What is the name of the domain?
lindy.com.au
What is the issue you’re encountering
We are receiving continous hits from meta-externalagent hits (simultaneous from different IPs) on Lindy server. As we are on Pro plan so direct user-agent rate limiting rule is not possible and it has created an issue as couple of times our server has gone down. Please suggest if any alternative is present. Current Impact: Today (24th June): 73% of total hits are from meta-externalagent (116,479 out of 160,216 requests). Recent Trends: 21st June: 63.1% (144,145 out of 228,450 requests) 22nd June: 69.9% (131,410 out of 190,408 requests) 23rd June: 64.1% (90,200 ouf of 140,730 requests) [root@lindy access-logs]# cat lindy.com.au-ssl_log | grep ‘meta-externalagent’ | wc -l 116479 [root@lindy access-logs]# cat lindy.com.au-ssl_log | wc -l 160216 [root@lindy access-logs]# [root@lindy access-logs]# cat lindy.com.au-ssl_log | grep ‘meta-externalagent’ | tail 2a03:2880:f800:5:: - - [24/Jun/2025:18:33:59 +1000] “GET /cables-adapters/network/fibre-optic?fibre_type=104%2C103&length=163%2C765%2C21%2C20%2C768%2C22%2C767 HTTP/1.1” 200 38251 “-” “meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)” 2a03:2880:f800:2:: - - [24/Jun/2025:18:34:00 +1000] “GET /cables-adapters/network/fibre-optic?color=235&fibre_type=104%2C760%2C103&length=25 HTTP/1.1” 200 33467 “-” “meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)” 2a03:2880:f800:1b:: - - [24/Jun/2025:18:34:00 +1000] “GET /cables-adapters/network/fibre-optic?connections=252%2C250&length=765%2C25%2C769%2C20%2C22 HTTP/1.1” 200 38402 “-” “meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)” 2a03:2880:f800:f:: - - [24/Jun/2025:18:34:01 +1000] “GET /cables-adapters/network/fibre-optic?connections=249&length=783%2C161%2C769%2C163%2C22%2C765%2C767 HTTP/1.1” 200 35331 “-” “meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)” 2a03:2880:f800:: - - [24/Jun/2025:18:34:02 +1000] “GET /cables-adapters/audio-video/displayport?connections=185&length=27%2C767%2C21%2C25%2C163%2C162 HTTP/1.1” 200 35020 “-” “meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)” 2a03:2880:f800:8:: - - [24/Jun/2025:18:34:02 +1000] “GET /cables-adapters/network/fibre-optic?fibre_type=104%2C103%2C760&length=767%2C769%2C22%2C765%2C21%2C768%2C244 HTTP/1.1” 200 38381 “-” “meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)” 2a03:2880:f800:12:: - - [24/Jun/2025:18:34:05 +1000] “GET /cables-adapters/network/fibre-optic?fibre_type=760&length=244%2C25%2C768%2C767%2C20%2C163 HTTP/1.1” 200 35695 “-” “meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)” 2a03:2880:f800:2:: - - [24/Jun/2025:18:34:05 +1000] “GET /cables-adapters/network/fibre-optic?connections=249&fibre_type=104%2C103&length=160%2C161%2C768%2C769%2C783%2C20%2C163 HTTP/1.1” 200 34038 “-” “meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)” 2a03:2880:f800:3:: - - [24/Jun/2025:18:34:05 +1000] “GET /cables-adapters/network/fibre-optic?fibre_type=104%2C103&length=163%2C768%2C22%2C769%2C160%2C783 HTTP/1.1” 200 37101 “-” “meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)” 2a03:2880:f800:b:: - - [24/Jun/2025:18:34:05 +1000] “GET /cables-adapters/network/fibre-optic?fibre_type=104%2C103%2C851&length=244%2C769%2C783%2C767%2C20%2C22%2C25 HTTP/1.1” 200 38411 “-” “meta-externalagent/1.1 (+https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/webmasters/crawler)” [root@lindy access-logs]# [root@lindy logs]# zcat lindy.com.au-ssl_log-Jun-2025.gz | grep “21/Jun/2025:” | wc -l 228450 [root@lindy logs]# zcat lindy.com.au-ssl_log-Jun-2025.gz | grep “21/Jun/2025:” | grep ‘meta-externalagent’ | wc -l 144145 [root@lindy logs]# [root@lindy logs]# zcat lindy.com.au-ssl_log-Jun-2025.gz | grep “22/Jun/2025:” | grep ‘meta-externalagent’ | wc -l 131410 [root@lindy logs]# zcat lindy.com.au-ssl_log-Jun-2025.gz | grep “22/Jun/2025:” | wc -l 190408 [root@lindy logs]# [root@lindy access-logs]# cat lindy.com.au-ssl_log | grep “22/Jun/2025:” | wc -l 15353 [root@lindy access-logs]# cat lindy.com.au-ssl_log | grep “22/Jun/2025:” | grep ‘meta-externalagent’ | wc -l 12358 [root@lindy access-logs]#
What steps have you taken to resolve the issue?
Rate limiting rule is present in CF but the hits are coming different IPs so it doesn’t reach threshold andthen makes the website down.
Was the site working with SSL prior to adding it to Cloudflare?
Yes
What is the current SSL/TLS setting?
Full (strict)