ThousandEyes
Cisco ThousandEyes •
Since 2011
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Official Docs
What is ThousandEyes?
ThousandEyes is a network intelligence platform (now part of Cisco) that performs synthetic tests from distributed agents worldwide. It monitors application performance, network path visibility, and DNS resolution across the internet. ThousandEyes agents target specific URLs and endpoints configured by customers rather than performing broad web crawling.
User Agent String
ThousandEyes
How to Control ThousandEyes
Block Completely
To prevent ThousandEyes from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block ThousandEyes
User-agent: ThousandEyes
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: ThousandEyes
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: ThousandEyes
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify ThousandEyes
Verification Method:
Verify requests originate from known ThousandEyes agent IPs
Verify requests originate from known ThousandEyes agent IPs
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect ThousandEyes in your application:
Basic Pattern
/ThousandEyes/i
Strict Pattern
/^ThousandEyes$/
Flexible Pattern
/ThousandEyes[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Cisco ThousandEyes.*ThousandEyes/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for ThousandEyes
function detect_thousandeyes() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/ThousandEyes/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('ThousandEyes 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($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for ThousandEyes
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_thousandeyes():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'ThousandEyes'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class ThousandEyesMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for ThousandEyes
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect ThousandEyes
function detectThousandEyes(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /ThousandEyes/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('ThousandEyes detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'ThousandEyes';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectThousandEyes);
# Apache .htaccess rules for ThousandEyes
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ThousandEyes [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} ThousandEyes [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "ThousandEyes" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /ThousandEyes/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for ThousandEyes
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_thousandeyes {
default 0;
~*ThousandEyes 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_thousandeyes) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_thousandeyes) {
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_thousandeyes) {
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: ThousandEyes
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: ThousandEyes
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: ThousandEyes
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
ThousandEyes
Robots.txt Name
ThousandEyes
Category
monitoring
Respects robots.txt
May not respect
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