Hosts

Last update: January 27, 2025

CREATED FOR:

  • Admin

Organize your sites and pre-production environments for easy management and separated reporting in Adobe Target.

The primary goal of host management is to ensure that no inactive content accidentally appears on websites. Host management also lets you separate report data by environment.

A host is any domain from which a Target request is made. On a website, it is usually the location.hostname property of the URL making the Target request.

By default, Target does not limit a host that can make Target requests and receive Target responses. When new hosts make requests, they automatically work. This process also enables testing on different domains you don’t know or can’t anticipate. If you want to override this default behavior, you can set up an allowlist or blocklist to limit which hosts work with Target.

To manage hosts, click Administration > Hosts.

Recognizing hosts

To recognize a host and add it to the Hosts list, the following conditions must be met:

  • At least one Target request must exist on the host

  • A page on the host must have the following:

    • An accurate at.js reference
    • A Target request or an auto-generated global Target request

  • The page with the Target request must be viewed in a browser

After the page is viewed, the host is listed in the Hosts list, allowing you to manage it in an environment, and preview and launch activities and tests.

NOTE
This includes any personal development servers.

After a host is added to the Host list, make sure that the host is recognized.

  1. Click Administration > Hosts.

  2. If your host is not listed, refresh your browser.

    By default, a newly recognized host is placed in the Production environment. The Production environment is the safest environment because it does not allow inactive activities to be viewed from these hosts.

  3. (Conditional) Click the Move icon ( move icon ) to move the host into the Development, Staging, or other environment.

NOTE
The Production environment cannot be deleted, even if you rename it. It is assumed that this environment is where you serve final, active activities and tests. The default environment does not allow inactive campaigns to be viewed.

Sort or search the Hosts list

To sort the Hosts list, click any column header (Name, Environment, or Last Requested) to sort the list in ascending or descending order.

To search the Hosts list, type a search term in the Search Hosts box.

Create allowlists that specify hosts that are authorized to send Target requests to Target.

You can create an allowlist that specifies hosts (domains) that are authorized to send Target requests to Target. All other hosts generating requests get a commented-out authorization error response. By default, any host that contains a Target request registers with Target in the Production environment and has access to all active and approved activities. If this approach is not desired, you can instead use the allowlist to record specific hosts that are eligible to make Target requests and receive Target content. All hosts continue to display in the Hosts list, and environments can still be used to group these hosts and assign different levels to each, such as whether the host can see active and/or inactive activities.

To create an allowlist:

  1. From the Hosts list, click Authorize Hosts.

  2. Enable the Enable Authorized Hosts for content delivery toggle.

  3. Add the desired hosts in the Host contains box, as desired.

    Multiple hosts can be listed, each on its own line.

  4. Add the desired hosts in the Host does not contains box, as desired.

    Multiple hosts can be listed, each on its own line.

  5. Click Save.

If a Target request is made on an unauthorized host, the call responds with /* no display - unauthorized mbox host */.

IMPORTANT
Security best practices: If you use ubox functionality of Target, this allowlist also controls the list of domains to which your redirectors can navigate. Ensure that you add any domains to which you want to redirect when you use ubox as a part of your implementation. If the allowlist is left unspecified, Adobe is not able to verify the redirect URLs and protect from potential malicious redirects.
The allowlist takes precedence over environments. Clear out all hosts before using the allowlist feature, then only the hosts allowed by the allowlist appear in your hosts list. You can then move the hosts into the desired environment.

Sometimes domains from other sites appear in your environments. A domain appears in the list if the domain calls at.js. For example, if somebody copies one of your web pages to their server, that domain appears in your environment. You might also see domains from spider engines, language translator sites, or local disk drives.

In cases where mboxHost is passed in an API call, conversion is recorded for the environment that is passed in. If no environment is passed, the host in the call defaults to Production.

You can also create a denylist that specifies hosts (domains) that cannot send Target requests to Target by adding the desired hosts in the Host Does Not Contain box.

NOTE
The Authorized Hosts list is used for both Target hosts and default redirect hosts. Add all existing domains approved to use the Adobe Target JavaScript SDK (at.js) AND all domains used in ubox default redirect URLs. Add any new similar domains to the allowlist in the future.