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MediaWiki extensions manual

AbuseFilter Release status: stable
Implementation	User activity , Special page , API
Description	Allows specific behavior-based restrictions to be placed on wiki activity
Author(s)	Andrew Garrett Daimona Eaytoy Marius Hoch River Tarnell Victor Vasiliev
Compatibility policy	Snapshots releases along with MediaWiki. Master is not backwards compatible.
MediaWiki	1.33+
PHP	5.4+ recommended
Database changes	Yes
Tables	abuse_filter abuse_filter_action abuse_filter_history abuse_filter_log
License	GNU General Public License 2.0 or later
Download	Download extension Git [ ? ] : Download Git master browse repository ( GitHub ) commit history repository contributors (GitHub) code review
Parameters $wgAbuseFilterConditionLimit $wgAbuseFilterRangeBlockSize $wgAbuseFilterAflFilterMigrationStage $wgAbuseFilterAnonBlockDuration $wgAbuseFilterLogIPMaxAge $wgAbuseFilterCentralDB $wgAbuseFilterDefaultWarningMessage $wgAbuseFilterLogIP $wgAbuseFilterEmergencyDisableAge $wgAbuseFilterProfileActionsCap $wgAbuseFilterActionRestrictions $wgAbuseFilterActions $wgAbuseFilterPrivateDetailsForceReason $wgAbuseFilterLogPrivateDetailsAccess $wgAbuseFilterSlowFilterRuntimeLimit $wgAbuseFilterEmergencyDisableCount $wgAbuseFilterDefaultDisallowMessage $wgAbuseFilterValidGroups $wgAbuseFilterEmergencyDisableThreshold $wgAbuseFilterLocallyDisabledGlobalActions $wgAbuseFilterBlockDuration $wgAbuseFilterCustomActionsHandlers $wgAbuseFilterBlockAutopromoteDuration $wgAbuseFilterNotificationsPrivate $wgAbuseFilterParserClass $wgAbuseFilterIsCentral $wgAbuseFilterNotifications
Added rights abusefilter-modify abusefilter-log-detail abusefilter-view abusefilter-log abusefilter-privatedetails abusefilter-privatedetails-log abusefilter-modify-restricted abusefilter-revert abusefilter-view-private abusefilter-log-private abusefilter-hidden-log abusefilter-hide-log abusefilter-modify-global
Hooks used ArticleDelete BeforeCreateEchoEvent ChangeTagsListActive ContributionsToolLinks EditFilterMergedContent GetAutoPromoteGroups HistoryPageToolLinks ListDefinedTags LoadExtensionSchemaUpdates PageSaveComplete ParserOutputStashForEdit RecentChange_save RenameUserSQL TitleMove UndeletePageToolLinks UnitTestsAfterDatabaseSetup UnitTestsBeforeDatabaseTeardown UploadStashFile UploadVerifyUpload UserMergeAccountFields
Hooks provided AbuseFilter-builder AbuseFilter-deprecatedVariables AbuseFilter-computeVariable AbuseFilter-contentToString AbuseFilter-filterAction AbuseFilterAlterVariables AbuseFilter-generateTitleVars AbuseFilter-generateUserVars AbuseFilter-generateStaticVars AbuseFilter-interceptVariable AbuseFilterShouldFilterAction AbuseFilterGetDangerousActions
Translate the AbuseFilter extension if it is available at translatewiki.net
Check usage and version matrix.
Issues	Open tasks · Report a bug

AbuseFilter

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The AbuseFilter extension allows privileged users to set specific actions to be taken when actions by users, such as edits, match certain criteria.

For example, a filter could be created to prevent anonymous users from adding external links, or to block a user who removes more than 2000 characters.

ContentsInstallation Download and place the file(s) in a directory called AbuseFilter in your extensions/ folder.Only when installing from git run Composer to install PHP dependencies, by issuing composer install --no-dev in the extension directory. (See task T173141 for potential complications.)Add the following code at the bottom of your LocalSettings.php : wfLoadExtension('AbuseFilter');Run the update script which will automatically create the necessary database tables that this extension needs.  Done – Navigate to Special:Version on your wiki to verify that the extension is successfully installed.

