How to block MelonMesa Bot
Operated by MelonMesa. This bot is used to aggregate data about a popular online multiplayer game from consenting hosts who have opted-in to this collection. The data that is aggregated is reflected in a panel where players can freely search through the aggregated data. Any modification or deletion of data from the sources (consenting hosts) is reflected within the application's database within 30 minutes. The application scrapes each host for new data every five minutes, with a more thorough check for modified data every 30 minutes.
robots.txt
What the agent asks to be told. It obeys this or it does not — nothing enforces it.
User-agent: CentComBot Disallow: /
nginx
In the server block, then reload.
# In the server block. 403 rather than 444: a closed connection tells the
# operator nothing, and an agent that gets a status code can log it.
if ($http_user_agent ~* "(CentComBot)") {
return 403;
}
Apache
In .htaccess or the vhost.
BrowserMatchNoCase "CentComBot" bad_bot
<RequireAll>
Require all granted
Require not env bad_bot
</RequireAll>
Cloudflare
Security → WAF → Custom rules.
# Security → WAF → Custom rules, action: Block (http.user_agent contains "CentComBot")
WordPress
A child theme's functions.php, or a small plugin.
// functions.php of a child theme, or a small plugin. Runs before WordPress
// builds the page, so a blocked agent costs one PHP process and no queries.
add_action('init', function () {
$agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
foreach (['CentComBot'] as $needle) {
if (stripos($agent, $needle) !== false) {
status_header(403);
exit('Blocked: MelonMesa Bot');
}
}
});
robots.txt is a request. The rules below it are the wall.
MelonMesa Bot publishes a token, so the directive above will work for as long as it keeps honouring it — and nothing except its own good manners makes it. The server rules match on a header the requester sets, which stops the agent that says who it is and not the one that copies somebody else's name. Botscope verifies identity against DNS and published address ranges, records which check decided each request, and shows you the ones that lied.