A10 Networks WAF Guide PDF

Web Application Firewall Guide
ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall

Guide
for A10 Thunder™ Series and AX™ Series
22 November 2016
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Contents
Overview ...................................................................................................................................................................... 9
WAF Overview.......................................................................................................................................................................9
WAF External Logging..................................................................................................................................................... 10
Protection Against Common Web Attacks .............................................................................................................. 10
Buffer Overflow Attacks ......................................................................................................................................................................10
Cookie Tampering ..................................................................................................................................................................................11
Forceful Browsing ...................................................................................................................................................................................11
Web Form Security Attacks ...............................................................................................................................................................11
WAF Security Models....................................................................................................................................................... 12
Positive Security Model .......................................................................................................................................................................12
Negative Security Model ....................................................................................................................................................................12
Request Protection........................................................................................................................................................... 13
Compare Request URI to White List and Black List ............................................................................................................13
White List ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 13
Black List ................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13
URL Check ...................................................................................................................................................................................................14
Scan Request for Threats ....................................................................................................................................................................15
Bot Check ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 15
Form Field Consistency Check ................................................................................................................................................................... 16
Referer Check ........................................................................................................................................................................................................ 16
HTTP Protocol Compliance Check ........................................................................................................................................................... 16
HTML Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Check ................................................................................................................................................ 17
Buffer Overflow Check .................................................................................................................................................................................... 18
HTML SQL Injection Check ........................................................................................................................................................................... 18
Allowed HTTP Methods Check .................................................................................................................................................................. 18
Maximum Cookies Check ............................................................................................................................................................................. 19
Maximum Headers Check ............................................................................................................................................................................. 19
Session Checks ..................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20
Password Security .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 20
Open Redirect Mitigation ............................................................................................................................................................................. 22
Normalization Enhancements for URL Options .............................................................................................................................. 24
WAF XML Checks ....................................................................................................................................................................................26
XML Format Checks .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 27
XML Validation Checks .................................................................................................................................................................................... 27
XML Limit Checks ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 29
XML Cross-Site Scripting Checks .............................................................................................................................................................. 31
XML SQL Injection Checks ............................................................................................................................................................................ 32
WAF SOAP Checks ..................................................................................................................................................................................33
SOAP Format Checks ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 33
SOAP Validation Checks ................................................................................................................................................................................. 34
WAF JSON Checks ..................................................................................................................................................................................36
JSON Format Checks ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 36
JSON Limit Checks ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 37
Geo-location Based Blocking ..........................................................................................................................................................38
Filter Requests Using an HTTP Policy ..................................................................................................................................................... 38
Filter Requests Using an ACL ...................................................................................................................................................................... 41
Configuring the WAF with aFleX Scripts ..................................................................................................................................41
page 3 | ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016

Contents
WAF aFleX Commands ................................................................................................................................................................................... 42

WAF Events ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 43
Response Protection........................................................................................................................................................ 43
Mask Sensitive Content .......................................................................................................................................................................44
CCN Mask ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 44
SSN Mask ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 44
PCRE Mask ............................................................................................................................................................................................................... 45
Cloak Responses ......................................................................................................................................................................................45
Send Instrumented Responses ......................................................................................................................................................45
Cross Site Request Forgery Check ........................................................................................................................................................... 46
Form Field Consistency Check ................................................................................................................................................................... 46
Cookie Encryption ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 46
PCI 6.6 Compliance .......................................................................................................................................................... 47
ACOS WAF achieves ICSA Certification .....................................................................................................................................47
How Does the ACOS WAF Achieve PCI DSS Compliance? ............................................................................................47
WAF Operational Modes ......................................................................................................................................49

Overview.............................................................................................................................................................................. 49
Learning Mode .........................................................................................................................................................................................51
Passive Mode .............................................................................................................................................................................................52
Active Mode ...............................................................................................................................................................................................54
Setting the WAF Operational Mode........................................................................................................................... 56
Configuring the WAF Using the GUI ................................................................................................................57

Configuration Overview................................................................................................................................................. 57
Bind the WAF Template to the Virtual Port.............................................................................................................. 58
Configure a WAF Template............................................................................................................................................ 59
Configuring General Settings ..........................................................................................................................................................59
Configuring HTTP Request Checks ..............................................................................................................................................60
Configuring HTML Request Checks ............................................................................................................................................63
Configuring Injection Checks .........................................................................................................................................................64
Configuring Overflow Checks .........................................................................................................................................................65
Configuring Session Checks ............................................................................................................................................................66
Configuring Web Service Checks .................................................................................................................................................67
Configuring Cookie Encryption Checks ...................................................................................................................................70
Configuring Server Filter Checks ...................................................................................................................................................72
Configuring Content Filter Checks ..............................................................................................................................................73
Configuring Form Checks ..................................................................................................................................................................74
Configuring Password Checks ........................................................................................................................................................75
Create a WAF File .............................................................................................................................................................. 76
Configure an HTTP Policy Template........................................................................................................................... 78
WAF Reporting................................................................................................................................................................... 81
Configure External Logging (recommended) ........................................................................................................ 84
Configure Log Servers .........................................................................................................................................................................85
Add Server to Service Group ...........................................................................................................................................................86
ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016 | page 4

Contents
Configure the Logging Template .................................................................................................................................................88

Apply the Log Template to the WAF Template ....................................................................................................................89
Configuring the WAF Using the CLI .................................................................................................................91

Required Configuration.................................................................................................................................................. 91
Create a WAF Template .......................................................................................................................................................................91
Bind the WAF Template to the HTTP/HTTPS Virtual Port ...............................................................................................92
External Logging Configuration.................................................................................................................................. 92
Optional Configuration .................................................................................................................................................. 93
Set Deployment Mode ........................................................................................................................................................................94
Customize WAF Policy Files ..............................................................................................................................................................94
Configure Security Checks for Requests ...................................................................................................................................95
Configure Security Checks for Responses ...............................................................................................................................99
WAF Event Logging ............................................................................................................................................. 101

WAF Event Types and Where They Are Logged...................................................................................................101
Log Format........................................................................................................................................................................103
WAF Log Examples .........................................................................................................................................................104
Basic Log Message ..............................................................................................................................................................................105
Bot Check ..................................................................................................................................................................................................105
Learning Mode ......................................................................................................................................................................................106
WAF Policy Files .................................................................................................................................................... 107

