Based on concerns and dealing with issues raised here over time (which from reading is systemic across the web the last few months) and facing new waves of this stuff. I tested Login Only, but noticed these AI bot waves hitting all kinds of discourse resources/paths, and potentially getting served …

[image] agemo: hitting all kinds of discourse resources/paths, and potentially getting served a page/contents Which paths specifically? anything that gets hit should redirect to login. [image] agemo: Can anyone confirm if Login Only is a total block or not? Yes, login only means the o…

As posted in the linked topic, for e.g.: ...stylesheets/docker_manager_abc123.css In some simple testing I followed the links various traffic was seeking, and I was able to pull down the css or js files and who knows what else, when discourse was in Login Only mode.

Oh I see, yes that’s expected… those are static assets used to render the app, they are often cached for performance and don’t contain sensitive post information.

Ok I understand the but maybe true lockdown needs to be deeply and quickly considered, for technical reasons I can’t think of other than leaving no threads that can be yanked DDoS level. I’ve just seen nearly 3K unique URL request targeting specifically uploads/default/original/3X/c/.../...some.jpe…

Thanks for pointing that out. I was not aware of it, but yea a BIG maybe, I don’t know if I have the time and resources to implement right now.

Searching meta I have discovered the below option here and have activated: Prevent anonymous users from downloading attachments. Maybe this will block such requests or help to some degree.

Login Only - Does it actually stop all traffic access without login?

Support

awesomerobot (Kris) December 15, 2025, 11:19pm 6

Maybe https://meta.discourse.org/t/secure-uploads/meta/140017 could help you on this?

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Login Only - Does it actually stop all traffic access without login?

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