These days, web administrators are increasingly concerned about malicious attacks on their sites. While both server providers and third-party platforms offer Web Application Firewall (WAF) services, they can often come with a hefty price tag. That’s why today, I’m excited to introduce you to a free WAF solution: SafeLine.
SafeLine WAF Official Site: https://waf.chaitin.com
1. What is SafeLine WAF?
SafeLine WAF is a free, powerful, and user-friendly WAF developed by Chaitin Tech, a company with nearly 10 years of experience in cybersecurity. Leveraging advanced semantic detection technology, SafeLine functions as a reverse proxy, protecting your website from hackers with cutting-edge security features. Its core detection engine is powered by smart semantic analysis, ensuring that attackers can’t breach your defenses.
Key Features:
Ease of Use: SafeLine is containerized, meaning you can install it with a single command—no fuss. It comes with pre-configured security settings, requiring minimal manual effort, making management a breeze.
Top-Notch Security: SafeLine utilizes an industry-leading semantic analysis algorithm, offering precise detection with low false positives, and it’s designed to handle unknown 0-day attacks without relying on predefined rules.
High Performance: With a rule-free engine and efficient security detection, SafeLine can process requests with millisecond delays. It can handle over 2,000 transactions per second (TPS) per core and can scale up to manage any traffic volume, provided your hardware is up to the task.
High Availability: Built on Nginx, SafeLine’s traffic handling engine ensures both performance and stability, with a health check mechanism that guarantees 99.99% service availability.
SafeLine WAF GitHub Repository: https://github.com/chaitin/safeline
2. What is a WAF?
A Web Application Firewall (WAF) is a specialized firewall that operates at the application layer, offering enhanced protection for web systems using HTTP/HTTPS protocols. Unlike traditional firewalls, a WAF can identify and block common web-based attacks such as SQL injection, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS), Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF), Server-Side Request Forgery (SSRF), and WebShell uploads.
3. How to Install and Deploy SafeLine
Minimum Requirements:
- Operating System: Linux
- Architecture: x86_64
- Software Dependencies: Docker version 20.10.6 or higher, Docker Compose version 2.0.0 or higher
- Minimal Environment: 1 CPU core, 1 GB RAM, 10 GB Disk Space
One-Command Installation (Recommended):
Run the following command to install SafeLine:
bash -c "$(curl -fsSLk https://waf-ce.chaitin.cn/release/latest/setup.sh)"
Alternatively, you can clone the repository and execute the setup script:
git clone git@github.com:chaitin/safeline.git
cd safeline
bash ./setup.sh
4. How to Use SafeLine After Installation
Once installation is complete, access SafeLine via the local web service port as instructed.
Configuring Protected Sites:
SafeLine acts as a reverse proxy, handling incoming traffic before it reaches your web server. It detects and filters out malicious traffic, ensuring only clean traffic is forwarded to your server.
You can verify your setup by running:
curl -H "Host: <domain>" http://:<port>
This command should return a response from your web server.
Testing the Protection:
To test SafeLine’s protection, simulate a hacker attack using the following URLs in your browser:
http://:<port>/?id=1%20AND%201=1http://:<port>/?a=
5. How Does SafeLine Work?
Here’s a quick overview of how SafeLine operates, illustrated by a basic WAF deployment diagram.
In this simple website topology, external users send requests that travel through the network to the web server. If some of these users are malicious, their attack requests would also pass through the network and reach the server. SafeLine, integrated as a reverse proxy, intercepts all traffic before it hits the web server. It filters out malicious activity, forwarding only clean traffic, thereby preventing external attacks from compromising your site.
6. Highly Recommended
Now that you’ve been introduced to SafeLine WAF, what do you think? It’s like finding a hidden gem in the world of web security! SafeLine is an open-source web firewall developed by Chaitin Tech over nearly a decade. Ready to use right out of the box, it offers enterprise-level protection with high performance. I highly recommend giving SafeLine a try to safeguard your site from all kinds of malicious attacks.
Website: https://waf.chaitin.com
GitHub: https://github.com/chaitin/safeline
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