Pre-Loaded WAF Policies..............................................................................................................................................107
Request Protection .............................................................................................................................................................................108
Bot Check ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................108
XSS Check .............................................................................................................................................................................................................108
SQL Injection Attack Check ........................................................................................................................................................................108
URI Black List ........................................................................................................................................................................................................109
URI White List ......................................................................................................................................................................................................110
Response Protection ..........................................................................................................................................................................110
Allowed HTTP Response Codes ..............................................................................................................................................................110
Customize WAF Policy Files.........................................................................................................................................111
Syntax Check ..........................................................................................................................................................................................111
Using the CLI ..........................................................................................................................................................................................111
Configure Policy Files .....................................................................................................................................................................................111
Syntax Checks .....................................................................................................................................................................................................112
Manage Files .......................................................................................................................................................................................................112
Writing PCRE Expressions ...............................................................................................................................................................113
General Guidelines ..........................................................................................................................................................................................113
Example Applications ....................................................................................................................................................................................115
Overriding a WAF Template ............................................................................................................................. 117

Configure an HTTP Policy Template.........................................................................................................................117
Use the GUI to Configure an HTTP Policy Template ......................................................................................................118
Use the CLI to Configure an HTTP Policy Template .......................................................................................................119

Contents
Bind the HTTP Policy Template to the Virtual Port .............................................................................................119

Use the GUI to Bind the HTTP Policy Template to a Virtual Port ............................................................................119
Use the CLI to Bind the HTTP Policy Template to a Virtual Port .............................................................................119
WAF Statistics ........................................................................................................................................................ 121

Displaying WAF Statistics.............................................................................................................................................121
Use the GUI to View WAF Statistics ...........................................................................................................................................121
Use the CLI to View WAF Statistics ............................................................................................................................................121
Clearing WAF Statistics .................................................................................................................................................121
Use the GUI to Clear WAF Statistics ..........................................................................................................................................121
Use the CLI to Clear WAF Statistics ...........................................................................................................................................122
WAF Deployment and Logging Examples .................................................................................................. 123

Initial Configuration.......................................................................................................................................................123
Logging Configuration .....................................................................................................................................................................123
WAF Template Configuration .......................................................................................................................................................124
HTTP Virtual Port Configuration .................................................................................................................................................124
Learning .............................................................................................................................................................................125
Enable Learning Mode .....................................................................................................................................................................126
Generate Traffic .................................................................................................................................................................................................126
View External Log .............................................................................................................................................................................................126
View WAF Template Settings ....................................................................................................................................................................126
Generate Allowed URL Paths for the URL Check ..............................................................................................................127
Configuration Example .................................................................................................................................................................................127
Save Template Settings ....................................................................................................................................................................129
Response Header Filtering ..........................................................................................................................................129
Enable Header Response Filtering ............................................................................................................................................130
View External Log ................................................................................................................................................................................130
SQLIA Check .....................................................................................................................................................................131
Enable the SQLIA Check ..................................................................................................................................................................131
Cross-site Scripting Check ...........................................................................................................................................131
Enable the XSS Check .......................................................................................................................................................................132
Cookie Encryption..........................................................................................................................................................133
WAF Template Reference .................................................................................................................................. 135
WAF CLI Command Reference ........................................................................................................................ 147

WAF Template Commands..........................................................................................................................................147
waf template .............................................................................................................................................................................................148
show waf stats .........................................................................................................................................................................................156
clear waf stats ...........................................................................................................................................................................................166
WAF File Management Commands..........................................................................................................................167
waf policy check .....................................................................................................................................................................................167

Contents
waf policy copy .......................................................................................................................................................................................168

waf policy delete ....................................................................................................................................................................................168
waf policy edit ..........................................................................................................................................................................................169
waf policy max-filesize ........................................................................................................................................................................169
waf policy rename .................................................................................................................................................................................169
waf wsdl check ........................................................................................................................................................................................170
waf wsdl copy ..........................................................................................................................................................................................170
waf wsdl delete .......................................................................................................................................................................................170
waf wsdl edit .............................................................................................................................................................................................171
waf wsdl max-filesize ...........................................................................................................................................................................171
waf wsdl rename ....................................................................................................................................................................................171
waf xml-schema check .......................................................................................................................................................................172
waf xml-schema copy .........................................................................................................................................................................172
waf xml-schema delete ......................................................................................................................................................................172
waf xml-schema edit ...........................................................................................................................................................................173
waf xml-schema max-filesize .........................................................................................................................................................173
waf xml-schema rename ..................................................................................................................................................................173
show waf policy ......................................................................................................................................................................................174

Contents

WAF Overview
Overview
This chapter contains the following topics:
• WAF Overview
• WAF External Logging
• Protection Against Common Web Attacks
• WAF Security Models
• Request Protection
• Response Protection
• PCI 6.6 Compliance
WAF Overview
The A10 product line provides additional security for your Web servers with the Web Application Firewall
(WAF) feature. The WAF filters communication between users and Web applications to protect Web servers
and sites from unauthorized access and malicious programs. This new layer of security examines incoming
user requests, output from Web servers, and access to Web site content to safeguard against Web attacks
and protect sensitive information hosted on Web servers.
The WAF protects against the following main threats to Web servers:
• Unauthorized access and control of the Web server – There are various attacks designed to grant an
attacker access to and control of a Web server. If an attack is successful, the unauthorized user can
deface existing Web pages, provide SMTP services to send spam, or launch distributed denial-of-ser-
vice (DDoS) attacks.
In addition, the attacker can use the compromised server to host content directly, or act as a proxy for
content hosted on another server. This type of attack can enable unauthorized users to host illegal,
online activities using your Web server resources.
• Unauthorized retrieval of sensitive information – These attacks are intended to provide unauthorized
retrieval or leakage of sensitive information from your Web sites or back-end databases.

