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chore: block robots.txt on all mfes, idas, and edxapp #300

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Merged
deborahgu merged 2 commits into from
Dec 8, 2025
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chore: block robots.txt on all mfes, idas, and edxapp #300

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97dbfd1
feat: block all crawlers by default
deborahgu Dec 4, 2025
9727a4a
feat: updating changelog
deborahgu Dec 4, 2025
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3 changes: 3 additions & 0 deletions CHANGELOG.md
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Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -4,6 +4,9 @@
All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
Add any new changes to the top (right below this line).

- 2025-12-05
- Set `NGINX_ROBOT_RULES` to a default of block everything.

- 2025-09-26
- Moved `EDXAPP_FEATURES_DEFAULT` and `EDXAPP_FEATURES_EXTRA` into top-level settings.

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5 changes: 4 additions & 1 deletion playbooks/roles/nginx/defaults/main.yml
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Expand Up @@ -190,7 +190,10 @@ nginx_ecommerce_gunicorn_hosts:
nginx_credentails_gunicorn_hosts:
- 127.0.0.1

NGINX_ROBOT_RULES: [ ]
# Block all crawlers by default
NGINX_ROBOT_RULES:
- agent: "*"
disallow: "/"
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@timmc-edx timmc-edx Dec 4, 2025

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Setting a default is fine, but this is currently overridden by stage, prod, and edge ansible vars, so it won't do anything. Stage and edge already have this disallow-all rule in effect. What we would need to change is prod: https://github.com/edx/edx-internal/blob/a7701a2f1415cef320e1cb50714dda60bbbd3c51/ansible/vars/prod-edx.yml#L280

However, Robert pointed out some previous work that raises a question of whether we're ready for this step: edx/edx-arch-experiments#852 (comment)

The LMS has had a noindex meta tag in place for over a year so we're probably fine to go ahead with a robots.txt change, but I'd want to check with SEO first and and I'm not sure what the status is of the other sites.

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@deborahgu deborahgu Dec 5, 2025

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Setting a default is fine, but this is currently overridden by stage, prod, and edge ansible vars, so it won't do anything.

This default will also apply to the MFEs and IDAs, though, right? It's not just going to touch edxapp? Only a few of them have overrides. We want this rule to apply everywhere.

The plan is to make any necessary the edx-internal changes after this is approved and merged.

I'd want to check with SEO first and and I'm not sure what the status is of the other sites.

The request comes from SEO and leadership (and legal), and should apply to all sites. None of the sites we'll be whitelisting are controlled in this stack (eg. marketing and support).

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@timmc-edx timmc-edx Dec 5, 2025

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This default will also apply to the MFEs and IDAs, though, right? It's not just going to touch edxapp?

I honestly have no idea. I don't think very many things currently use edx/configuration -- I only know about edxapp and some analytics stuff. I thought MFEs are all already on k8s, and wouldn't be affected by this.

The plan is to make any necessary the edx-internal changes after this is approved and merged.

So you'd set this default and then remove the prod (and stage and edge) overrides?

I'm fine with this merging, just wanted to check if you were aware that it wouldn't do anything by itself (and that the noindex thing might be an issue).

NGINX_EDXAPP_EMBARGO_CIDRS: []
NGINX_P3P_MESSAGE: 'CP="Open edX does not have a P3P policy."'

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