Re: cvsweb redirects to theannoyingsite.com

On Sun, 25 Jan 2026 at 08:26, Nick Holland <nick@holland-consulting.net> wrote:

On 1/24/26 11:12, Constantine A. Murenin wrote:

> It's also horrible for usability. 

I wish I could argue with that, but I can't...other than to say, It
beats being shut down.

I HAVE changed the redirection to localhost.  I am looking at ideas for
a "better" solution, which I'm sure will be hated by many, because it
isn't as straight forward as it was.  I don't even know what the better
solution is, I just know it won't be liked, and I won't like doing it.

The redirects are what's harmful to the usability and the UX, and it's the actual, real, OpenBSD users and developers, and not the machines, who are inconvenienced greatly by these redirects, that obscure the resource they're trying to obtain.

The least you can do is simply give out a regular error, like HTTP 406 Not Acceptable as someone else suggested.  This way, the user will have the file name, version, and action, in the address bar, and they can use an alternative service.  With a redirect to "localhost/", with the requested path destroyed, they have nothing, and the BACK button doesn't work, since pages with HTTP redirects, aren't added to the history.  (If you have to do a redirect somehow, at least include the full path.)

Ideally, you can also provide a back link from a custom error page, clicking on which, a bona fide user would be brought back to the correct page.

BTW, the reason these bots have such an outsized effect on these legacy services, is because of the inefficiency of the service.  With a 48GB RAM machine, you could probably simply pre-cache all of these default permutations that these bots are requesting, and serve all of them from the cache, without having to deny the service to anyone.  (Can probably do that from a less beefy box, too.)

C.