WAF External Logging
The WAF is configured via a WAF template, which includes built-in basic and policy-based security checks for
convenient and quick deployment. Within the WAF template, you can enforce security checks to immedi-
ately provide a foundational level of protection against common threats.
Web sites are further protected from attack through checks that are defined by customizable WAF policy
files. You can configure WAF policy files for advanced countermeasures to common attacks, such as SQL
injection attacks or bots.
WAF External Logging

The WAF includes the option for external logging of data plane events and external or local logging of con-
trol plane events. For optimal interoperability, the WAF uses the Common Event Format (CEF), an open stan-
dard used by other security appliances and network devices. WAF logging is supported over UDP and TCP.
You can configure external logging to a group of one or more log servers. You can easily add more log serv-
ers if needed, simply by adding them to the log server group.
(For more information, see “WAF Event Logging” on page 101.)
Protection Against Common Web Attacks

The WAF protects your Web servers from common threats which can compromise the security of Web sites
or leak sensitive information. The following sections briefly describe common threats and WAF security
checks you can use to counter these attacks. More detail is provided later in this guide.
Buffer Overflow Attacks

A buffer overflow attack occurs when a Web server receives excessively long pieces of information (for exam-
ple, URLs, headers, or cookies).
If the system does not have the filters enforced to block these requests, a buffer overflow can trigger the
underlying operating system to slow down or crash. This form of attack compromises a Web server and can
permit unauthorized users to access sensitive information.
The WAF can prevent buffer overflow attacks by setting an accepted maximum for aspects of an HTTP
request and blocking requests which exceed the configured limit. This includes normalization of the URL.
(For details on URL normalization, see “url-options option – This command is used to normalize
requested URLs.” on page 98.)

Protection Against Common Web Attacks
Cookie Tampering
Cookie tampering occurs when a user sends a modified cookie to a Web server in an attempt to access unau-
thorized content. To protect against cookie tampering, enable the Cookie Encryption check within the WAF
template.
Forceful Browsing
Forceful browsing occurs when a user bypasses the hyperlinks of a Web site to access the URLs of a Web site
directly. This method is normally used to gain access to private pages, but can be used in conjunction with
other attacks to compromise a Web server. To protect against forceful browsing, enable the URL check for
your Web site. (See “URL Check” on page 14.)
Web Form Security Attacks

A Web form security attack uses the form of a Web page to issue commands to a Web site. The Web form may
be modified to include hidden fields, HTML, or injected code to compromise the security of a Web server. A
Web form security attack commonly occurs through the following methods:
• SQL Injection Attacks (SQLIA) – An SQL Injection Attack uses a Web form or other mechanism to send
active SQL commands or SQL special characters to the Web site’s SQL database. An SQL Injection
Attack can trigger the back-end SQL database to execute SQL commands, allowing attackers to
retrieve sensitive information from the database. The WAF includes the SQL Injection Check template
option and default “sqlia_defs” policy file to provide immediate protection from SQL Injection Attacks.
• Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Attacks – A cross-site scripting (XSS) attack attempts to use Javascript com-
mands to modify Web page content or obtain hidden properties from a Web site. XSS can compromise
the security of a Web server or allow an attacker to retrieve sensitive information. The WAF includes
the XSS Check template option and default “jscript_defs” policy file to provide immediate protection
from XSS attacks.

WAF Security Models
WAF Security Models

The WAF combats common attacks against Web servers with an array of security checks to filter inbound
HTTP requests. In addition to managing requests, you can apply WAF security checks to modify the
responses sent back to users.
The WAF operates based on both a positive security model and negative security model to maximize protec-
tion.
Positive Security Model

The WAF supports several operational modes, one of which is Learning Mode. In Learning Mode, you send
known, “trusted” traffic (HTTP/HTTPS requests) to the WAF. The WAF automatically sets the values for certain
checks based on the traffic.
All operational modes support the White List Check. During the White List Check, the WAF compares the URI
of a user request against the URI patterns in the White List policy file. If there is match, the WAF performs
additional checks.
(For more information, see “WAF Operational Modes” on page 49.)
Negative Security Model

One of the additional checks performed by the WAF is comparison of the traffic to the patterns in the Black
List policy file. If there is a match, the WAF generates a data event log message. If Active Mode is enabled, the
WAF also drops the traffic.

Request Protection
Request Protection
The WAF scans request elements for possible threats or malicious content. Based on the responsive action
that is configured for each security check, the WAF denies the client request completely or sanitizes the
request of malicious content and forwards the sanitized request to the Web server.
The WAF filters inbound traffic through the following security checks.
Compare Request URI to White List and Black List

The WAF examines incoming user requests against the URI White Lists and Black Lists. These lists define rules
to explicitly allow or deny traffic:
White List
The URI White List defines acceptable destination URIs allowed for incoming requests. The White List Check
compares the URI of an incoming request against the rules contained in the URI White List policy file. Con-
nection requests are accepted only if the URI matches a rule in the URI White List. For more information, see
“URI White List” on page 110.
Black List
A URI Black List is a WAF policy file that lists exclusion criteria for incoming requests. If the URI of an incoming
request matches a rule in the URI Black List, the request is automatically blocked.
The URI Black List works in combination with the URI White List to restrict accessible URIs on a Web site. If a
URI matches acceptance criteria within the URI White List, a connection is blocked automatically if it meets a
rule in the separate URI Black List. For more information, see “URI Black List” on page 109.
The following diagram displays the processing order for incoming requests:

Request Protection
FIGURE 1 Screen URI requests
In this illustration, the WAF filters 3 HTTP requests. Of these, request #3 does not meet any criteria in the WAF
template’s URI White List and is blocked.
The remaining requests are compared against the WAF template’s URI Black List and blocked if they match at
least one URI Black List rule. Of these, request #2 is denied. Request #1 is the only request that is processed
for additional security checks.
URL Check
In addition to the URI White List and Black List, you can enable the URL Check to restrict users to a limited set
of URL paths on your Web site. The URL Check allows clients to access a specific set of acceptable URLs that
were added to the URL-check policy file while the WAF is deployed in Learning Mode.
Once this policy file is generated, you can manually edit its contents before switching the WAF deployment
mode from Learning to Active. At this point, users will be prevented from accessing any URLs on your web-
site that are not listed in this generated policy file.
NOTE: For a deployment example that includes configuration of the URL Check, see
“Generate Allowed URL Paths for the URL Check” on page 127.

Request Protection
If the URL Check is enforced in the WAF template, the accessible Web pages must appear as hyperlinks on
your website to appear in the list. This means users can access the pages on your Web site that appear as
hyperlinks, but they are prevented from accessing private pages through “forceful browsing”. For more infor-
mation, see “Forceful Browsing” on page 11.
NOTE: In the example shown in Figure 1 on page 14, the URL Check would achieve
the same degree of security if a hyperlink is only provided to the page “/
site_images.jpg”.
Scan Request for Threats

If a client request passes the URI White and Black List Checks, the WAF scans aspects of the HTTP request
(method, version, URI, query string, headers, cookies, and content) for threats. If the security check discovers
malicious content, the request is either denied or sanitized of the threat and forwarded to the Web server.
These security checks are described in more detail below.
FIGURE 2 Scan requests
Bot Check
The Bot Check option uses the “bot_defs” WAF policy file for search definitions of known bot agents. If the
Bot Check is enabled in the WAF template and a match is found with the “bot_defs” file, the request is
denied automatically.
You can copy the “bot_defs” file and modify the copy to include or remove bot search terms. For more infor-
mation about WAF policy files, see “WAF Policy Files” on page 107.

