A summary of the Slack-ImgProxy Internet robot. Including details for the owner, description, HTTP user agent and whether this robot adheres to the robot exclusion standard.
Who owns the Slack-ImgProxy robot? Is it a good or a bad robot? And why is it visiting your website?
Shown below is a sample log file entry for the Slack-ImgProxy web robot. It’s derived from an Apache web server log file. From the log entry information about how the robot identifies itself, HTTP User Agent, and where it is hosted are given.
Server Log File
vntweb.co.uk 18.209.15.92 - - [17/Apr/2019:15:59:05 +0100] "GET /wp-content/themes/vntweb-17/images/vntweblogo_wht2.png HTTP/1.1" 200 18865 "-" "Slack-ImgProxy (+https://api.slack.com/robots)"
HTTP User Agent
Slack-ImgProxy
IP Addresses
The observed IP address was 18.209.15.92.
WHOIS DNS command gives the following information about the IP address:
| NetRange: | 18.128.0.0 – 18.255.255.255 |
| NetName: | AT-88-Z |
| OrgName: | Amazon Technologies Inc. |
| Address: | 410 Terry Ave N. |
| City: | Seattle |
| StateProv: | WA |
| PostalCode: | 98109 |
| Country: | US |
| Updated: | 2017-01-28 |
As can be seen from the above the observed IP address is a part of a block assigned to Amazon Technologies Inc.
Owner
Slack Technologies, Inc.
Country
USA
Verification
The Slack website confirms example uses of their robot user-agent string:
Slack-ImgProxy 0.19 (+https://api.slack.com/robots)
Exclusion
The user-agent string includes a reference to the website https://api.slack.com/robots.
The referenced website confirms that the bot does not support the robots exclusion text and the crawl delay.
Further Info
Slack is a suite of collaboration software, which includes over 1500 apps.
Slack provides the following solutions:
- Engineering – workflows from code review to release and beyond
- IT – From wireless woes to tricky tickets, Slack is your IT toolbox.
- Customer support – customer support may be both coordinated and collaborative.
- Project management – all aspects of a project can be managed
- Sales – covering research, pitches slides and contacts.
- Marketing – from coordinating plans to measuring results
- Human resources – includes recruitment and a collaborative company culture.
Slack uses their Slack-ImgProxy robot to fetch and cache images which have been posted on their channels. It is their generic robot performing tasks which aren’t covered by the other robots.
