Extension:CheckUser


 *  This page is about the extension itself. For the Wikimedia Foundation CheckUser policy, see m:CheckUser policy. 

CheckUser is an extension that allows a user (with the permission) to check which IP addresses are used by a given username and which usernames are used by a given IP, without having to run queries directly against the database by hand. The extension is running live on all Wikimedia wikis.

Installation
The extension is released under the GNU General Public License 2.0 or later. The software is provided as-is. Updates will be made according to the needs of Wikimedia wikis; or where critical vulnerabilities are discovered.

Basic

 * If you have installed other extensions without running, run that first.

Installing without command prompt access
Many hosting providers don't allow direct shell access, but allow creation of cron jobs (e.g. via cPanel web interface). For those hosting providers a temporary cron job can be used to run (naturally  should be replaced with real full path to  ). If you are using a remote server and do not have command prompt access (nor cron job solution is suitable for you), but do have access through phpMyAdmin, substitute these steps for step #2 above:


 * 1) Download and


 * 1) In phpMyAdmin, click the database you're using for MediaWiki along the left side


 * 1) On the next screen, click the "Import" tab at the top.


 * 1) At "Location of the text file", choose one of the files, select compression "None", and click the bottom "Go" button.


 * If your phpMyAdmin screen has only a text field and no text file chooser, click the "SQL" button in the left-side column, under the phpMyAdmin logo, and click the "import files" tab in the new window that opens.


 * 1) Repeat for the second file

On a new wiki
Follow step 1 as above, then run the MediaWiki installation. The MediaWiki installer will automatically perform the installation tasks if you select the checkbox for CheckUser when prompted for which extensions to install.

Configuration
This tool migrates recent changes data to a separate table, and adds to that when new entries are added. If  was previously set to, there will be no initial data to search but new edits will fill in as soon as the extension is set up.

After you run the queries, you can reduce  to make recentchanges shorter, without affecting checkuser. Use to set how far back checkuser data can go, in seconds.

In versions for MediaWiki 1.22 and later, the CheckUser-specific setting $wgCheckUserCIDRLimit determines the largest range that can be checked in a single check. Its format is the same as . Otherwise, the default limit (for all versions) is for  checks and  for  checks.

CheckUsers using Mozilla Firefox can add this JS script to their file. It makes retrieving IP WHOIS data easier. It requires support  enabled. (This can be in Firefox 3)

To enable Special:Investigate, set to  in LocalSettings.php.

Granting right to use CheckUser
To grant the right to use the Check User function, a user with user rights management must go to Special:UserRights and enter the user's name in the box, then select the option "Check User". Once this is done, the Check User option will show up on the Special:SpecialPages page for that user.

To turn on user rights management for sysops, put the following into :

To only allow the adding and removing of the permission, use the following instead:

Basic interface

 * 1) Go to Special:CheckUser.


 * 1) In the user field, type in the username (without the  prefix), IP address, or CIDR range.


 * 1) * IP: any IPv4 or IPv6 address.


 * 1) * CIDR: you can check a range of IP addresses by appending the CIDR prefix (by default, up to /16 for IPv4 (65,536 addresses), up to /64 for IPv6 (~1.8446*1019 addresses) before 7352, up to /48 for IPv6 (~1.2089*1024 addresses or 65536 /64s - controlled by $wgCheckUserCIDRLimit in the latest version) after revision 7352, and up to /32 (65536 /48's) after rECHU9d7c239bf88866eca577f3241194d440f94fa014 ). For notation, see Range blocks.


 * 1) * XFF: you can check a client IP address provided by X-Forwarded-For headers by appending (for example,  ).


 * 1) Select the information you want to retrieve.


 * 1) * Get IPs: returns IP addresses used by a registered user.


 * 1) * Get edits from IP: returns all edits and logged actions made by a user (registered or anonymous) from an IP address or range.


 * 1) * Get users: returns user accounts that have edited from an IP or range.


 * 1) In the reason field, type in the reason you are accessing the confidential data.  Try to succinctly summarise the situation (for example, "cross-wiki spam"); this will be logged in a log visible only to users with the  permission.

Information returned
A typical entry in the CheckUser results for a user summary ("get users") is as follows:


 * Example (Talk | contribs) (20:11, -- 20:12, ) [5]
 * 127.0.0.37 XFF: 127.0.0.1, 127.0.0.5

This is formatted to fit a lot of information into a format that can very easily be listed and skimmed, but is difficult to read unless you know what the information provided is. The information is laid out as follows:


 * username ( user links ) ( time period when they edited from the given IP or range ) [ number of edits from the IP or range ]
 * IP address edited from XFF: XFF information provided (can be spoofed)

Each IP/XFF combination used to edit is listed, in order of use.

The last ten user agents (browser, operating system, system language, and versions) for each user for edits made in the IP or range are listed afterwards.

XFF Format
XFF (X-Forwarded-For) headers indicate the series of IP addresses used from the user's computer (first) to the last proxy server. In case of Wikimedia, the last proxy server is one of the Wikimedia proxies (listed under in the [ http://noc.wikimedia.org/conf/highlight.php?file=CommonSettings.php Wikimedia configuration file]).

In this example:

aaa.aaa.aaa.aaa       XFF: 10.4.46.42, 127.0.0.1, aaa.aaa.aaa.aaa, 208.80.152.46


 * the first two addresses are private to the originating network and can't be reached directly from the public Internet,


 * the third address is the "public face" of the editor, usually a broadband or dial-up ISP, a company gateway, (but possibly an anonymizer or a malware-compromised server),


 * the last address is one of the Wikimedia squids.

MediaWiki configuration settings,  ,  and extensions using the  hook (such as  ) change the way an actual IP address used to attribute edits is selected.

Personal tool links
When you get results from Special:CheckUser you can add personal user tool links via two interface messages:


 * for IP addresses (for example m:MediaWiki:checkuser-userlinks-ip )


 * for registered users (for example m:MediaWiki:Checkuser-userlinks )

Basic usage

 * 1) Go to Special:Investigate.
 * 1) In the Usernames and IP addresses field, type in up to 10 targets, which may be usernames (without the  prefix), IP addresses, or CIDR ranges.
 * 2) In the Reason field, enter the reason you are accessing the confidential data, as described in the Special:CheckUser instructions above; this will be logged in a log visible only to users with the investigate permission.

For advanced feature usage, see Help:Special Investigate.

Customizing tool links
As with Special:CheckUser, links to external tools can be customized.

The links are defined in the message. This message is parsed to find links, which are added to the menu in the IPs and user agents tab.

API
CheckUser also provides an API.

api.php?action=query&list=checkuser&curequest=userips&cutarget=Jimbo_Wales api.php?action=query&list=checkuser&curequest=edits&cutarget=127.0.0.1/16&xff=1&cureason=Some_check

api.php?action=query&list=checkuserlog&culuser=WikiSysop&cullimit=25 api.php?action=query&list=checkuserlog&cultarget=127.0.0.1&culfrom=20111015230000