Mandatory user agent in API requests

Last modified: 20. September 2022

User agent

What is a user agent? See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_agent for a detailed description.

The ITscope Loadbalancer that accepts the API requests has some protection mechanisms for DoS, Flooding and search engine queries. To prevent you from falling victim to these protection mechanisms, you should set user agents when retrieving API requests. The examples listed below should help you to implement your scripts correctly.

Meanwhile, certain user agents are filtered against DoS and Flooding, e.g. Snoopy, Smarty but also not set (zero) user agents.

Our servers also filter certain search engine user agents, e.g. bot spider search seek retriever checker agent crawler gonzo yandex snoopy slurp Indy.

ERPs and other applications

For applications that always use a fixed user agent, it is sufficient for the user agent to consist of a combination of the company name (name of the company that developed the application), the name of the application and the version of the application.

e.g. Developing company – Application name – Application version

Shops and search engines

Shops should not send a fixed user agent to the ITscope API. Instead, the user agent is the browser with which the customer navigates in the shop.

For this reason it is very important that the user agent of the requesting customer is forwarded correctly to the ITscope API, in the event that ITscope API calls are used in a shop. This allows our Loadbalancer to recognise that the request comes from a normal user browser and not from a search engine.

Effects

If a user agent is identified as a search engine, then the ITscope API Request will be delivered with a varying delay (10-20 seconds). This way, the Loadbalancer prevents the real customer from having unnecessary loading times when using the ITscope services.

Flooding, DoS or no (zero) user agents can be blocked very quickly, so a user agent should always be set for your own security.


Examples of PHP queries

This section contains instructions regarding PHP scripts for transferring user agents.

Currently, many web services are delivered to customers with incorrect or no user agent. We therefore ask you to reconfigure your queries according to the instructions below.

Snoopy

Changes in the Snoopy.class.php file

  // UserAgent Code Start 
// var $ agent = "Snoopy v1.2.4";
Var $ agent = $ _ SERVER ['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
// UserAgent Code End

Smarty Template Engine
Changes in the following file: smarty/libs/plugins/function.fetch.php->smarty_function_fetch

  // UserAgent Code Start 
// $ agent = "Smarty Template Engine". $ Smarty -> _ version;
$ Agent = $ _SERVER ['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
// UserAgent Code End

Curl
Expand the curl_setOpt statement

  // UserAgent Code Start 
Curl_setopt ($ ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $ _SERVER ['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
// UserAgent Code End

File_get_contents

The function call should look like this

  // UserAgent Code Start 
$ Opts = array (
'Http' => array (
'Header' => "User Agent:". $ _SERVER ['HTTP_USER_AGENT']. "\ R \ n"
)
);
$ Context = stream_context_create ($ opts);
$ TheirVariable = file_get_contents ($ url, false, $ context);
// UserAgent Code End

Fsockopen

Example with user agent

  $ Fp = @fsockopen ($ url, 80, $ errno, $ errstr, $ timeout); 
$ Out = "GET / HTTP / 1.0 \ r \ n";
$ Out. = "Host: www.example.com \ r \ n";
// UserAgent Code Start
$ Out. = 'User Agent:'. $ _ SERVER ['HTTP_USER_AGENT']. "\ R \ n";
// UserAgent Code End

Fopen

Example with user agent

  // UserAgent Code Start 
Ini_set ('user_agent', $ _ SERVER ['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);
// UserAgent Code End
$ Result = @fopen ($ url, "r");

Varien_Http_Client (Magento)
Example for the following file: magento\lib\Varien\Http\client.php

  Class Varien_Http_Client extends Zend_Http_Client 
{
Public function __construct ($ uri = null, $ config = null)
{
// $ this-> config ['useragent'] = 'Varien_Http_Client';
$ This-> config ['useragent'] = $ _SERVER ['HTTP_USER_AGENT'];
Parent :: __ construct ($ uri, $ config);
}

Examples C #

HttpWebRequest

Set the user agent variable in the HttpWebRequest to the name of your company and application

  HttpWebRequest myHttpWebRequest = HttpWebRequest) WebRequest.Create ("https: //api.itscope.com ..."); 

MyHttpWebRequest.UserAgent = "applicationCompany-applicationName-applicationVersion";

HttpWebResponse myHttpWebResponse = (HttpWebResponse) myHttpWebRequest.GetResponse ();


Examples C ++

HttpWebRequest

Set the user agent variable in the HttpWebRequest to the name of your company and application

  HttpWebRequest ^ myHttpWebRequest = (HttpWebRequest ^) (WebRequest :: Create ("https: //api.itscope.com ...")); 

MyHttpWebRequest-> UserAgent = "applicationCompany-applicationName-applicationVersion";

HttpWebResponse ^ myHttpWebResponse = (HttpWebResponse ^) (myHttpWebRequest-> GetResponse ());


Examples Visual Basic VB

HttpWebRequest

Set the user agent variable in the HttpWebRequest to the name of your company and application

 Dim myHttpWebRequest As HttpWebRequest = CType (WebRequest.Create ("https: //api.itscope.com ...."), HttpWebRequest) 

MyHttpWebRequest.UserAgent = "applicationCompany-applicationName-applicationVersion"

Dim myHttpWebResponse As HttpWebResponse = CType (myHttpWebRequest.GetResponse (), HttpWebResponse)


Examples Java

Apache HttpGet

Set the user agent variable in the HttpGet to the name of your company and application

HttpGet myHttpWebRequest = new HttpGet("https://api.itscope.com....");

myHttpWebRequest.setHeader("User-Agent","applicationCompany-applicationName-applicationVersion");
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