http://bugs.koha.org/cgi-bin/bugzilla3/show_bug.cgi?id=4042 Summary: Public OPAC search can fall prey to web crawlers Product: Koha Version: unspecified Platform: All OS/Version: All Status: NEW Severity: enhancement Priority: P5 Component: OPAC AssignedTo: jmf@liblime.com ReportedBy: rick@praxis.com.au Estimated Hours: 0.0 Change sponsored?: --- The OPAC search and OPAC advanced searches are accessible by the public from the Koha OPAC home page. Consequently, an over zealous web crawler indexing the site using the opac-search.pl script can impact the performance of the Koha system. In the extreme, an under- resourced system can experience a DoS when the number of searches exceeds the capacity of the system. Proposed Solution: modify the opac-search.pl script in the following manner: (A) Only allow queries using the POST method; otherwise if GET is used return a simple page with "No search result found". (B) Exception: do allow GET queries but only if the HTTP_REFERER matches the SERVER_NAME. This allows all the searches to work via web site links. (C) Make this behavior optional by adding a new flag to the system prefs. Here is the small code segment added to opac-search.pl, immediately after the BEGIN block: if ($ENV{HTTP_REFERER} !~ /$ENV{SERVER_NAME}/ && $ENV{REQUEST_METHOD} ne "POST") { print "Content-type: text/html\n\n"; print "<h1>Search Results</h1>Nothing found.\n"; exit; } CAVEAT: This solution does not allow one to paste an "opac_search.pl" link into the browser and have it work as previously expected. But this was the cause of the problem in the first place. A better solution is to require a user to login to the OPAC before allowing a search. Addendum: also install a robots.txt file at the following location in the Koha source tree to stop web crawlers from using the OPAC search. opac/htdocs/robots.txt The robots.txt file should contain the following contents, which deny all access to indexing engines. You can learn more about robots.txt on the web, and configure it to allow some indexing if you wish. ----------------------------- User-agent: * Disallow: / ----------------------------- -- Configure bugmail: http://bugs.koha.org/cgi-bin/bugzilla3/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are watching all bug changes.