To users running MediaWiki 1.26 or earlier:

The instructions above describe the new way of installing this extension using wfLoadExtension() . If you need to install this extension on these earlier versions (MediaWiki 1.26 and earlier), instead of wfLoadExtension ( 'AbuseFilter' ); , you need to use:

require_once"$IP/extensions/AbuseFilter/AbuseFilter.php";ConfigurationUser rights

Once you installed the extension, you'll have to set up the user rights in "LocalSettings.php".

Right	Description
abusefilter-modify	Create or modify abuse filters
abusefilter-view	View abuse filters
abusefilter-log	View the abuse log
abusefilter-log-detail	View detailed abuse log entries
abusefilter-privatedetails	View private data in the abuse log
abusefilter-modify-restricted	Modify abuse filters with restricted actions
abusefilter-modify-global	Create or modify global abuse filters
abusefilter-revert	Revert all changes by a given abuse filter
abusefilter-view-private	View abuse filters marked as private
abusefilter-log-private	View log entries of abuse filters marked as private
abusefilter-hide-log	Hide entries in the abuse log
abusefilter-hidden-log	View hidden abuse log entries
abusefilter-privatedetails-log	View the AbuseFilter private details access log

For example, the following sample configuration would allow sysops to do everything they want with AbuseFilter, and everyone to view the log and see public filter settings:

$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['abusefilter-modify']=true;$wgGroupPermissions['*']['abusefilter-log-detail']=true;$wgGroupPermissions['*']['abusefilter-view']=true;$wgGroupPermissions['*']['abusefilter-log']=true;$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['abusefilter-privatedetails']=true;$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['abusefilter-modify-restricted']=true;$wgGroupPermissions['sysop']['abusefilter-revert']=true; Filters marked as private can only be viewed by users with either the abusefilter-modify or abusefilter-view-private permission.Parameters

