Deploy WAAS for Hosts

To deploy WAAS to protect a host running a non-containerized web application, create a new rule, specify the host(s) where the application runs, define protected HTTP endpoints, and select protections.

Create a WAAS In-Line rule for Hosts

1. Open Console, and go to Defend > WAAS > {Container|Host} > In-Line.
2. Select Add rule.

   1. Enter a Rule Name
   2. Enter Notes (Optional) for describing the rule.
   3. Select Operating system.
   4. If necessary, adjust the Proxy timeout

      The maximum duration in seconds for reading the entire request, including the body. A 500 error response is returned if a request is not read within the timeout period. For applications dealing with large files, adjusting the proxy timeout is necessary.
3. Choose the rule Scope by specifying the resource collection(s) to which it applies.

   

   Collections define a combination of hosts to which WAAS should attach itself to protect the web application:

   

   Applying a rule to all hosts/images using a wild card (*) is invalid and a waste of resources. WAAS only needs to be applied to hosts that run applications that transmit and receive HTTP/HTTPS traffic.
4. (Optional) Enable API endpoint discovery

   When enabled, the Defender inspects the API traffic to and from the protected API. Defender reports a list of the endpoints and their resource path in Compute > Monitor > WAAS > API discovery.
5. (Optional) Enable Automatically detect ports for an endpoint to deploy WAAS protection on ports identified in the unprotected web apps report in Monitor > WAAS > Unprotected web apps for each of the workloads in the rule scope.

   As an additional measure, you can specify additional ports by specifying them in the protected HTTP endpoints within each app to also include the ports that may not have been detected automatically.

   By enabling both Automatically detect ports and API endpoint discovery, you can monitor your API endpoints and ports without having to add an application and without configuring any policies.

   Automatically detect ports is not available for Windows Operating System.
6. Save the rule.

Add an App (policy) to the rule

1. Select a WAAS rule to add an App in.
2. Select Add app.
3. In the App Definition tab, enter an App ID.

   The combination of Rule name and App ID must be unique across In-Line and Out-Of-Band WAAS policies for Containers, Hosts, and App-Embedded.

   If you have a Swagger or OpenAPI file, click Import, and select the file to load.

   If you do not have a Swagger or OpenAPI file, manually define each endpoint by specifying the host, port, and path.

   1. In Endpoint Setup, click Add Endpoint.

      Specify endpoint in your web application that should be protected. Each defined application can have multiple protected endpoints.
   2. Enter HTTP host (optional, wildcards supported).

      HTTP hostnames are specified in the form of [hostname]:[external port].

      The external port is defined as the TCP port on the host, listening for inbound HTTP traffic. If the value of the external port is "80" for non-TLS endpoints or "443" for TLS endpoints it can be omitted. Examples: "*.example.site", "docs.example.site", "www.example.site:8080", etc.
   3. Enter App ports as the internal port your app listens on.

      (You can skip to enter App ports, if you selected Automatically detect ports while creating the rule).

      When Automatically detect ports is selected, any ports specified in a protected endpoint definition will be appended to the list of protected ports. Specify the TCP port listening for inbound HTTP traffic.

      If your application uses TLS or gRPC, you must specify a port number.
   4. Enter Base path (optional, wildcards supported):

      Base path for WAAS to match when applying protections.

      Examples: "/admin", "/" (root path only), "/*", /v2/api", etc.
   5. Enter WAAS port (only required for Windows, App-Embedded or when using "Remote host" option) as the external port WAAS listens on. The external port is the TCP port for the App-Embedded Defender to listen on for inbound HTTP traffic.

      

      Protecting Linux-based hosts does not require specifying a WAAS port since WAAS listens on the same port as the protected application. Because Windows has its own internal traffic routing mechanisms, WAAS and the protected application cannot use the same App port. Consequently, when protecting Windows-based hosts the WAAS port should be set to the port end-users send requests to, and the App port should be set to a different port on which the protected application will listen and to which WAAS will forward traffic.
   6. If your application uses TLS, set TLS to On.

      You can select the TLS protocol (1.0, 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 for WAAS In-Line, and 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2 for WAAS Out-Of-Band) to protect the API endpoint and enter the TLS certificate in PEM format.
   7. You can select Response headers to add or override HTTP response headers in responses sent from the protected application.

      
   8. Select Create response header.
   9. To facilitate inspection, after creating all endpoints, click View TLS settings in the endpoint setup menu.

      WAAS TLS settings:

      

      • Certificate - Copy and paste your server’s certificate and private key into the certificate input box (e.g., cat server-cert.pem server-key > certs.pem).
      • Minimum TLS version - A minimum version of TLS can be enforced by WAAS In-Line to prevent downgrading attacks (the default value is TLS 1.2).
      • HSTS - The HTTP Strict-Transport-Security (HSTS) response header lets web servers tell browsers to use HTTPS only, not HTTP. When enabled, WAAS would add the HSTS response header to all HTTPS server responses (if it is not already present) with the preconfigured directives - max-age, includeSubDomains, and preload.

        1. max-age=<expire-time> - Time, in seconds, that the browser should remember that a site is only to be accessed using HTTPS.
        2. includeSubDomains (optional) - If selected, HSTS protection applies to all the site’s subdomains as well.
        3. preload (optional) - For more details, see the following link.
   10. If you application requires API protection, for each path define the allowed methods and the parameters.
4. Continue to App Firewall settings, select the protections to enable and assign them with actions.
5. Configure the DoS protection thresholds.
6. Continue to Access Control tab and select access controls to enable.
7. Select the bot protections you want to enable.
8. Select the required Custom rules.
9. Proceed to Advanced settings for more WAAS controls.
10. Select Save.
11. The Rule Overview page shows all the WAAS rules created.

    Select a rule to display the Rule Resources, and for each application a list of protected endpoints and the protections enabled for each endpoint are displayed.
12. Test protected endpoint using the following sanity tests.
13. Go to Monitor > Events, click on WAAS for containers/hosts/App-Embedded, and observe the events generated.

    For more information, see the WAAS analytics help page.