Request Protection
Form Field Consistency Check

The Form Field Consistency Check verifies that all of the form fields and their data types that are sent to the
client as part of the form are returned unmodified in subsequent requests from the client. This check helps
protect against hijacked forms to which malicious code may have been added.
Referer Check
The Referer Check validates that the referer header in a request contains Web form data from the specified
Web server, rather than from an outside Web site. This check helps to protect against CSRF attacks. If a
request fails the Referer Check, the WAF redirects the request to a safe URL. The safe URL is any URL that you
specify during configuration.
When you configure the Referer Check, you specify the domain names from which you want to allow traffic.
When ACOS receives a request addressed to the virtual port that is using the WAF, the WAF examines the Ref-
erer field of the request.
You can select one of the following options for the Referer Check:
• Enable (full checking) – Select the Enable option to enable full checking. To pass the full check, the
request must contain a Referer header field, and the field must contain at least one of the domain
names you specify during configuration.
• Only-if-present checking – Enable this option to check the referer header of a request only when a ref-
erer header is present. Unlike the full checking option, the only-if-present option ensures that a
request does not fail the Referer Check automatically because there is no referer header in the request.
HTTP Protocol Compliance Check

Regardless of deployment mode, the WAF template automatically enforces a basic, default set of HTTP pro-
tocol checks. Enable the HTTP Protocol Compliance Check to perform the following suite of additional
checks for protocol compliance:
• POST request with Content-Length: 0
NOTE: The WAF issues sends a warning message to the logging servers if a POST
request (that is not chunked) has a content length of 0.
• Header name with no header value
• Several Content-Length headers
NOTE: A request containing more than one Content-Length header might indicate
that the request is part of an HTTP response-splitting attack.
• Chunked request with Content-Length header

Request Protection
• Body in GET or HEAD requests
• No Host header in HTTP/1.1 request
• Host header contains IP address
• Content length should be a positive number
• Bad HTTP version
• Maximum number of headers
• Bad host header value
• Maximum number of cookies
• Invalid character in Host header
• Header contains NULL character
• Header contains high-ASCII character
• POST with invalid Content-Length header
HTML Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Check

The HTML XSS Check defends against cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks. The WAF searches the headers, cook-
ies, and POST bodies of user requests for possible Javascript commands. If the WAF discovers a potential
cross-site scripting attack, the request is either blocked or sanitized of malicious content and forwarded for
processing. For more information about XSS, see “Web Form Security Attacks” on page 11.
NOTE: This check uses the “jscript_defs” WAF policy file for Javascript attack pat-
terns. If your Web site uses Javascript-based content that accesses or modi-
fies content on an outside server, A10 Networks recommends modifying the
“jscript_defs” file to generate the appropriate exceptions, so that this check
does not block legitimate activity.

Request Protection
Buffer Overflow Check

The WAF can check various elements in an HTTP request to prevent buffer overflow. You can specify the
check to examine one or more of the following aspects of a request:
• Cookie length, name length, and/or value length
• Header length, name length, and/or value length
• Parameter length, name length, and/or value length
• Maximum parameters
• URL length
• POST content size
• Line length
• Query length
HTML SQL Injection Check

The HTML SQL Injection Check scans incoming requests for strings that resemble SQL commands or SQL spe-
cial characters. If the WAF discovers a match, the request is either blocked or sanitized of SQL-code and for-
warded for processing.
NOTE: The HTML SQL Injection Check scans incoming requests for attack patterns
listed in the “sqlia_defs” WAF file. Copy this file and apply the copied file to
the check to customize attack pattern search criteria for the HTML SQL Injec-
tion Check. (See “SQL Injection Attack Check” on page 108.)
Allowed HTTP Methods Check

The Allowed HTTP Methods Check ensures that HTTP requests contain only the HTTP methods that are
allowed by the WAF template. By default, only the following methods are allowed: GET, POST
You can allow one or more of the following HTTP methods:
• GET
• POST
• HEAD
• PUT
• OPTIONS
• DELETE
• TRACE
• CONNECT

Request Protection
• PURGE
Support for Additional WebDAV HTTP Methods
The WAF can be configured to accept a set of several new WebDAV HTTP methods which allows WebDAV
traffic to pass through the WAF without being dropped. In releases prior to ACOS 4.0, the WAF had to be dis-
abled on all relevant connections prior to attempting to use the WebDAV methods.
Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) is an extension to the HTTP protocol that is used to
allow Internet users to modify files on remote a resource (e.g., a web server), using HTTP as the communica-
tion medium.
As part of the ACOS 4.0 enhancements, the WAF now supports the following new WebDAV HTTP methods (in
addition to the original GET and POST methods):
• PROPFIND – retrieves the hierarchical information, and properties, for a directory containing a set
of resources
• PROPPATCH – modifies multiple properties for a set of a resources with a single operation
• MKCOL – creates a directory for the resources
• COPY – copies a resource from one URI to another
• MOVE – moves a resource from one URI to another
• LOCK – locks a resource (can be either shared or exclusive lock)
• UNLOCK – removes the lock from a resource
• * DP parsing of the new method string
The WAF can be configured to accept these new methods by using the allowed-http-methods CLI com-
mand within a WAF template and then specifying which of the WebDAV HTTP methods that will be allowed
to pass through the WAF.
Maximum Cookies Check

The Maximum Cookies Check ensures that a client request does not contain more than the maximum
allowed number of cookies. By default, the maximum number of cookies allowed in a request is 20.
Maximum Headers Check

The Maximum Headers Check ensures that a client request does not contain more than the maximum
allowed number of headers. By default, the maximum number of headers allowed in a request is 20.

