DatadogSynthetics
Datadog •
Since 2019
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What is DatadogSynthetics?
DatadogSynthetics is Datadog's bot for synthetic monitoring, which simulates user interactions to proactively monitor application performance and availability. The bot runs automated tests from global locations, checking APIs, multi-step user journeys, and critical business transactions. As part of Datadog's comprehensive observability platform, synthetic monitoring helps detect issues before real users encounter them. The bot can simulate complex user behaviors, validate functionality, and measure performance metrics from an end-user perspective.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; DatadogSynthetics) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/111.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
How to Control DatadogSynthetics
Block Completely
To prevent DatadogSynthetics from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block DatadogSynthetics
User-agent: DatadogSynthetics
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: DatadogSynthetics
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: DatadogSynthetics
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify DatadogSynthetics
Verification Method:
Datadog's published IP ranges
Datadog's published IP ranges
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect DatadogSynthetics in your application:
Basic Pattern
/DatadogSynthetics/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla/5\.0 \(X11; Linux x86_64; DatadogSynthetics\) AppleWebKit/537\.36 \(KHTML, like Gecko\) Chrome/111\.0\.0\.0 Safari/537\.36$/
Flexible Pattern
/DatadogSynthetics[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Datadog.*DatadogSynthetics/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for DatadogSynthetics
function detect_datadogsynthetics() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/DatadogSynthetics/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('DatadogSynthetics 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for DatadogSynthetics
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_datadogsynthetics():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'DatadogSynthetics'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class DatadogSyntheticsMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for DatadogSynthetics
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect DatadogSynthetics
function detectDatadogSynthetics(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /DatadogSynthetics/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('DatadogSynthetics detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'DatadogSynthetics';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectDatadogSynthetics);
# Apache .htaccess rules for DatadogSynthetics
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} DatadogSynthetics [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} DatadogSynthetics [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "DatadogSynthetics" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /DatadogSynthetics/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for DatadogSynthetics
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_datadogsynthetics {
default 0;
~*DatadogSynthetics 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_datadogsynthetics) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_datadogsynthetics) {
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_datadogsynthetics) {
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: DatadogSynthetics
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: DatadogSynthetics
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: DatadogSynthetics
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
DatadogSynthetics
Robots.txt Name
DatadogSynthetics
Category
monitoring
Respects robots.txt
May not respect
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