Variable name	Default value	Description
$wgAbuseFilterActions	[ 'throttle' => true , 'warn' => true , 'disallow' => true , 'blockautopromote' => true , 'block' => true , 'rangeblock' => false , 'degroup' => false , 'tag' => true ]	The possible actions that can be taken by abuse filters. When adding a new action, check if it is restricted in $wgAbuseFilterActionRestrictions and, if it is, don't forget to add the abusefilter-modify-restricted right to the appropriate user groups.
$wgAbuseFilterConditionLimit	1000	The maximum number of 'conditions' that can be used each time the filters are run against a change. (More complex filters require more 'conditions').
$wgAbuseFilterValidGroups	[ 'default' ]	The list of "groups" filters can be divided into. By default there is only one group. Other extensions may add other groups.
$wgAbuseFilterEmergencyDisableThreshold	[ 'default' => 0.05 ]	Disable a filter if it matched more than 2 edits, constituting more than 5 % of the actions which were checked against the filter's group in the "observed" period (at most one day), unless the filter has been changed in the last 86400 seconds (one day). See .
$wgAbuseFilterEmergencyDisableCount	[ 'default' => 2 ]
$wgAbuseFilterEmergencyDisableAge	[ 'default' => 86400 ]
$wgAbuseFilterParserClass	'AbuseFilterParser'	Name of AbuseFilter's parser class.
$wgAbuseFilterActionRestrictions	[ "throttle" => false , "warn" => false , "disallow" => false , "blockautopromote" => true , "block" => true , "rangeblock" => true , "degroup" => true , "tag" => false ]	Users must have the "abusefilter-modify-restricted" user right as well as "abusefilter-modify" in order to create or modify filters which carry out these actions.
$wgAbuseFilterNotifications	false	Allows to configure the extension to send hit notifications to Special:RecentChanges or UDP. Available options: rc, udp, rcandudp
$wgAbuseFilterNotificationsPrivate	false	Enable notifications for private filters.
$wgAbuseFilterCentralDB	null	Name of a database where global abuse filters will be stored in (only supported in the latest, development version).
$wgAbuseFilterIsCentral	false	Set this variable to true for the wiki where global AbuseFilters are stored in (only supported in the latest, development version).
$wgAbuseFilterLocallyDisabledGlobalActions	[ "throttle" => false , "warn" => false , "disallow" => false , "blockautopromote" => false , "block" => false , "rangeblock" => false , "degroup" => false , "tag" => false ]	Disallow Centralised filters from taking actions set as true in this variable.
$wgAbuseFilterBlockDuration	'indefinite'	Duration of blocks made by AbuseFilter. as of 1.31.0-wmf.25 block durations may be specified for every single filter and will override this variable. This variable is only used when enabling the block in order to preselect a default duration.
$wgAbuseFilterAnonBlockDuration	null	Duration of blocks made by AbuseFilter on users who are not logged in. The value of $wgAbuseFilterBlockDuration will be used if this is not set. as of 1.31.0-wmf.25 block durations may be specified for every single filter and will override this variable. This variable is only used when enabling the block in order to preselect a default duration.
$wgAbuseFilterBlockAutopromoteDuration	5	Duration, in days, for which users' autopromotion is blocked by filters.
$wgAbuseFilterCustomActionsHandlers	[]	Callback functions for custom actions. (deprecated in 1.36) Use the AbuseFilterCustomActions hook instead.
$wgAbuseFilterDefaultWarningMessage	[ 'default' => 'abusefilter-warning' ]	Default warning messages, per filter group
$wgAbuseFilterDefaultDisallowMessage	[ 'default' => 'abusefilter-disallowed' ]	Default disallow messages, per filter group
$wgAbuseFilterLogIPMaxAge	3 * 30 * 24 * 3600	Age used as cutoff when purging old IP log data. Defaults to 3 months. Used by maintenance script purgeOldLogIPData.php.
$wgAbuseFilterProfileActionsCap	10000	Number of action that determines when to reset profiling stats.
$wgAbuseFilterLogPrivateDetailsAccess	false	Whether accessing private information from a filter log entry is logged.
$wgAbuseFilterPrivateDetailsForceReason	false	Whether users are forced to provide a reason for accessing private information from a filter log entry.
$wgAbuseFilterSlowFilterRuntimeLimit	500	Runtime in milliseconds before a filter is considered slow.
$wgAbuseFilterRangeBlockSize	[ 'IPv4' => '16' , 'IPv6' => '19' , ]	Size of the range blocked by 'rangeblock' action.
$wgAbuseFilterLogIP	true	Whether to include IP in the abuse_filter_log

Emergency throttling

AbuseFilter comes with a feature that automatically throttles (disable) filters that have been edited recently and match a certain threshold of the latest actions.

This is done to prevent harmful edits on the filters to block every user that performs an action on the wiki or similar.

The condition to disable the filter depend on those variables:

$wgAbuseFilterEmergencyDisableThreshold - Percent of matches over the total amount of actions in the observed period.$wgAbuseFilterEmergencyDisableCount - Count of matches of the filter in the observed period.$wgAbuseFilterEmergencyDisableAge - Age of the filter to take it into account. If the last edit of the filter is older than this number of seconds, the filter won't be throttled, unless it's already throttled.$wgAbuseFilterProfileActionsCap - Maximum number of recent actions to count against the threshold. Note that each action increments a counter, and once this counter reaches this configured value, this counter and the number of recent actions that matches all filters are reset to 0.

Throttled filters can be identified in the list of filters (Special:AbuseFilter) with the state Enabled, throttled. Throttling happens silently, and there's no way to see when a filter got throttled.

When a filter gets throttled, it doesn't perform any dangerous action (the ones that can prevent the ongoing action), and only "safe" actions are allowed. Throttled filters don't get enabled automatically. To disable the throttling, you need to edit the filter. Note that you need to actually change something from the filter: changing something from the filter's notes is sufficient.

Note that editing the filter updates its age, and can cause it to be disabled if it reaches again the conditions to be throttled in a short period since the last edit, leading to a unusable filter if your wiki has more abuse edits than legitimate ones. Filters can also get randomly throttled if the action count reaches $wgAbuseFilterProfileActionsCap , causing all filter matches count to reset to 0, and then someone repeatedly makes a filter to hit.

