Bukkit

InformaBan aims to provide a kick/ban system that:

• Provides kick, ban and tempban functionality;
• Does one thing only (managing bans), and does it well;
• Is compatible with other plugins that have kick/ban functions, if possible;
• Is easy for admins and mods to use, while remaining configurable for the power admin;
• Is informative to users by providing easy to read details when kicked or banned;
• Tracks the past kick/ban history of users to allow admins and mods to easily identify repeat offenders.
• Lets you use the same ban database across all your servers, so that a player can optionally be banned across all of a community's servers.

InformaBan does not, and will not provide:

• Integration with "global" ban systems such as McBans.
• "Deathban" functionality or other such special-purpose usage of bans.

One of InformaBan's main features is the ability to provide a formatted, multi-line ban message, to make the information easier to read. Vanilla Minecraft fully supports this formatting in its disconnect messages - it's just that nobody has made full use of it yet - until now.

The project is currently in early development. Source code is available on Github.

Compatibility with other plugins

Nearly all servers will use a plugin that provides core functionality and commands, usually including kick and ban management. InformaBan is designed to work alongside these plugins, while specifically taking over responsibility for managing kicks and bans.

InformaBan will attempt to automatically override existing /kick and /ban commands for plugins it knows about. However, it is recommended that you explicitly disable any kick/ban functions in other plugins in order to prevent possible conflicts and save on resources. Compatible plugins are listed below, along with instructions on how to disable their ban management.

For maximum compatibility, I recommend InformaBan be used with sk89q's CommandBook plugin. However, InformaBan should work with most other plugins, including Essentials. If you use a plugin that is not on the list below, and you need InformaBan to override its commands, please file a bug report using the "Tickets" link at the top of this page.

CommandBook

Disabling the ban system in CommandBook is simple. Open CommandBook's config.yml and find the "components" section. Then move the "bans" entry from the "enabled" list into the "disabled" list. This completely disables CommandBook's ban system, preventing it from loading.

Essentials

Unfortunately Essentials does not seem to provide any way to turn off its kick/ban functions, which means Essentials will still attempt to enforce any existing bans. By default however, Essentials should give up control of the /ban and /kick commands to InformaBan. If it does not do this, check your Essentials config and make sure that "ban" and "kick" DO NOT appear in the "overridden-commands" section.

Summary:

• Compatible with "general" plugins whose ban management can be turned off without affecting their other functions. (e.g. CommandBook)
• Partly compatible with "general" plugins whose ban management cannot be turned off, by overriding the commands. (e.g. Essentials)
• Not compatible with plugins whose only purpose is to manage bans - InformaBan is a replacement for these plugins.
• Not (yet) compatible with plugins that ban players automatically.

Todo List

I'm posting my todo list for this plugin here, so you can see where I'm up to. Items will be crossed out as they are completed.

Full details of each goal are available via the GitHub issue tracker for this project.

1. Get basic kicks and bans working, with Sqlite database.
2. Allow the database to be checked to see a player's history.
3. • Alpha milestone •
4. Add IP ban functionality.
5. Add ability to import bans from other plugins (particularly CommandBook).
6. Add a config file and configuration options.
7. • Beta milestone •
8. Make sure InformaBan can be easily used in other languages.
9. See if it's possible for Informaban to manage bans placed automatically by other plugins.
10. Add other storage backends, including flat-file (YAML) and MySQL.
11. • Release milestone •
12. Maintenance and bonus features?