# Banning Users

The LiveJournal sysban mechanism provides the means for generic bans on site functionality given a block type and value. The type is what is being checked (IP address, email address, etc) and the value is the value which causes the block to activate. (`10.0.0.10`, for example)

A tool is available to create and modify bans: ``$LJHOME`/htdocs/admin/sysban.bml`. This tool requires the `sysban` privilege.

There are three `statushistory` types tied to the sysban tool:

`sysban_add`

  Logs the creation of new bans

`sysban_mod`

  Logs the modification of bans

`sysban_trig`

  Logs when bans are triggered

The most notable of the three is the `sysban_trig` type. The data it logs varies depending on the type of ban and the information available when it was triggered. If a userid is available, it will be logged and the notes column will contain a short description of what caused the trigger along with a number of variables that may be useful in investigation of the situation.

Below are the ban types that exist as of now. More can and will be added as necessary:

## General

`ip`

  Blocked from site if IP address matches

`email`

  Blocked if email matches.

  `/create.bml`

    Return a fake 503 Service Unavailable message to a user who tries to create a new account with the given email address.