names
that were previously not allowed.



God Commands:
-------------

In addition to the controls provided by use of the parameter file,
Blockall adds the following god commands to the Palace server.

`blockall about - prints author and copyright information
`blockall help - prints help information
`blockall list - lists the current settings from the blockall.txt parameter file
`blockall reload - reloads the blockall.txt parameter file



Known Issues:
-------------

There are a couple of known issues that pertain to plugin load order:

1. If gatelogon.so is being used, and blockall.so is being used in ROOMID mode,
blockall.so should be loaded after gatelogon.so, or a non-standard client won't
be sent to the designated room id until it tries to change rooms. If blockall.so
is being used in disconnect mode, there is no conflict.

2. If plugall.so is being used, and blockall.so has the page parameter set to off,
blockall.so should be loaded before plugall.so, or the page response will be sent
even when the parameter is set to off. If the page parameter in blockall.so is set
to on, then there is no conflict.

With a default Palace server installation, plugin load order is determined by the
order that the plugins appear in the plugin.conf file. You can verify plugin load
order by viewing the server startup sequence in the pserver.log file. There will
be a series of lines that contain "Plugins Loaded plugin" which will all have the
same time stamp, and the order that is displayed by those lines in the pserver.log
is the order that they loaded. Some Palace Hosting services use a customized user
interface for server plugins. If this is the case, and plugin load order is an issue,
contact your Hosting service to verify the procedure.
