Blocking spammers with mod_rewrite

[NewEraCracker]

If you don't have APIs installed in your site that require POST method you can add this to .htaccess

# Mitigate the spammers
<IfModule rewrite_module>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Language} ^$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^(POST)
RewriteRule .* - [R=406]
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PROTOCOL} ^(HTTP/1.0)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^(POST)
RewriteRule .* - [R=406]
</IfModule>

It blocks POST requests from all clients without referer header and without Accept-Language header (automated form submission) and blocks POST requests from any HTTP/1.0 client (bots don't need POST)

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If you use nginx as apache reverse proxy. It downgrades requests to HTTP/1.0 and you lose the original HTTP version so just use:

# Mitigate the spammers
<IfModule rewrite_module>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^$
RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Language} ^$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^(POST)
RewriteRule .* - [R=406]
</IfModule>

Regards,
NewEraCracker

NewEraCracker Reviewed by NewEraCracker on 20th May 2011. Blocking spammers with mod_rewrite If you don't have APIs installed in your site that require POST method you can add this to .htaccess # Mitigate the spammers <IfModule rewrite_module> RewriteEngine On RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^$ RewriteCond %{HTTP:Accept-Language} ^$ RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^(POST) RewriteRule .* - RewriteCond %{SERVER_PROTOCOL} ^(HTTP/1.0) Rating: 5