Request Protection
Session Checks
To increase the security of the session between the ACOS device and the clients, the WAF offers cookie-based
session checks, or “session tracking”.
With this option enabled, the WAF uses a cookie to track user sessions. When a request is received from a cli-
ent for the first time, ACOS creates a unique ID for the session, stores it in a table, and inserts the ID into a
cookie that is returned to the client. Subsequent requests from this client are then validated against the ses-
sion ID. If the session ID does not match the saved ID, or if the ID is coming from a different IP address than
that of the original client, then the request is rejected.
Details:
• Session Tracking for WAF sessions is disabled by default.
• When enabled, you must specify the Session Lifetime to determine the amount of time the session ID
will remain valid. By default, the session lifetime is 600 seconds (10 minutes), but you can enter a range
from 1–86400 seconds (24 hours).
• The session cookie is named “awaf-sid”, and it is inserted into the header of the response sent by ACOS.
• The header appears in the following format:

Set-Cookie: awaf-sid=<session-id>; path=/' max-age=<session-lifetime>
Password Security
The WAF offers several additional password security options to control how passwords are treated when tra-
versing the WAF.
Deny Unmasked Passwords
When a user types a password into an HTML form’s password field, the characters are typically hidden by
another character, such as an asterisk. In this way, the password characters are masked when typed by the
user. This masking prevents an observer from stealing the password and using it at a later time to access the
user’s account.
The WAF can guard against this type of “shoulder surfing” by leveraging the “password” field type. When the
deny-non-masked-password option is enabled, the WAF will deny the web server’s attempt to send a form
unless the field type is set to “password”.
If the form field is named “password” (or “secret”), then the field type also needs to be set to “password” to
ensure that the password characters will be hidden when typed by the end user. (Other field types, such as
“text”, will not hide the password characters as they are being entered by the user.)
The example below shows a form that would be denied by the WAF. Note that the form field type is set to
“text”, and the form name is set “Password”. The WAF would block the web server’s attempt to send this form

Request Protection
because the “input type=text” means the user’s password would not be hidden or masked as it was being
typed and would thus be vulnerable to theft.
<form>
Password: <input type="text" name="Password">
</form>
The second example below shows a form that would be allowed by the WAF, because even though the field
is named “Password”, the field type has also been set to “password”, meaning the form field would mask the
characters typed by a user.
<form>
Password: <input type="password" name="Password">
</form>
To configure the WAF to prevent web servers from sending non-secure password forms to a client, use the
deny-non-masked-password CLI command at the WAF template configuration level.
Deny Passwords Sent Over an Unencrypted Connection
You can configure the WAF to block user passwords that are sent over a non-encrypted connection. If the
connection between the client and the WAF is secured with SSL/TLS, then the user password is allowed.
However, if the client attempts to submit to a form field where “input type=password”, and if the connection
is not encrypted with SSL/TLS, then the WAF will block the transmission.
NOTE: Even if this option is enabled, the user’s password may have already been
compromised while in transit, because the WAF blocks transmission of the
password only after the client has already entered it over an unsecured con-
nection. In such cases, the user’s password could have already been compro-
mised before reaching the WAF.
You can enable this option to prevent the WAF from allowing the transmission of user passwords over non-
SSL-encrypted connections by entering the deny-non-ssl-password CLI command at the WAF template con-
figuration level.
Deny Passwords if Autocomplete is Enabled
Modern browsers can store user passwords and make an attempt at guessing at the password values when
the user encounters a website that requires entering his or her password into a web form field. This autocom-
plete behavior is controlled by the “autocomplete=on/off” attribute, which is typically associated with the
HTML form text fields.
While end users may appreciate this “autocomplete” behavior because it simplifies the process of logging
into websites, the convenience comes at the cost of making the user’s password and the overall security of
the login process, less secure.

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In order to control the browser’s behavior, administrators can increase the network security by configuring
the WAF to reject the web server form if the field type is set to “password” and if the “autocomplete=on/off”
attribute is set to “on”.
To configure this option and prevent the WAF from allowing the transmission of user passwords when the
“autocomplete=on/off” attribute is set to “on”, use the deny-password-autocomplete CLI command at the WAF
template configuration level.
Open Redirect Mitigation

The Open Redirect Mitigation feature offers protection against the threat of “unvalidated redirects or for-
wards”, which is listed as one of the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) “Top 10 List” of most
severe security risks for 2013.
An unvalidated redirect occurs when a hacker uses social networking (such as email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
to trick unsuspecting users into clicking on a malicious hyperlink as part of a phishing scam. Although the
hyperlink appears to be from a trusted website, the link actually contains code that redirects users to a
forged website. At this point, users may be tricked into submitting their login credentials (username/pass-
word), credit card numbers, security codes, or other sensitive information. Hackers can then use this informa-
tion to access their accounts or attack their systems.
Although OWASP groups “unvalidated redirects or forwards” together as a single threat, they are actually
two separate but related threats. As such, the WAF has different ways to mitigate both types of attacks:
• “forwards” – With this type of threat, users become victims when they are forwarded to a malicious
URL which tricks them into surrendering their login credentials. This particular risk can be mitigated
through the use of the URL check feature, which is discussed here: “URL Check” on page 14
• “unvalidated redirects” – Described in detail below.
The WAF protects users against the threat of “unvalidated redirects” by pre-learning a white-list of accept-
able locations to which users can safely be redirected. If one of the web servers attempts to redirect a user to
a location that does not appear in the redirect white-list, then the WAF blocks the redirect.
The Open Redirect Mitigation feature must be enabled using the redirect-wlist CLI command. The com-
mand is used at the WAF template configuration level, and the first time the command is used, the WAF must
be deployed in Learning Mode.
NOTE: If you attempt to use the command for the first time while the WAF is
deployed in Active Mode or Passive Mode (and before the redirect white-list
has been created during Learning Mode), then you will receive an error mes-
sage stating that “redirect-wlist cannot be turned on with empty list.”
Valid traffic is then injected into the WAF, which then investigates each “redirect” response packet received
from the backend web servers, where a redirect response packet is defined as any packet having a status
code ranging from 300–308.

