DNS level firewall causes Could not download file (200 OK) error

In cases where WordPress is being used in large organisations there are times when firerwalling is not controlled or easily affected by system admins / web developers. I find myself in one of those situations – Administrative access to an AWS environment, but my domain is managed in a far flung place with people whose response times would be outpaced by a slow growing oak tree and whose welcoming tone matches that of an angry police dog.

The issue: We are using a DNS level Web Application Firewall. DNS points to Incapsula, for example. Incapsula filters and forwards to our webserver. This is similar to how cloudflare works too. But, this blocks shortpixel from working, most likely because it’s being blocked like a bot.

What has proven very useful in resolving this issue elsewhere is being able to give a script the IP of the webserver (and domain too) so that the script can resolve past any DNS level filtering.

This would be a pretty useful get-around for those occasions where DNS level WAFs get in the way but the developers do not have control of the WAF.