New Relic Synthetics
New Relic •
Since 2014
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What is New Relic Synthetics?
New Relic Synthetics provides proactive monitoring by simulating user interactions with websites and applications. The bot performs scripted browser tests and API checks from locations worldwide, helping teams identify performance issues and outages before customers are affected. As part of New Relic's full-stack observability platform, Synthetics integrates with other monitoring data to provide comprehensive insights. The service can simulate complex multi-step transactions and validate critical user journeys.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/100.0.4896.60 Safari/537.36 NewRelicSynthetics/1.0
How to Control New Relic Synthetics
Block Completely
To prevent New Relic Synthetics from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block New Relic Synthetics
User-agent: NewRelicSynthetics
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: NewRelicSynthetics
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: NewRelicSynthetics
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify New Relic Synthetics
Verification Method:
New Relic's monitoring locations
New Relic's monitoring locations
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect New Relic Synthetics in your application:
Basic Pattern
/New Relic Synthetics/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla/5\.0 \(X11; Linux x86_64\) AppleWebKit/537\.36 \(KHTML, like Gecko\) Chrome/100\.0\.4896\.60 Safari/537\.36 NewRelicSynthetics/1\.0$/
Flexible Pattern
/New Relic Synthetics[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*New Relic.*New/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for New Relic Synthetics
function detect_new_relic_synthetics() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/New Relic Synthetics/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('New Relic Synthetics 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for New Relic Synthetics
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_new_relic_synthetics():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'New Relic Synthetics'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class NewRelicSyntheticsMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for New Relic Synthetics
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect New Relic Synthetics
function detectNewRelicSynthetics(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /New Relic Synthetics/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('New Relic Synthetics detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'New Relic Synthetics';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectNewRelicSynthetics);
# Apache .htaccess rules for New Relic Synthetics
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} New Relic Synthetics [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} New Relic Synthetics [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "New Relic Synthetics" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /New Relic Synthetics/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for New Relic Synthetics
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_new_relic_synthetics {
default 0;
~*New Relic Synthetics 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_new_relic_synthetics) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_new_relic_synthetics) {
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_new_relic_synthetics) {
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: NewRelicSynthetics
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: NewRelicSynthetics
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: NewRelicSynthetics
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
New Relic Synthetics
Robots.txt Name
NewRelicSynthetics
Category
monitoring
Respects robots.txt
May not respect
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