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Requests originating from "status" tool
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Description

I discovered in the awstats statistics for www.wikimedia.it that a significant portion of our traffic comes from https://tools.wmflabs.org/status/ (created after T140884): about 4000 requests so far this month.

I don't see what benefit this tool possibly has for us, but I'd like to avoid pollution of our statistics, particularly for the main page. Please request an URL other than the main page (e.g. /feed/ or /wp-login.php) and/or reduce the frequency and/or switch to a system which doesn't pollute webserver logs.

Note that fail2ban may automatically block your IP any time.

Event Timeline

This tool, really simple, makes 4 requests per hour and per (sub)domain. Its main feature is sending an email when a site is down, but there isn't any defined email address for wikimedia.it.

There's no way of checking out the real availability of the HTTP(S) services without making HTTP(S) requests. However, these requests can be easily filtered using their referer, always the same ("https://tools.wmflabs.org/status/").

Do you want to enable this feature for wikimedia.it by providing an email address or to remove wikimedia.it from the checks?

I gave 3 other options, but if you can't consider any of them please remove wikimedia.it from the tool. Thanks.

If we reduced frequency, this tool would be almost useless since it wouldn't detect short breaks and, in general, it wouldn't detect long breaks before the responsible detected them by her/himself. Unfortunately, a reliable external system which doesn't pollute webserver logs (in other words, which doesn't send HTTP requests to common and stable webpages) simply cannot exist, and every sysop should filter, or even make, their logs according to their circumstances. Finally, we cannot get reliable signs of 'healthy' by checking out a feeds page because this (or another) specific page can be moved or even deleted while the site continues working properly with the same domain name.

I've just chosen the last option (although I'm not too enthusiastic about it). However, please, if you want to explore a different one, just tell me, you're the boss! ;-)

You have an extra slash at the end and wikimedia.it/ redirects to www.wikimedia.it/ .

Nemo_bis triaged this task as Medium priority.Dec 23 2016, 7:37 AM