Request Protection
The WAF extracts the value from the Location field of the header of the response packet and stores it in its
internal database.
When the WAF deployment mode is subsequently changed from Learning Mode to Active Mode (or Passive
Mode), the location information in the database is transferred to a persistent file called “redirect_wlist_”. The
filename will have the name of the WAF template as its prefix. For example, the WAF template “test” would
have a policy file called “_test_redirect_wlist_”.
Details:
The behavior of this option depends on which deployment mode the WAF is in:
• Learning Mode – The option must be enabled for the first time while the WAF is deployed in Learning
Mode. The information is saved in the ACOS device’s local database. At this time, the white-list file has
not yet been created, so if you wish to modify the redirect white-list, you must change to Active or Pas-
sive Mode. Note that no action is performed upon traffic during Learning Mode, other than using the
traffic to build the redirect white-list.
• Active Mode – Once the redirect white-list is created while the WAF is deployed in Learning Mode, you
can then change the deployment mode to Active Mode. At this point, the database is used as a white-
list of allowed location headers in redirect packets. If a response from the web server contains a redi-
rect which is not in the white-list, the WAF will deny (drop) the response and send the client a “403 for-
bidden” reply.
• Passive Mode – If the option is enabled while the WAF is deployed in Passive Mode, the WAF leverages
the existing redirect white-list to inspect traffic, but it takes no action, in terms of blocking traffic, and
simply increases the counters and generates logs for hypothetical actions that would be taken if the
WAF were in Active and not Passive Mode.
Configuration
To prevent unvalidated redirects, use the following CLI command at the WAF template configuration level:
redirect-wlist
NOTE: The WAF must be deployed in Learning Mode the first time the command is
used. Once the redirect white-list is created, you can then switch to Passive
Mode or Active Mode.
Display Statistics
You can display statistics for this redirect-wlist option using the show waf stats virtual-server-name
portnum CLI command, as shown in the example below, which offers three dedicated counters associated
with the redirect white-list:
ACOS#show waf stats vip2 80

...

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Redirect White List Check

- Learned 8
- Success 2
- Failed 0
...
The output in this example is for the WAF template that is bound to vip2, port 80. The table below describes
the relevant fields in the command output.
TABLE 1 show waf stats fields

Field Description
Redirect White List Redirect counters:
• Learned – Number of redirect locations learned during Learning Mode and added to the
redirect white-list.
• Success – Number of requests that matched a URI entry in the redirect white-list and were
accepted.
• Failed – Number of requests that did not match a URI entry in the redirect white-list and
were blocked.
Normalization Enhancements for URL Options

ACOS support URL normalization, which is a process of standardizing the appearance of URLs to remove
inconsistencies from one URL to another.
For example, one URL might use lower-case characters, while another URL could use a mix of upper-case and
lower-case characters. A simple corrective normalization scheme could be used to convert the URL with the
mixed set of upper-case and lower-case characters to use only lower-case characters, as shown below.
• Before normalization: HTTP://www.Example.com/
• After normalization: http://www.example.com/
This process of normalizing URLs is sometimes used by search engines to make comparisons of several URLs
easier. By standardizing the appearance of URLs and reducing them down to the canonical form, it is easier
to ensure the same URL is not cataloged twice by a web crawler. Perhaps more relevant to its functionality in
the WAF, URL normalization offers a way to protect web servers from certain types of attacks, which can hide
in the non-normalized, recursive encoding of the data.
One example of such an attack is the so-called directory traversal attack, which exploits non-sanitized file
names in order to gain access to sensitive directories or files that were supposed to remain off limits.

Request Protection
URL Options
In addition to normalizing upper-case and lower-case, the WAF can also make the following changes to inter-
nal URLs sent from backend servers:
• Decode Entities – Decode entities, such as < &#xx; &#ddd; &xXX in an internal URL.
• Decode Escaped Characters – Decode escape characters, such as \r \n \"\xXX in an internal URL.
• Decode HEX Characters – Decode hexadecimal characters, such as \%xx and \%u00yy in an internal
URL.
• Remove Comments – Remove comments from an internal URL.
• Remove Self References – Remove self-references, such as /./ and /path/../ from an internal URL.
• Remove Spaces – Remove spaces from an internal URL.

Request Protection
WAF XML Checks

The WAF in ACOS 4.0 has been enhanced with the ability to scrub client requests that contain eXtensible
Markup Language (XML) code for anomalies. XML is commonly used for data exchange, but hackers can
exploit security holes in the XML code to attack servers.
Therefore, it is important to inspect and validate client requests containing XML code to protect the backend
servers from XML transactions that could allow hackers to bypass application security, provide malicious
input, and potentially slow down or crash the servers.
When the new WAF XML checks are enabled, the WAF checks client requests for XML, and if present, the WAF
then validates the structure of the XML document using a trusted XML schema file. In doing so, this helps to
ensure that the content of the client’s XML request is well-formed and does not contain any potential threats.
Types of XML Checks
In this release, the WAF offers the following types of XML checks:
• XML Format Checks – This option uses the xml-format-check command and examines the XML for-
mat of incoming requests and blocks requests that are not well-formed.
• XML Validation Checks – This option uses the xml-validation CLI command to validate the XML con-
tent in a request in order to check it against an XML Schema file or WSDL file. Running such checks on
incoming XML content prevents an attacker from using specially-constructed (and invalid) XML mes-
sages to circumvent the web application’s standard security checks. If the WAF discovers that the XML
content fails the validation check, then the WAF blocks the request.
• XML Limit Checks – This option uses the xml-limit CLI to command enforce parsing limits in order to
protect the servers from various denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, such as XML bombs and Transform
Injections, both of which are defined in greater detail below.
• XML Cross-Site Scripting Checks – This option uses the xml-xss-check CLI command to examine the
headers and bodies of incoming XML requests for Javascript keywords that might indicate possible
cross-site scripting attacks. If the request contains a positive match, then the WAF blocks the request.
• XML SQL Injection Checks – This option uses the xml-sqlia-check CLI command to examine the
headers and bodies of incoming requests for inappropriate SQL special characters and keywords that
might indicate an SQL Injection Attack. If found, the WAF blocks those requests.

Request Protection
XML Format Checks

The XML format check examines the format of incoming requests, and blocks requests if the XML content is
not well-formed. The option can be enabled with the following CLI command at the WAF template configu-
ration level:
xml-format-check
The XML format check verifies that incoming requests containing XML code are in compliance with the XML
1.0 specification, which can be found at the following URL: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/
The XML Format Check evaluates incoming XML documents for compliance with the following rules:
• XML documents must contain only properly-encoded Unicode characters
• The document may contain no special XML syntax characters. For example, none of the following char-
acters can be included in the XML document, unless used as markup: , “<“, “>”, and "&”
• The XML document must contain all beginning and end tags. All begin, end, and empty element tags
must be nested correctly. The XML document must not be missing any element tags, and it cannot
contain overlapping element tags.
• A single root element must contain all the other elements in the XML document.
XML Validation Checks

