Roblox Version Tracker

The Roblox Version Tracker is a small service TuxBlox runs to notice when Roblox
publishes a new Windows client. TuxBlox runs the official Roblox client on Linux, so a
new client build can break it; the tracker exists so that is noticed within minutes
rather than from user reports days later.

This page is written for anyone looking at the traffic and wondering what it is —
including Roblox staff. It explains exactly what the service does and how to confirm a
request claiming to be it really is.

What it does

Every five minutes it makes a small number of read-only requests:

That is the whole of it. All of these are public, unauthenticated endpoints. The
service:

• reads only. It never writes, posts, authenticates, or uses an account.
• downloads no game content. The manifest check is an HTTP HEAD, so no body is

transferred. It does not fetch client packages.

• does not touch the Roblox website or API. No scraping, no logged-in session.
• runs on a fixed five-minute timer, not on demand, and makes roughly a dozen

small requests per cycle.

When it sees a change it posts a message to a TuxBlox Discord channel naming the
version, the deployment hash where one can be determined, and whether the build is
live or merely deployed. Nothing else is done with the data.

Note

The tracker is closed source, so its behaviour cannot be confirmed by reading
its code. That is why this page describes what it does and gives a way to verify its
network identity instead.

Verifying a request really is ours

Every request it makes carries this User-Agent:

TuxBlox-RobloxVersionTracker/1.0 (+https://tuxblox.net/rvt; [email protected])

A User-Agent can be set by anyone, so it proves nothing on its own. Confirm it the
way you would any other named crawler, with a reverse DNS lookup that is then
forward-confirmed:

1. Look up the reverse DNS of the source address.

$ dig +short -x 217.182.196.189
srv.tuxblox.net.

2. Confirm that name resolves back to the same address.

$ dig +short srv.tuxblox.net
217.182.196.189

If both steps agree, the request came from a machine TuxBlox controls. If either step
fails, it did not, whatever the User-Agent says.

Important

217.182.196.189 is the only address the tracker ever runs from. There is one
instance and it is not distributed. Traffic from any other address using this
User-Agent is not ours, and we would like to hear about it.

If you want it to stop or change

Mail [email protected]. If Roblox would prefer this service did not run, polled
less often, or used a different endpoint, say so and it will be changed or switched
off. There is no need to block it quietly first.

TuxBlox is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or
associated with Roblox Corporation, and nothing on this page should be read as a claim
that Roblox has approved this service.