OpenHoseBot: Robots.txt & Crawl Policy Reference

AI Summary: The registry describes OpenHoseBot as an OpenHose crawler for content analysis and records a browser-compatible OpenHoseBot/2.1 User-Agent, but both the linked HTTP documentation URL and its HTTPS form failed DNS resolution during headless-browser review. No current operator policy, robots rule, rate limit, IP range, reverse-DNS method, or opt-out process is verified. Treat the token as a historical registry signal, not as authenticated crawler identity.

Role and policy boundary

The registry describes OpenHoseBot as a web crawler for content analysis and records this User-Agent:

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; OpenHoseBot/2.1; +http://www.openhose.org/bot.html)

That description is the only role evidence available in this review. The registry-linked http://www.openhose.org/bot.html failed DNS resolution, and https://www.openhose.org/bot.html failed in the same way. No current first-party operator page was established. This profile therefore uses legacy-label and does not present the registry description as a current OpenHose policy.

A request carrying this header could be a legacy deployment, a test client, a browser-like tool, a fork, or a spoofed request. Do not infer that OpenHose still operates the crawler, that it currently analyzes content, or that it has any relationship to a current search, analytics, or AI service. The token does not establish search indexing, AI input, model training, data retention, or permission to access private content.

Because no current policy was verified, do not publish an assumed OpenHoseBot robots group as if it came from the operator. If logs establish a current, attributable token and you decide to exclude it, use the exact observed value in a deliberate site-owner rule:

User-agent: CONFIRMED-OPENHOSEBOT
Disallow: /

For selective access after confirmation:

User-agent: CONFIRMED-OPENHOSEBOT
Allow: /public/
Allow: /docs/
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /account/
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /licensed/
Disallow: /api/

These are explanatory site-owner controls, not recovered OpenHose instructions. Robots.txt is advisory and cannot secure private or licensed content; use authentication, authorization, signed URLs, data minimization, and origin controls for those boundaries.

Layered verification

Start with raw access logs and preserve the complete User-Agent, source IP, ASN, reverse-DNS result, HTTP method, requested path, response status, response size, redirect chain, timestamp, concurrency, and request rate. No current OpenHose source in this review published an IP range, reverse-DNS procedure, Crawl-delay, rate guidance, removal address, or verification workflow. The registry token is useful for triage but is not authentication.

Do not treat the documentation URL in the header as proof of ownership. A client can copy any URL into a User-Agent. Check source IP and DNS evidence independently, and require a documented current verification path before creating a trust exception. A content-analysis-looking request may come from an unrelated batch tool or a spoofed client.

Compare observed behavior with a content-analysis hypothesis without turning it into attribution. Public HTML, metadata, feeds, sitemaps, and ordinary assets may be requested by many tools. Private endpoints, licensed material, account routes, APIs, high concurrency, repeated retries, or unexpected bulk downloads establish impact and load risk, not OpenHose attribution or downstream use.

Evaluate /robots.txt only after the actual observed token is known. Confirm that it is served by the intended host, returns a successful text response, and contains the exact group you intend to publish. An unreachable historical documentation site is not evidence of robots compliance. If no exact group exists, a global rule may affect unrelated clients and should be adopted only as an explicit site-wide decision.

Page-level directives can express indexing preferences:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">

X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

These signals do not authenticate an undocumented crawler or secure private paths. Enforce sensitive boundaries in the application and at the origin. If your policy distinguishes search indexing, AI input, reference use, and model training, document each purpose separately rather than inferring permission from a historical registry label.

WAF and Nginx remediation examples

When the source is unverified, use report-only logging and a narrow observation. Avoid broad crawler, content, or browser-version rules that can affect unrelated clients:

{
  "description": "Observe unverified OpenHoseBot candidates",
  "expression": "lower(http.user_agent) contains \"openhosebot\"",
  "action": "log"
}

After independent verification and a policy decision, scope enforcement to sensitive routes and preserve the evidence supporting the rule:

map $http_user_agent $block_confirmed_openhosebot_private {
    default 0;
    # Add only a complete, independently verified token here.
    # ~*OpenHoseBot/2\.1 1;
}

server {
    location ~ ^/(admin|account|private|licensed|internal|api)/ {
        if ($block_confirmed_openhosebot_private) { return 403; }
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

A User-Agent match is easy to spoof and this value begins with common browser markers. Do not invent an IP allowlist, reverse-DNS suffix, rate, training policy, or permanent trust exception. Use per-client rate limits, concurrency ceilings, timeouts, response-size controls, caching, and anomaly detection at the edge or origin. Start in report-only mode, review false positives, and restrict only after evidence supports the action.

Test public pages, feeds, sitemaps, structured data, licensed assets, account routes, APIs, 429 behavior, response-size limits, and approved integrations separately. Pair WAF controls with authentication and application authorization instead of using robots.txt as an access-control mechanism.

Review checklist

Search logs for the exact OpenHoseBot substring and preserve the complete header, source IP, ASN, PTR result, forward lookup, path, method, response size, status, timing, rate, concurrency, and redirects. Treat the documentation URL in the header as a clue, not proof of operator ownership.

Re-check the OpenHose domain, documentation path, robots.txt, and any future first-party source. In this review both HTTP and HTTPS forms failed DNS resolution. Keep this profile at legacy-label until a current source publishes an exact token, purpose, robots behavior, source-verification method, rate guidance, or opt-out process.

Decide whether your objective is to preserve public discovery, reduce crawl load, limit extraction, protect licensed material, or prevent private access. Publish exact robots rules only after the token is known; enforce private routes with authentication and origin controls.

Review search indexing, AI input, reference use, and model-training decisions separately. Neither the registry description nor a browser-like header establishes downstream permission or use. Do not claim successful blocking or verification from configuration alone; validate later logs and, if possible, obtain a current operator response.

Record the date and reason for the legacy-label classification so a future operator source can be compared without silently upgrading the profile. If a new deployment identifies itself differently, create a separate evidence trail rather than rewriting historical observations as current fact.

References

1. OpenHoseBot documentation URL — registry-linked source; DNS resolution failed during headless-browser review on 2026-08-25.
2. OpenHoseBot HTTPS URL — alternate source form; DNS resolution also failed during headless-browser review on 2026-08-25.
3. Crawler User Agents community registry — registry context for the label and User-Agent; it does not authenticate current OpenHose infrastructure.
4. Google Robots.txt Introduction — general explanation of crawler directives and their limitations.
5. RFC 9309 — Robots Exclusion Protocol standard; it does not authenticate a User-Agent.

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