Question Blocking bots at server level

[Jean-LucP]

Server operating system version

Windows 2016 Standard

Plesk version and microupdate number

Plesk Obsidian Web Host Edition 18.0.49 Update #2

How is it possible to block bots, such as MJ12bot, at server level on a Plesk for Windows ?

 

[Peter Debik]

I am not at all a Plesk-for-Windows expert, but think that you'll need to set filtering rules in IIS for that. The general approach including where to find this is described in the official docs of IIS

HTTP Headers for Filtering Rules <scanHeaders>

Overview The <scanHeaders> element of the <filteringRule> element defines a collection of HTTP headers that a request filtering rule will scan fo...

learn.microsoft.com

and an example of a "ruleset" is described here

Request Filtering to block bad bots / crawlers

social.msdn.microsoft.com

Maybe it helps.

 

[SDGPete]

@Jean-LucP this has to be done within IIS and Request Filtering. Perform this on the main server/site. Once in Request Filtering, click on the Rules tab and a new Filtering Rule which scans the User-Agent within the headers and then deny strings such as MJ12bot, there are lots of other bots you may want to block too.