The XML Validation Check is used to prevent an attacker from using invalid XML messages that have been
specially-constructed to evade application security.
The XML Validation Check examines client requests containing XML content to make sure that the XML mes-
sages are valid.
If a client request contains an XML message, and the XML validation check option is enabled, then the
incoming request will be compared with an XML schema file.
An XML schema is an XML document which describes the desired structure of other XML document. The
XML schema goes beyond just defining proper XML syntax, and it defines things such as which elements or
attributes can appear in an XML document, as well as the number, order, and relationship of child elements.
It can also determine the data types associated with the various elements and attributes that appear in an
XML document.
If an incoming request is compared with the XML schema, and the WAF determines that the request is not
valid, then it is deemed a threat and the WAF blocks the request.
The option can be enabled using the following CLI command at the WAF template configuration level:
xml-validation xml-schema [resp-val] xml-schema-file-name

Request Protection
XML Schema Validation
The WAF can validate XML messages using an XML schema file. You must upload the XML schema file that
you plan to use for validation. The XML schema file can be uploaded using the import command at the
global config level of the CLI:
import xml-schema local-filename [use-management-port] file-name url
The use-mgmt-port option allows you to indicate the use of the management interface as the source inter-
face for the connection to the device.
The url option specifies the file transfer protocol, username, and directory path. You can enter the entire URL
on the command line, or you can press Enter to display a prompt for each part of the URL. If you enter the
entire URL and a password is required, you will still be prompted to enter the password. To enter the entire
URL:
• tftp://host/file
• ftp://[user@]host[:port]/file
• scp://[user@]host/file
• sftp://[user@]host/file
If you need to modify an existing XML schema file, you can do so using the following CLI command at the
global config level:
waf xml-schema edit local-filename
If you need to remove an existing schema file, you can do so using the following CLI command at the global
config level:
waf xml-schema delete local-filename
Response Validation
By default, the WAF does not validate server responses. In order to validate responses from a protected web
application, the resp-val option should be selected.
WSDL Validation
The WAF can validate SOAP messages (based on XML) using a Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
document.
For more information about WSDL Validation, please see “WAF SOAP Checks” on page 33.

Request Protection
XML Limit Checks

When the xml-limit-check option is configured, the WAF XML parser will enforce parsing limits in order to
protect backend servers against various types of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, which are designed to
exhaust system memory or CPU resources. Some examples of DoS attacks that can be prevented this way are
XML Bombs and Transform Injections.
XML Bomb
An XML Bomb is a denial of service attack that takes advantage of the fact that entity references in XML doc-
uments must be expanded for evaluation. Such attacks can achieve this goal by adding extra entity entries to
the XML document, and then defining subsequent entities, which are based on the expanded values of the
previous entity. Entity expansion is a normal and required action for XML documents, so hackers can take
advantage of this loophole by using it to exhaust system memory and CPU resources. If it is left unchecked,
such an attack could really slow performance thus causing servers to crash.
The WAF can address this issue by placing a maximum limit on the number of entity expansions that are
allowed in an XML document. Similarly, a maximum limit can be imposed on the number of levels of entity
recursion. Together, imposing these types of limits on XML documents can contain and mitigate the harmful
effects of an XML Bomb.
Transform Injection
Transform Injections are a different type of denial of service attack, and they work by taking advantage of
XSLT flow-control functions, and by creating infinite loops, or perhaps redundant transforms, which will
eventually exhaust the available memory and CPU resources that the server can offer.
To mitigate the effects of Transform Injection attacks, the WAF can be configured to place limits on the maxi-
mum depth of child element pairs, the amount of data contained in an element pair, and the maximum size
of an XML document.
Configuring XML Limit Parameters to Thwart XML Bombs and Transform Injections
To prevent XML Bombs, Transform Injections, and other types of DoS attacks from consuming excessive sys-
tem resources, ACOS provides the following CLI command, which can be used at the WAF template configu-
ration level.
xml-limit parameter limit
The xml-limit command can be completed using any of the parameters shown below:
• max-attr number
Limits the maximum number of attributes each individual element is allowed to have.
number – Maximum number of children allowed per element. Range is 1–256. Default is 256.
• max-attr-name-len number

Request Protection
Limits the maximum length of each attribute name.

number – Maximum number of characters allowed per element. Range is 1–2048. Default is 128.
• max-attr-value-len number
Limits the maximum length of each attribute value.

number – Maximum number of characters allowed per attribute. Range is 1–2048. Default is 128.
• max-cdata-len number
Limits the length of the CDATA section for each element.

number – Maximum length of CDATA section for element. Range is 1–65535. Default is 65535.
• max-elem number
Limits the maximum number of any one type of element per XML document.
number – Number of elements allowed. Range is 1–65535. Default is 65535.
• max-elem-child number
Limits the maximum number of children each element is allowed, and includes other elements, charac-
ter information, and comments.
number – Maximum number of children allowed per element. Range is 1–65535. Default is 65535.
• max-elem-depth depth
Limits the maximum number of nested levels in each element.

depth – Maximum number of levels allowed. Range is 1–65535. Default is 256.
• max-elem-name-len length
Limits the maximum length of name of each element.

length – Maximum length of each element, and includes the XML path, which is in the following format:
http://<site>/<path>/page.xml
Range is 1–65535. Default is 128.
• max-entity-exp number
Limits the number of entity expansions allowed.

number – Maximum number of entity expansions allowed. Range is 0–1024. Default is 1024.
• max-entity-exp-depth number
Limits the maximum depth of nested entity expansions.

number – Maximum depth of entity expansions allowed. Range is 0–32. Default is 32.
• max-namespace number
Limits the number of namespace declarations in XML document.

Request Protection
number – Maximum number of namespace declarations allowed. Range is 0–256. Default is 16.
• max-namespace-uri-len number
Limits the URL length for each namespace declaration.

number – Maximum URL length allowed for each namespace declaration. Range is 0–1024. Default is
256.
XML Cross-Site Scripting Checks

The XML cross-site scripting check examines the headers and bodies of incoming XML requests for Javascript
keywords that might indicate possible cross-site scripting attacks and blocks those requests.
The option can be enabled with the following CLI command at the WAF template configuration level:
xml-xss-check
The policy file for xml-xss-check is taken from the xss-check option, which must also be configured. See
“XSS Check” on page 108 for additional details.
The WAF checks the incoming request against the “jscript_defs” WAF policy file, which contains a list of com-
mon Javascript commands. If the client request detects a positive match against the Javascript commands in
this policy file, then the message will be rejected. The WAF does not currently support the ability to modify
the contents in XML requests that are denied.
CLI Example
The xml-xss-check depends on configuring the xml-format-check and the xss-check within the WAF tem-
plate. The xss-check is configured to reject requests with a positive match to the filtering criteria. The WAF
template “tempwaf1” is bound to VIP “vs101”.
waf template tempwaf1

template logging syslog
xml-format-check
xml-xss-check
xss-check reject
slb virtual-server vs101 10.12.0.101

port 80 http
source-nat pool nat_IPv4
service-group sg-http
template waf tempwaf1