Creating and managing filters

Once the extension has been installed, filters can be created/tested/changed/deleted and the logs can be accessed from the Abuse filter management page Special:AbuseFilter .

Rules format - The basics of how to write a filter Actions Global Rules Guide to optimizing condition limit usage To import filters from Wikipedia: When you have installed the extension, go to w:Special:AbuseFilter , choose a filter (say w:Special:AbuseFilter/3 ), then click "Export this filter to another wiki", copy the text, go to "Special:AbuseFilter/import" on your wiki, paste the text. m:Small wiki toolkits/Starter kit/AbuseFilter - A guide for small wiki communities on metawikiAPI

AbuseFilter adds two API list modules, one for details of abuse filters ("abusefilters") and one for the abuse log, since it is separate from other MediaWiki logs ("abuselog"). It is not possible to create or modify abuse filters using the API.

list = abusefilters

List information about filters

Parametersabfstartid - The filter id to start enumerating fromabfendid - The filter id to stop enumerating atabfdir - The direction in which to enumerate (older, newer)abfshow - Show only filters which meet these criteria (enabled|!enabled|deleted|!deleted|private|!private)abflimit - The maximum number of filters to listabfprop - Which properties to get (id|description|pattern|actions|hits|comments|lasteditor|lastedittime|status|private)

When filters are private, some of the properties specified with abfprop will be missing unless you have the appropriate user rights.

Examples

List non-private abuse filters

api.php ? action=query & list=abusefilters & abfshow=!private & abfprop=id|hits   [try in ApiSandbox]

Result

<api> <query> <abusefilters> <filter id= "1" hits= "867" /> <filter id= "3" hits= "66110" /> <filter id= "5" hits= "464" /> <filter id= "6" hits= "19" /> <filter id= "8" hits= "7" /> <filter id= "9" hits= "24869" /> <filter id= "11" hits= "10033" /> <filter id= "14" hits= "63" /> <filter id= "15" hits= "15" /> <filter id= "16" hits= "44" /> </abusefilters> </query> <query-continue> <abusefilters abfstartid= "18" /> </query-continue> </api>

list = abuselog

List instances where actions triggered an abuse filter.

Parametersaflstart - The timestamp to start enumerating fromaflend - The timestamp to stop enumerating atafldir - The direction in which to enumerate (older, newer)afluser - Show only entries where the action was attempted by a given user or IP address.afltitle - Show only entries where the action involved a given page.aflfilter - Show only entries that triggered a given filter IDafllimit - The maximum number of entries to listaflprop - Which properties to get: (ids|filter|user|ip|title|action|details|result|timestamp|hidden|revid|wiki)Example

List instances where the abuse filter was triggered in response to actions from the user "SineBot"

api.php ? action=query & list=abuselog & afluser=SineBot & aflprop=ids   [try in ApiSandbox]

Result

<api> <query> <abuselog> <item id= "900937" filter_id= "211" user= "SineBot" result= "" /> <item id= "888404" filter_id= "211" user= "SineBot" result= "" /> <item id= "862751" filter_id= "211" user= "SineBot" result= "" /> <item id= "855649" filter_id= "211" user= "SineBot" result= "" /> <item id= "842429" filter_id= "211" user= "SineBot" result= "" /> <item id= "840958" filter_id= "1" user= "SineBot" result= "" /> <item id= "824151" filter_id= "211" user= "SineBot" result= "" /> <item id= "804892" filter_id= "211" user= "SineBot" result= "" /> <item id= "205254" filter_id= "58" user= "SineBot" result= "disallow" /> <item id= "205252" filter_id= "58" user= "SineBot" result= "disallow" /> </abuselog> </query> <query-continue> <abuselog aflstart= "2009-04-19T02:07:55Z" /> </query-continue> </api>

Possible errorsSome users might experience that creating new filters or modifying old filters fail and the user just gets redirected to the original page. If the Wiki is using SSL certificates, this error could possibly be because of the $wgServer value, which might be using "http://" instead of "https://". An indication of this error will be, the browser giving https warning for Special:AbuseFilter pages. ( Topic:T23dyyih0ofjada5 )Integration with other extensions

You can integrate AbuseFilter with other extension in various ways.

