Given that there is no improvement of the situation in sight in terms of users being a bit more mindful with their use of the Overpass API, I’ve started to put heavy banning rules in place on the servers. Large scale users will be cut off until the server is responsive again.
This may do some collateral damage. If you want to use the Overpass API, make sure to follow the same rules as for all the other free services around OSM:
- When called from the browser, a HTTP referrer must be included in the request.
- Scripts must set a custom HTTP user agent which identifies them well. No stock UAs, no UA faking, no UA rotation.
- No parallel running of scripts to “speed up” processing. One user, one script. Do not work around that rule by distributing load over multiple servers or using multiple “cloud workers”.
- Keep calls to a minimum and make sure to rate-limit them.
- If you need to use Overpass a lot, consider downloading and working with an extract instead.
- If you use the service in a commercial setting, please look for alternatives (self-installation or commercial providers).
The goal here is to get at least Overpass Turbo to run again reliably. Then we’ll see if banning can be a bit more directed instead of using the lawn mower approach.