Configuration

Go to "Extensions"->"Plugins" and choose "System - Brute Force Stop" in the appearing list. You might have to scroll down in the list or go to one of the next pages to reach that entry. Most of the options can be left at their default value. The only thing that you must do to enable the plugin is to set it's status to published.

See also the Feature Descriptions page, which describes bfstop's configuration options grouped by features.

It is however also a good idea to configure a recipient for notifications from the plugin, e.g. for when an IP address is blocked because of too many login attempts from that IP Address; do so under the "Basic" options on the right.

• Under "Select a User" you can choose a Joomla! User (e.g. the Super User); his configured email address will be taken to send notifications to.
• Or under "Email address", you can directly specify the email address you want notifications to be sent
• Make sure you choose the proper option in the "Email Source" dropdown list; if you select "Selected User" here, the notifications will go to the eMail-address you entered under "Select a User", otherwise they will be sent to the email address given in "Email address".

Other options in the "Basic" section:

• "Block threshold" determines how many failed login attempts the plugin should permit before it will block any further access to the whole Joomla! site. Default: 15
• "Block duration" determines how long an IP address will be blocked. Default: 1 day

There are also "advanced" settings if you need them (check the according section). Most of them should be pretty self-explanatory; they also have descriptions attached, which will appear when you hover over the label to the left of the input. Here's a list of the options with explanations:

• With the "Active for" setting, the plugin can be activated for only frontend, only backend, or both login pages. Default: Frontend and Backend.
• "Enable blocking" determines whether there will actually be any blocking done (disable it if you e.g. just want to get notified of failed logins, or only delay any failed logins). Default: Enabled
• "Permanent after" - the number you set here signifies the number of blocks for one IP address it takes after a permanent block is created. Default: 3
• With "Remainig attempts" you can configure whether you want to inform the user about the number of attempts he has remaining until his IP address is blocked (there will be a hint shown on the login page). Default: false
• Under "Blocked message" you can specify the text that will be shown instead of the Joomla! page if a page is blocked. Default:
• You can configure a "Delay" after each failed login attempt before the answer is sent out, so that brute force attackers are slowed down (though they might just open multiple connections to circumvent that, therefore its questionable whether there is any benefit in doing so)
• If "User Block Message" setting is enabled, then whenever an IP address is blocked, and the failed login was tried for an existing user, there will be an email sent to the email address set for that user, giving the chance to unblock the IP address again. Default: disabled
• With "Blocked msgs per day" and "Failed msgs per day" you can determine how many notifications per day you want to receive, separately for blocked IP addresses and for failed login attempts. It is not recommended to choose unlimited for the "Failed msgs per day", especially if you have choosen to disable blocking. In case of a brute force attack, you might receive hundreds or even thousands of eMails!
• With the "Logging" setting, you can choose if you want to enable logging for the whole bfstop package; there are several options to choose determining the level of detail in logging messages you will get. Please not values further down in the list will cause more entries in the logfile; if you have many failed login attempts, For a groupedthe logfile could get huge! A good compromise between trying to log helpful information and not getting to many logentries is setting it to "Warning" or "Error". Default: Error

Don't forget to save the options!