Adding variables for filtering

It is possible to add new variables, to be used in abuse filters. A list of examples is available . To do that, you should:

Add a handler for the AbuseFilter-builder hook. To add a variable, you should use $builder['vars']['variable_name'] = 'i18n-key';, where variable_name is the name of the variable, and i18n-key is the fragment of an i18n key. The full key will be abusefilter-edit-builder-vars-{$your_key}.Add the i18n messages you chose at the previous point.Choose a hook handler where the variable will be computed. Depending on your use case, you could: Implement the AbuseFilter-generateTitleVars hook; this is specifically thought for page-related variables;Implement the AbuseFilter-generateUserVars hook; this is specifically thought for user-related variables;Implement the AbuseFilter-generateGenericVars hook; this is for variables not bound to a specific page or user;Implement the AbuseFilterAlterVariables hook; this is a bit more flexible than the other hooks, but it has a downside: your variable will not be available when examining past RecentChanges entries. If you want to implement that feature (and it's recommended to do so), you should use one of the hooks listed above, and use its third parameter ($RCRow).Inside the hook handler, there are two ways to add a variable: The "direct" way is calling $vars->setVar( 'var_name', var_value );. This is ideal only when the value is easy and quick to compute: the value is computed even if no active filter will use it.The "lazy" way is calling $vars->setLazyLoadVar( 'var_name', 'method_name', $params );. Here, 'method_name' is a (unique) identifier that will be used to compute the variable (it's recommended to prefix it with the name of your extension). To register the method, you should add a handler for the AbuseFilter-computeVariable hook; therein, you should check if the $method passed matches your 'method_name', and if so, compute the variable. Lastly, $params is an array of parameters that you'll need to compute the variable; these are passed to the computeVariable hook handler. For an example of this, you can check out CentralAuth's global_user_groups.Adding custom actions

You can add custom action handlers, so that each filter may perform further actions. To do that, you choose a name for the action ('my-action' from now on), and then:

Create a class named e.g. MyAction, that should extend \MediaWiki\Extension\AbuseFilter\Consequence, which can also implement HookAborterConsequence or ConsequencesDisablerConsequenceAdd a subscriber to the AbuseFilterCustomActions hook; the subscriber should provide a callback as documented in the hook documentation, that returns an instance of the class created above, for instance:classMyConsequenceextends\MediaWiki\Extension\AbuseFilter\Consequence{publicfunctionrun(){thrownew\Exception('Write me');}}publicfunctiononAbuseFilterCustomActions(&$actions){$actions[]=function(\MediaWiki\Extension\AbuseFilter\Consequence\Parameters$params,array$rawParams):MyConsequence{returnnewMyConsequence($params,$rawParams);};}

Then you should add the following i18n messages; you can replace 'my_action' with e.g. 'block' to see what the messages are for:

'abusefilter-edit-action-${my_action}''abusefilter-action-${my_action'Adding rule groups

You can also add extra rule groups, which can be used to group existing abuse filters. Note that, at the moment, each filter can only be in a single group ( T116642 ). Currently, the only known consumer of this feature is Extension:StructuredDiscussions . To do that, you should:

Append the name of the group to $wgAbuseFilterValidGroupsAdd some code to run the filters with your group. Note that AbuseFilter won't do that on its own. To do that, you should construct an AbuseFilterRunner object, passing in the name of your group.See also Several WMF wikis where it's enabled (and with which configuration)

This extension is being used on one or more Wikimedia projects . This probably means that the extension is stable and works well enough to be used by such high-traffic websites. Look for this extension's name in Wikimedia's CommonSettings.php and InitialiseSettings.php configuration files to see where it's installed. A full list of the extensions installed on a particular wiki can be seen on the wiki's Special:Version page.

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