VeloVersionBaykus
VeloVersionBaykus is the automated agent that Velo Version uses to detect when a vendor publishes a new software release. It reads public release-notes pages that vendors publish for their owners, for example in categories such as Cars, and adds any version not yet recorded to the site. It does not sign in, complete forms or collect personal data.
Identification
Every request carries the following User-Agent:
VeloVersionBaykus/0.1 (+https://veloversion.com/robot; firmware release tracker)
Schedule
A job starts once an hour, but each page follows its own schedule and the pages monitored are checked at most once a day. A page that has not changed since the previous visit is not downloaded again: the agent sends the validators supplied by the server (ETag and Last-Modified) and stops on a "not modified" response.
Conduct
- It reads robots.txt first and does not access anything that is disallowed.
- It waits at least 2 seconds between two requests to the same website.
- It abandons a request after 15 seconds, retries at most twice and never downloads more than 4 MB from a page.
- It reads public pages only; where a site refuses automated access, it stops and does not attempt to circumvent the refusal.
The name
Baykus is also the name of the founder's cat, after whom the agent is named.