* Keep Rack::Attack counters in process memory
Rack::Attack was storing its request counters in Rails.cache, which is
memcached in production. On 2026-09-19, memcached calls were timing out
in the production logs. When that happens, the counters stop working.
In the same log window, one IP made 753 requests. 717 of them
succeeded. The 15 per minute throttle and the 500 per day ban did not
stop it.
Rack::Attack now uses its own in-memory store, capped at 8 MB. Each
Puma worker keeps its own counters, so the limits apply per worker.
Refs #1640
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
* Add BLOCKED_IPS list to Rack::Attack
When one crawler overloads the site, we need a fast way to block it.
Rack::Attack now blocks every IP listed in the BLOCKED_IPS environment
variable. The list is comma separated.
Setting the variable does not need a code change. It also keeps IP
addresses out of the repository.
Refs #1640
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
* Lower the memcached socket timeout to 0.5 seconds
The production cache store waited up to 1.5 seconds for each memcached
call. Dalli's own default is 1 second. Dalli also retries after a
failure, so one bad cache call can block a Puma thread for longer than
the timeout.
On 2026-09-19, the production logs showed memcached timeouts every few
seconds. With only 5 threads per Puma worker, blocked threads make the
site slow. Slow requests hold memory for longer.
The timeout is now 0.5 seconds. A healthy memcached call takes a few
milliseconds. A call that takes 0.5 seconds has failed in practice, so the
request is better off skipping the cache.
Refs #1640
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
---------
Co-authored-by: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Configure Allow2Ban in Rack::Attack to ban IPs requesting >500 pages per day for 1 week (7 days).
- Add honeypot route /dont-crawl-me disallowed in robots.txt and configure Fail2Ban in Rack::Attack to ban IPs visiting it for 7 days upon 1 hit.
- Update PhotosController#index to raise ActiveRecord::RecordNotFound when page parameter is out of bounds, returning 404 Not Found to crawlers instead of 200 OK.
- Add request and controller specs for Rack::Attack rules and pagination 404 responses.
Co-authored-by: CloCkWeRX <365751+CloCkWeRX@users.noreply.github.com>
