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Settings

General Settings

You can edit the most important information about the project in general settings.

FieldDescription
NameName of the project
DescriptionDescription of the project
HostsFor the requests to be answered correctly, mosparo needs to know from where this project is being used. To do this, you must capture all hosts. It is necessary to enter the domain without the correct path to the form. For example, example.com
Spam limitThe spam limit determines the number of points at which a submission is recognized as spam.
Statistic storageDefines how long mosparo stores the statistical data for a project. After the selected time range, mosparo deletes the statistical data automatically. (Added in v1.1)
API debug modeEnables the API debug mode. When enabled, the APIs will respond with additional information to make it easier to understand why the API returned the response or error message. See API debug mode. (Added in v1.1)
Verification simulation modeEnables the verification simulation mode. When enabled, the verification simulation will explain which data the mosparo verification API expects to verify the request. The verification simulation mode is visible on the submission detail page when enabled. See Verification simulation mode. (Added in v1.1)

On the right side, you can see the most important information you need to integrate mosparo into your website. Copy this information and paste these values into your website's fields or configuration pages.

FieldDescription
Hostmosparo installation address
Unique identification numberUnique identification number of the project
Public keyThis is the public, i.e., non-secret, security key used to transmit the submissions to mosparo.
Secret keyThe secret key is there to sign the API requests and ensure that the requests are genuine.

Project members

Project members are users who have access to a project. The users can have different permissions and sometimes only view projects but can not change anything. Users can be added as project members in more than one project.

Add project member

To add a new project member: Click the button in the upper-right corner. Enter the email address of the desired user and select the desired role that this member should play in this project. Confirm your entries by clicking on the button below the form.

caution

You can only add users who have previously been created as users in the administration.

Edit project member

You can edit a project member at any time and adjust the assigned role if you want a member to have more or fewer permissions.

Remove project member

If you no longer want a project member to have access to a project, you can remove the project member at any time. If you remove a project member, only the project member in that project is removed. The user himself and all other memberships to other projects of this user are retained.

Security settings

Types of settings

General security settings

The general security settings of a project are the base settings for every project. You should first configure the general security settings before using the origin-based ones.

Origin-based security settings

The origin-based security settings allow you to adjust the security settings based on the origin of a user. This can be done by defining special security settings based on the IP address of a user. If you have configured GeoIP2, you can also use the AS number and the country to match a user.

With the priority, you can specify in which order the guidelines should be applied. The matching guideline with the highest priority will be used for a user.

You can create as many guidelines as you want. In every guideline, you can define as many criteria as you wish. The criteria will be used for a user as soon as one of the criteria matches.

If you want to adjust one of the security settings, check the override checkbox in the top right corner of the security settings box. If you wish to disable one of the security settings enabled in the general security settings, override the security settings and uncheck the enabled checkbox.

Available security settings

Minimum time

You can use the minimum time to specify how much time must elapse between the initial request and the form verification before the request is accepted. Bots can submit form requests within seconds. A typical user may need several minutes.

info

Some users are faster, and others are slower in typing. The minimum time should be as short as possible to avoid incorrectly rejecting valid requests.

Honeypot field

With the honeypot field, a hidden field is added to the form, which must be empty. The field is not visible to regular users. A bot sees the field and may think it needs to be filled in.

The submission is considered spam when the field contains content because the regular user does not see the field. For users with screen readers, the field is marked with a note that the user should not fill in anything.

caution

A honeypot field can be an improvement in spam detection. However, since bots can also technically detect whether it could be a honeypot field, you should use this function with caution.

Enter the name of the honeypot field in the displayed field. There must be no other field in your form with this name. Otherwise, there will be a conflict. Please use a neutral term that does not indicate how the field works.

Request delay

With the request delay, it is possible to have an IP address wait if an IP address has made many requests in a certain period. With the request delay, it is possible to signal to the user that mosparo can process the request, but the user has to wait a moment.

Bots want to send as many requests as possible. With the request delay, these are slowed down accordingly, and sending spam is less attractive.

caution

Users can share the same IP address, for example, in a multi-user apartment or a company.

Fields
FieldDescription
Number of allowed requestsThe field defines the number of requests a user can make within a period before the request delay becomes active.
Detection time frameDefines the time in seconds in which the requests must be made before the request delay becomes active.
Base delay timeDefines the time, in seconds, that the user must wait before sending a new request.
MultiplicatorThe multiplicator is applied to the base delay time and increases (or decreases) the delay time for re-requests within that delay time.
Example
Example values

Number of allowed requests: 30, Detection time frame: 30 sec, Base delay time: 60 sec, Multiplicator: 1.5

  • A user makes 30 requests within 20 seconds. The automatic delay becomes active, and the user has to wait for 60 seconds.
  • If the user makes another request within these 60 seconds, the time increases from 60 to 90 seconds with the help of the multiplicator.
  • For a further request within 90 seconds, the time increases to 135 seconds.

