December 2, 2008
Alexa Web Crawler - TamperedWithCookie Error
I’ve recently started receiving a ton of
CGI::Session::CookieStore::TamperedWithCookie errors on an
application I manage. All of the errors are coming from the Alexa Web
Crawler.
The application is using the Cookie Session Store (Railscast) introduced in Rails 2. Upon inspection it appears that the problem is related to the newline characters rails inserts every 60 characters. Rails encodes these newlines as %0A. The alexa web crawler seems to convert these to \n. This is the only difference between the two cookies that I can see.
Rails Cookie:
<code>
_application_session=BAh7CToMY3NyZl9pZCIlZDA1ODAzY2MwZGZjNzJkN2I4NGFjZTE5OTcxNzZh%0ANjI6FnNlYXJjaF9jYXRlZ29yaWVzWxRvOg1DYXRlZ29yeQc6FkBhdHRyaWJ1%0AdGVzX2NhY2hlewA6EEBhdHRyaWJ1dGVzewciCW5hbWUiFUF1dG8gLyBUcmFu%0Ac3BvcnQiB2lkIgYxbzsHBzsIewA7CXsHIgluYW1lIhNCZWF1dHkgLyBJbWFn%0AZSIHaWQiBjVvOwcHOwh7ADsJewciCW5hbWUiEkJvYXQgLyBNYXJpbmUiB2lk%0AIggxMTVvOwcHOwh7ADsJewciCW5hbWUiFUJ1c2luZXNzIC8gQWRtaW4iB2lk%0AIgY5bzsHBzsIewA7CXsHIgluYW1lIhRDb21wdXRlciAvIFRlY2giB2lkIgcx%0AMW87Bwc7CHsAOwl7ByIJbmFtZSIVQ3JlYXRpdmUgLyBNZWRpYSIHaWQiBzEy%0AbzsHBzs;
</code>
Alexa Crawler Request Cookie:
<code>
_application_session=BAh7CToMY3NyZl9pZCIlOGJlNGQ2ZGYzYWZjODRhZGI4YmNlMWUxZTkwNmNl\nYjA6FnNlYXJjaF9jYXRlZ29yaWVzWxRvOg1DYXRlZ29yeQc6FkBhdHRyaWJ1\ndGVzX2NhY2hlewA6EEBhdHRyaWJ1dGVzewciCW5hbWUiFUF1dG8gLyBUcmFu\nc3BvcnQiB2lkIgYxbzsHBzsIewA7CXsHIgluYW1lIhNCZWF1dHkgLyBJbWFn\nZSIHaWQiBjVvOwcHOwh7ADsJewciCW5hbWUiEkJvYXQgLyBNYXJpbmUiB2lk\nIggxMTVvOwcHOwh7ADsJewciCW5hbWUiFUJ1c2luZXNzIC8gQWRtaW4iB2lk\nIgY5bzsHBzsIewA7CXsHIgluYW1lIhRDb21wdXRlciAvIFRlY2giB2lkIgcx\nMW87Bwc7CHsAOwl7ByIJbmFtZSIVQ3JlYXRpdmUgLyBNZWRpYSIHaWQiBzEy\nbzsHBzs
</code>
I’m not the only person having this problem. Any ideas?
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