AppInsights
Microsoft •
Since 2015
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What is AppInsights?
AppInsights bot is part of Microsoft Azure's Application Insights service, used for availability monitoring and synthetic testing of web applications. The bot performs regular health checks and availability tests configured by Azure users to ensure their applications are accessible and performing correctly. It simulates user interactions from multiple geographic locations to provide comprehensive uptime monitoring. Application Insights uses this data to alert developers to outages, performance degradation, and availability issues, making it an essential tool for maintaining reliable web services.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 10.0; Windows NT 6.2; WOW64; Trident/6.0; AppInsights)
How to Control AppInsights
Block Completely
To prevent AppInsights from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block AppInsights
User-agent: AppInsights
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: AppInsights
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /public/
Set Crawl Delay
To slow down the crawl rate (note: not all bots respect this directive):
User-agent: AppInsights
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify AppInsights
Verification Method:
Microsoft Azure IP ranges
Microsoft Azure IP ranges
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect AppInsights in your application:
Basic Pattern
/AppInsights/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla/5\.0 \(compatible; MSIE 10\.0; Windows NT 6\.2; WOW64; Trident/6\.0; AppInsights\)$/
Flexible Pattern
/AppInsights[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Microsoft.*AppInsights/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for AppInsights
function detect_appinsights() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/AppInsights/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('AppInsights detected from IP: ' . $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
// Set cache headers
header('Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600');
header('X-Robots-Tag: noarchive');
// Optional: Serve cached version
if (file_exists('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html')) {
readfile('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for AppInsights
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_appinsights():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'AppInsights'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class AppInsightsMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for AppInsights
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect AppInsights
function detectAppInsights(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /AppInsights/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('AppInsights detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'AppInsights';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectAppInsights);
# Apache .htaccess rules for AppInsights
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} AppInsights [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} AppInsights [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "AppInsights" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /AppInsights/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for AppInsights
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_appinsights {
default 0;
~*AppInsights 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_appinsights) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_appinsights) {
root /var/www/cached;
try_files $uri $uri.html $uri/index.html @backend;
}
try_files $uri @backend;
}
# Add headers for bot requests
location @backend {
if ($is_appinsights) {
add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600";
add_header X-Robots-Tag "noarchive";
}
proxy_pass http://backend;
}
}
Should You Block This Bot?
Recommendations based on your website type:
| Site Type | Recommendation | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| E-commerce | Optional | Evaluate based on bandwidth usage vs. benefits |
| Blog/News | Allow | Increases content reach and discoverability |
| SaaS Application | Block | No benefit for application interfaces; preserve resources |
| Documentation | Selective | Allow for public docs, block for internal docs |
| Corporate Site | Limit | Allow for public pages, block sensitive areas like intranets |
Advanced robots.txt Configurations
E-commerce Site Configuration
User-agent: AppInsights
Crawl-delay: 5
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /*?sort=
Disallow: /*?filter=
Disallow: /*&page=
Allow: /products/
Allow: /categories/
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Publishing/Blog Configuration
User-agent: AppInsights
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: AppInsights
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
AppInsights
Robots.txt Name
AppInsights
Category
monitor
Respects robots.txt
May not respect
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