Thanks for the links Mark and Doug. The webscrapers thing looks interesting.. I had looked at mod_rewrite and User-Agent header solution. Recently I was trying to download a package using wget, but the website prevented access to it. I tried --user-agent option but it didn't work either. So I was curious to know what strategy this web admin must have implemented. May be I used incorrect user-agent string?? I remember using AppleWebKit and Mozilla strings, will try again. (Not giving out that particular URL out of courtesy). -cs. On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 5:33 PM, Doug McNutt <douglist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > At 18:19 -0500 1/4/11, Mark Montague wrote: >>Follow the example below, but use only the user agent condition, omit the IP condition, and suitably adjust the RewriteRule regular expression to match the URL(s) you wish to block: >> >>http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/rewrite/rewrite_guide.html#blocking-of-robots >> >>Note that wget has a -U option that can be used to get around this block by using a user agent string that you are not blocking -- so the block will not prevent a determined downloader. > > ******* > > You might want to have a look at this rather new mailing list. It's interested in doing exactly the opposite of what you want. > > List-Id: webscrapers talk <webscrapers.cool.haxx.se> > List-Archive: <http://cool.haxx.se/pipermail/webscrapers> > List-Post: <mailto:webscrapers@xxxxxxxxxxxx> > List-Help: <mailto:webscrapers-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=help> > List-Subscribe: <http://cool.haxx.se/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/webscrapers>, <mailto:webscrapers-request@xxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=subscribe> > > > > -- > > --> From the U S of A, the only socialist country that refuses to admit it. <-- > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > The official User-To-User support forum of the Apache HTTP Server Project. > See <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/userslist.html> for more info. > To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > " from the digest: users-digest-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- The official User-To-User support forum of the Apache HTTP Server Project. See <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/userslist.html> for more info. To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx " from the digest: users-digest-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx