RPT-HTTPClient/0.3-3

New IBM bot or just odd browser?

[claus]

Seems like IBM is now also using the "RPT-HTTPClient/0.3-3" Java Library. In the threads, Nameprotect has used it before.

UA: RPT-HTTPClient/0.3-3
IP: 66.147.154.3 (IBM Almaden Research Center)

Uses HTTP/1.1, GOT 16 files, some of them 3 and 4 times. No asking for robots.txt, no referrer, no .css, no .js, no images.

I am not sure it's a bot - some of these files would also be requested a few times by a real user and the site works perfectly well without styling, js, and images. It might just be an IBM researcher that has an odd choice of browser. I'll keep it allowed for now and keep an eye as well.

/claus

---

Java Library docs:
[innovation.ch...]

Related threads:

(1) "RPT-HTTPClient/0.3-3"
[webmasterworld.com...]

(2) "FlickBot 2.0 RPT-HTTPClient/0.3-3"
[webmasterworld.com...]

(3) "new bot: [almaden.ibm.com...] [c01]"
[webmasterworld.com...]

(4) "IBM Crawler?"
[webmasterworld.com...]

[wilderness]

I denied that with

SetEnvIf User-Agent Client/0\.3\-3$ keep_out