IP lockout

If an IP address submits a large number of submissions, an IP address can be automatically blocked for a certain period with automatic blocking. The lock is made automatically and takes effect immediately. As soon as the set time has elapsed, the IP address can submit a submission again.

caution

Users can share the same IP address, for example, in a multi-user apartment or a company.

caution

IP addresses are blocked throughout the entire mosparo installation. If an IP address has been blocked in one project, it is automatically blocked in another if both projects have IP lockout enabled.

Fields
FieldDescription
Number of allowed requestsThe field defines the number of submissions a user can submit within a period before the IP lockout becomes active.
Detection time frameDefines the time, in seconds, in which the submissions must be made before the IP lockout becomes active.
Base lockout timeDefines the time, in seconds, that the user is locked and cannot submit submissions.
MultiplicatorThe multiplicator is applied to the base lockout time and increases (or decreases) the lockout time for new submissions within that lockout time.
Example
Example values

Number of allowed requests: 30, Detection time frame: 30 sec, Base lockout time: 300 sec, Multiplicator: 1.5

  • A user submits 30 submissions within 20 seconds. The IP lockout becomes active, and the user is banned for 300 seconds.
  • If the user submits another submission within these 300 seconds, the time increases from 300 to 450 seconds using the multiplicator.
  • For a further submission within these 450 seconds, the time increases to 675 seconds.

List of allowed IP addresses

You can edit the list of allowed IP addresses only in the general security settings of a project.

If you want specific IP addresses to be excluded from the request delay and IP lockout, you can add these IP addresses or subnets to the list of allowed IP addresses. The security features are skipped for the IP addresses and subnets enlisted on it. However, the regular check for spam still takes place.

caution

Users can share the same IP address, for example, in a multi-user apartment or a company.

Design

mosparo offers you the possibility to change the design of the mosparo box as far as possible and adapt it to your website. Use the design settings to adjust the look and feal. To make it easier to configure mosparo, there are two modes. With the simple mode, you choose the most important colors for your website and the size of the box and mosparo handles the rest.

If you want to configure all options, you can switch to the advanced mode and change every single color and other options. You can change between these two modes any time you want.

info

Since mosparo works with standard HTML elements and CSS rules, you can override the entire appearance of the mosparo box with appropriate CSS rules. However, because this requires programming experience, this possibility is not further described in this documentation.

danger

Overriding the CSS rules is at your own risk and is not officially recommended by mosparo.

Simple mode

New projects using the simple mode by default. In the project wizard, you're able to configure these four fields directly after creating the project. mosparo will automatically calculate the best possible color for the success and failure states. Use the size selector to define which size of the box you want to use.

Advanced mode

In the advanced mode, you have all options to adjust the design of the mosparo box.

Box size and radius

You can choose between three different sizes of the mosparo box. These three sizes are predefined in mosparo, and you can only choose between these three sizes.

You can adjust the radius of the box to suit your website best. If you do not want a radius, you can set the value to 0.

Colors

Select the different colors for the box in each state. You can click the black X in the color picker if you want to use a transparent value for a color.

When the user focuses on the checkbox with the keyboard or the user moves the mouse over the mosparo box, the mosparo logo is displayed. If you do not want this branding, you can disable the display of the logo.

Ping animation

A ping animation is built into the standard system, which should highlight the checkbox. If you do not want this animation, you can disable it anytime.

Invisible mode

The invisible mode was introduced with version 1.0. With the invisible mode, the user does not have to click a box to check the data. Instead, the data is checked when the user submits the form. A more detailed description of the variant can be found at How it works.

The settings allow you to customize the appearance of this overlay.

Colors

With the colors, you can define the background of the overlay, the text color, and the color of the loading circle. Additionally, the color of the error message, if spam was detected, can be defined. The overlay's background color should be slightly transparent so the user knows he has not left the page.

mosparo logo

When the overlay is displayed, mosparo will show the mosparo logo. If you do not want this branding, you can turn off the display of the logo.

Page overlay

Define if the overlay should overlay the whole website or if only the form should be overlaid.

Contrast Rating

Our goal is that everyone can fill out your form. For this, it is essential that the mosparo box can also be used by a person who does not see as well as other people. It is, therefore, important that the colors you choose have the highest possible contrast ratio. For this reason, we have integrated a function directly in the display settings, which calculates the corresponding contrasts and displays them to you.

Delivery of appearance settings

The selected values are stored in the database when the appearance settings are saved. In addition, the CSS code, which is responsible for the presentation, is prepared for your project in a special file.

When a user calls up a form on your website, this already prepared file is loaded, and the user automatically has the correct representation.

After you customize the appearance, a new file is saved with a new name. All requests from the old file are automatically forwarded to the new file so that no interruptions can be detected when adjusting the display, and the latest version is always used.