Adding Local Bans
From PunksBusted
You can add custom bans onto your server against PunkBuster GUIDs. These bans can be added to the pbbans.dat file (which lists all PB bans) without affecting the use of Auto-MBL in any way. The bans will stay on your server and will not be shared in the Auto-MBL system.
You can use RCON commands to control PB and add bans onto the server as described below. Please see the RCON page for more details on how to use your specific game's RCON system (or UCON), however the commands to execute are the same across all PB games.
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If the player is on the server
You can ban a player easiest by slot number, as follows.
First, issue a PB_SV_PList (server) or PB_PList (client) to get a player listing, which should look like:
- 1 0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef OK 3.0 0 [Clan]Player
- 2 abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789 OK 3.0 0 [Clan]Somebody
The slot numbers of the players are in the first column (1 and 2). The syntax for the PB_SV_Ban command is:
PB_SV_Ban [name or slot #] [displayed_reason] | [optional_private_reason]
To go ahead and ban [Clan]Somebody, over RCON issue:
- PB_SV_Ban 2 Cheating | Probably an aimbot
- PB_SV_Ban 2 Cheating
The first example kicks the player with the message "Cheating" and then places a ban on them with the note "Probably an aimbot". The second example uses the message "Cheating" for both the kick and ban entry.
If the player is not on the server
To do this, you will need the full 32 character GUID of the player. The most common way to get this is from the PunkBuster log files - these are stored in the 'svlogs' directory, which is in turn in the server's PB directory. They are labelled sequentially, so the most recent log file will typically have the highest number.
You are looking for a line similar to:
Player GUID Computed abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789(-) (slot #1) 123.123.123.123:1234 [Clan]Somebody
The GUID is the 32 character section, which will consist of only 0-9 and A-F, in this example, it is abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789.
Note: you must use the full 32 character GUID. 8 digit GUIDs (such as those from pb_plist) do not work.
Banning GUID with RCON
To go ahead and ban this player, you need to issue the PB_SV_BanGuid command over RCON. The syntax for it is:
PB_SV_BanGuid [guid] [player_name] [IP_Address] [reason]
The player name, IP address and reason are optional. Examples follow:
- PB_SV_BanGuid abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789 "[Clan]Somebody" "123.123.123.123" Probably an aimbot
- PB_SV_BanGuid abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789 "?" "?"
Banning GUID with pbbans.dat
If you don't have RCON access, you can add an entry directly into the pbbans.dat file, which is stored in the PB directory. If it doesn't exist, you can create it with a simple text editor such as Notepad.
Entries are in the format: [Text here] GUID "Alias" "IP address" Reason
For example:
- [Our bans] abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789 "[Clan]Somebody" "123.123.123.123" Probably an aimbot
- [04.25.2006] abcdef0123456789abcdef0123456789 "?" "?"
We recommend you put your bans at the top of the pbbans.dat file, so if you use Auto-MBL and it updates, your bans won't be "lost" in the middle of the file.
If you use the above PB_SV_BanGuid method for banning, the first section of the ban line (within the square brackets) will contain the date and time that the ban was made. If you are adding the bans manually, you can use any text within these brackets to describe it - this is usually used to note what type of ban it is (say, "Local server ban").
For the changes in pbbans.dat to be picked up, you must either restart the server completely, or issue:
- pb_sv_restart
Or
- pb_sv_banempty
- pb_sv_banload
The first option will reload just PB and the second will first empty the ban list and then load it back in from pbbans.dat.
