diff --git a/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/crawler/frontier/AMQPUrlReceiver.java b/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/crawler/frontier/AMQPUrlReceiver.java
index 880d770f..859d716d 100644
--- a/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/crawler/frontier/AMQPUrlReceiver.java
+++ b/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/crawler/frontier/AMQPUrlReceiver.java
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ package org.archive.crawler.frontier;
 
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
+import java.util.Arrays;
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.HashSet;
 import java.util.Map;
@@ -131,6 +132,14 @@ public class AMQPUrlReceiver implements Lifecycle, ApplicationListener<CrawlStat
     public void setAutoDelete(boolean autoDelete) {
         this.autoDelete = autoDelete;
     }
+    
+    private boolean forceFetch = false;
+    public boolean isForceFetch() {
+        return forceFetch;
+    }
+    public void setForceFetch(boolean forceFetch) {
+        this.forceFetch = forceFetch;
+    }
 
     private transient Lock lock = new ReentrantLock(true);
 
@@ -291,6 +300,9 @@ public class AMQPUrlReceiver implements Lifecycle, ApplicationListener<CrawlStat
             lock.unlock();
         }
     }
+    
+    protected static final Set<String> REQUEST_HEADER_BLACKLIST = new HashSet<String>(Arrays.asList(
+            "accept-encoding", "upgrade-insecure-requests", "host", "connection"));
 
     // XXX should we be using QueueingConsumer because of possible blocking in
     // frontier.schedule()?
@@ -377,9 +389,11 @@ public class AMQPUrlReceiver implements Lifecycle, ApplicationListener<CrawlStat
 
             // set the http headers from the amqp message
             Map<String, String> customHttpRequestHeaders = new HashMap<String, String>();
-            for (Object key : joHeaders.keySet()) {
-                customHttpRequestHeaders.put(key.toString(),
-                        joHeaders.getString(key.toString()));
+            for (Object key: joHeaders.keySet()) {
+                String k = key.toString();
+                if (!k.startsWith(":") && !REQUEST_HEADER_BLACKLIST.contains(k)) {
+                    customHttpRequestHeaders.put(k, joHeaders.getString(key.toString()));
+                }
             }
             curi.getData().put("customHttpRequestHeaders", customHttpRequestHeaders);
 
@@ -392,7 +406,7 @@ public class AMQPUrlReceiver implements Lifecycle, ApplicationListener<CrawlStat
             curi.setSchedulingDirective(SchedulingConstants.HIGH);
             curi.setPrecedence(1);
 
-            curi.setForceFetch(jo.optBoolean("forceFetch"));
+            curi.setForceFetch(forceFetch || jo.optBoolean("forceFetch"));
             curi.setSeed(jo.optBoolean("isSeed"));
 
             curi.getAnnotations().add(A_RECEIVED_FROM_AMQP);
diff --git a/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/AMQPProducerProcessor.java b/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/AMQPProducerProcessor.java
index 05faa758..b5b308d6 100644
--- a/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/AMQPProducerProcessor.java
+++ b/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/AMQPProducerProcessor.java
@@ -33,28 +33,28 @@ public abstract class AMQPProducerProcessor extends Processor {
 
     protected final Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(getClass().getName());
 
-    protected String amqpUri = "amqp://guest:guest@localhost:5672/%2f";
+    {
+        setAmqpUri("amqp://guest:guest@localhost:5672/%2f");
+    }
     public String getAmqpUri() {
-        return this.amqpUri;
+        return (String) kp.get("amqpUri");
     }
     public void setAmqpUri(String uri) {
-        this.amqpUri = uri; 
+        kp.put("amqpUri", uri);
     }
 
-    protected String exchange;
     public String getExchange() {
-        return exchange;
+        return (String) kp.get("exchange");
     }
     public void setExchange(String exchange) {
-        this.exchange = exchange;
+        kp.put("exchange", exchange);
     }
 
-    protected String routingKey;
     public String getRoutingKey() {
-        return routingKey;
+        return (String) kp.get("routingKey");
     }
     public void setRoutingKey(String routingKey) {
-        this.routingKey = routingKey;
+        kp.put("routingKey", routingKey);
     }
 
     transient protected AMQPProducer amqpProducer;
@@ -112,10 +112,10 @@ public abstract class AMQPProducerProcessor extends Processor {
         if (logger.isLoggable(Level.FINE)) {
             try {
                 logger.fine("sent to amqp exchange=" + getExchange()
-                        + " routingKey=" + routingKey + ": " + new String(message, "UTF-8"));
+                        + " routingKey=" + getRoutingKey() + ": " + new String(message, "UTF-8"));
             } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
                 logger.fine("sent to amqp exchange=" + getExchange()
-                        + " routingKey=" + routingKey + ": " + message + " (" + message.length + " bytes)");
+                        + " routingKey=" + getRoutingKey() + ": " + message + " (" + message.length + " bytes)");
             }
         }
     }
diff --git a/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/AMQPPublishProcessor.java b/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/AMQPPublishProcessor.java
index b4bdd469..d1f2ac29 100644
--- a/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/AMQPPublishProcessor.java
+++ b/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/AMQPPublishProcessor.java
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ import static org.archive.modules.CoreAttributeConstants.A_HERITABLE_KEYS;
 import java.io.Serializable;
 import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
 import java.util.HashMap;
+import java.util.Map;
 import java.util.Set;
 
 import org.apache.commons.httpclient.URIException;
@@ -46,13 +47,15 @@ public class AMQPPublishProcessor extends AMQPProducerProcessor implements Seria
 
     public AMQPPublishProcessor() {
         // set default values
-        exchange = "umbra";
-        routingKey = "urls";
+        setExchange("umbra");
+        setRoutingKey("urls");
     }
 
-    protected String clientId = "requests";
+    {
+        setClientId("requests");
+    }
     public String getClientId() {
-        return clientId;
+        return (String) kp.get("clientId");
     }
     /**
      * Client id to include in the json payload. AMQPUrlReceiver queueName
@@ -60,7 +63,18 @@ public class AMQPPublishProcessor extends AMQPProducerProcessor implements Seria
      * this key.
      */
     public void setClientId(String clientId) {
-        this.clientId = clientId;
+        kp.put("clientId", clientId);
+    }
+
+    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
+    public Map<String, Object> getExtraInfo() {
+        return (Map<String, Object>) kp.get("extraInfo");
+    }
+    /**
+     * Arbitrary additional information to include in the json payload.
+     */
+    public void setExtraInfo(Map<String, Object> extraInfo) {
+        kp.put("extraInfo", extraInfo);
     }
 
     /**
@@ -94,6 +108,12 @@ public class AMQPPublishProcessor extends AMQPProducerProcessor implements Seria
             message.put("clientId", getClientId());
         }
 
+        if (getExtraInfo() != null) {
+            for (String k: getExtraInfo().keySet()) {
+                message.put(k, getExtraInfo().get(k));
+            }
+        }
+
         HashMap<String, Object> metadata = new HashMap<String,Object>();
         metadata.put("pathFromSeed", curi.getPathFromSeed());
 
diff --git a/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/postprocessor/AMQPCrawlLogFeed.java b/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/postprocessor/AMQPCrawlLogFeed.java
index 77f45cd2..2448ca08 100644
--- a/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/postprocessor/AMQPCrawlLogFeed.java
+++ b/contrib/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/postprocessor/AMQPCrawlLogFeed.java
@@ -86,8 +86,8 @@ public class AMQPCrawlLogFeed extends AMQPProducerProcessor implements Lifecycle
 
     public AMQPCrawlLogFeed() {
         // set default values
-        exchange = "heritrix.realTimeFeed";
-        routingKey = "crawlLog";
+        setExchange("heritrix.realTimeFeed");
+        setRoutingKey("crawlLog");
     }
 
     @Override
diff --git a/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTPRequest.java b/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTPRequest.java
index ea4c047f..b4af96aa 100644
--- a/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTPRequest.java
+++ b/modules/src/main/java/org/archive/modules/fetcher/FetchHTTPRequest.java
@@ -53,6 +53,7 @@ import org.apache.http.HttpException;
 import org.apache.http.HttpHeaders;
 import org.apache.http.HttpHost;
 import org.apache.http.HttpRequest;
+import org.apache.http.HttpRequestInterceptor;
 import org.apache.http.HttpResponse;
 import org.apache.http.NameValuePair;
 import org.apache.http.ProtocolVersion;
@@ -347,13 +348,25 @@ public class FetchHTTPRequest {
             request.addHeader("X-Requested-With", "XMLHttpRequest");
         }
 
-        @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
-        Map<String, String> uriCustomHeaders = (Map<String, String>) curi.getData().get("customHttpRequestHeaders");
-        if (uriCustomHeaders != null) {
-            for (Entry<String, String> h: uriCustomHeaders.entrySet()) {
-                request.setHeader(h.getKey(), h.getValue());
+
+        /*
+         * set custom request headers in last interceptor, so they override
+         * anything else (this could just as well belong in
+         * configureHttpClientBuilder())
+         */
+        httpClientBuilder.addInterceptorLast(new HttpRequestInterceptor() {
+            @Override
+            public void process(HttpRequest request, HttpContext context) throws HttpException, IOException {
+                @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
+                Map<String, String> uriCustomHeaders = (Map<String, String>) curi.getData().get("customHttpRequestHeaders");
+                if (uriCustomHeaders != null) {
+                    for (Entry<String, String> h: uriCustomHeaders.entrySet()) {
+                        request.setHeader(h.getKey(), h.getValue());
+                    }
+                }
             }
-        }
+        });
+
     }
 
     /**