Request Protection
XML SQL Injection Checks

To prevent XML SQL Injection Checks, the WAF examines the headers and bodies of incoming requests for
inappropriate SQL special characters or keywords that might indicate the presence of an SQL Injection
Attack. If the check finds any of the forbidden special characters or keywords, then the WAF will block those
requests and prevent them from reaching the servers. This option can be enabled using the following CLI
command at the WAF template configuration level:
xml-sqlia-check
The policy file for xml-sqlia-check is taken from sqlia-check, which must also be configured. See “SQL
Injection Attack Check” on page 108 for additional details.
The WAF checks the incoming request against the rules contained in the WAF policy file “sqlia_defs”. If the cli-
ent request detects a positive match against the rules in the policy file, then the message will be rejected.
The WAF does not currently support the ability to modify the contents in XML requests that are denied.
CLI Example
The xml-sqlia-check depends on configuring the xml-format-check and the sqlia-check within the WAF
template “tempwaf2”. The sqlia-check is configured to reject requests with a positive match to the filtering
criteria. The WAF template “tempwaf2” is bound to VIP “vs102”.
waf template tempwaf2

sqlia-check reject
xml-format-check
xml-sqlia-check
port 80 http
service-group sg-http
template waf tempwaf2

Request Protection
WAF SOAP Checks
What is SOAP?
The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) was created to allow platform-independent communication
between web services. SOAP is based on XML and typically relies on HTTP to transmit messages.
Prior to SOAP, most applications would communicate using remote procedure calls (RPCs). When attempting
to send an RPC over the Internet to a web server, problems could occur because RPCs would often get
blocked by overzealous firewalls.
SOAP gained popularity because it offered a way for web applications to communicate over the Internet
without the messages being intercepted by firewalls. This is by virtue of the fact that SOAP relies on HTTP to
transmit messages, and HTTP is supported by virtually all Internet browsers and servers.
Structure of a SOAP Message
A SOAP message is an ordinary XML document that contains the following elements:
• An Envelope element, which identifies this XML document as being a SOAP message
• A Header element, which contains the header information
• A Body element, which contains the call and response information
• A Fault element, which contains errors and status information
Types of SOAP Checks
In this release, the WAF offers the following types of SOAP checks:
• SOAP Format Checks – This option uses the soap-format-check CLI command and examines the for-
mat of incoming SOAP requests and blocks those which are not well-formed.
• SOAP Validation Checks – This option uses the xml-validation wsdl CLI command to validate the
SOAP content in a request in order to check it against a WSDL file. If the WAF discovers that the SOAP
content fails the validation check, then the WAF blocks the request.
SOAP Format Checks

The SOAP Format Check enhancement scrubs client requests that use SOAP for anomalies that could indi-
cate the presence of an attack.
While it is not recommended, SOAP format checks can be enabled independently of XML checks. Most of the
time, however, SOAP format checks are done in tandem with XML format checks, which makes sense,
because SOAP is based on XML.

Request Protection
As a matter of best practices, when enabling SOAP format checks (using the soap-format-check option), you
should also enable XML format checks (using the xml-format-check option). The reason for this is that the
WAF always does the XML checks first and then adds additional SOAP checks.
For additional information on XML format checks, see “WAF XML Checks” on page 26.
What is a SOAP Format Check?
The SOAP Format Check scrubs incoming client requests to ensure that the SOAP requests are structured in
the proper format, as defined by the World Wide Web consortium in the following Recommendation:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/REC-soap12-part1-20070427/
The SOAP format check performs the following evaluations:
• Verifies that messages have the appropriate sections (e.g., Message, Header, Body, Fault, etc.) and that
these sections appear in the correct order.
• Verifies that the envelope uses the correct namespace (http://www.w3.org/2003/05/soap-envelope).
• Verifies that defined attributes, such as role, encodingStyle, Code, etc., follow the defined format.
You can enable SOAP format checks using the following CLI command at the WAF template configuration
level:
soap-format-check
NOTE: As mentioned above, the xml-format-check option should also be enabled

when enabling the soap-format-check option.
SOAP Validation Checks

The WAF can validate SOAP messages using a Web Services Description Language (WSDL) document. WSDL
is an XML document that is typically used to describe the behavior of a web service.
In contrast with the XML schema file (which defines how the data in an XML document is structured), the
WSDL document is for SOAP documents. (Please ignore for a moment the confusing fact that SOAP docu-
ments are based on XML1.)
1.
To explain why the command is “xml-validation wsdl” and not “soap-validation”, consider that WSDL is an extension to the XML
Schema and it assumes the presence of some type of XML RPC headers. Therefore, WSDL does not include their definition in each
schema file, but it extends the XML Schema to allow for an association to occur for specific calls to specific URIs, assuming the con-
tents of the headers.

Request Protection
The WSDL file describes functionality of a SOAP document by defining which operations are available and
how the data should be structured. The WSDL file contains the operation, such as the methods provided by a
web service, and the document describes which data types (int, float, etc) the method can accept. Validating
a SOAP document using a WSDL file ensures that the method being called is defined for the current direc-
tion, and that the message conforms to the schema for that message.
The WSDL validation option can be enabled using the following CLI command at the WAF template configu-
ration level:
xml-validation wsdl [resp-val] wsdl-file
You must upload the WSDL file you will use for validation. The WSDL file can be uploaded using the import
command at the global config level of the CLI:
import wsdl local-filename [use-management-port] file-name url
The use-mgmt-port option allows you to indicate the use of the management interface as the source inter-
face for the connection to the device.
The url option specifies the file transfer protocol, username, and directory path. You can enter the entire URL
on the command line, or you can press Enter to display a prompt for each part of the URL. If you enter the
entire URL and a password is required, you will still be prompted to enter the password. To enter the entire
URL:
• tftp://host/file
• ftp://[user@]host[:port]/file
• scp://[user@]host/file
• sftp://[user@]host/file
If you need to modify an existing WSDL file, you can do so using the following CLI command at the global
config level:
waf wsdl edit local-filename
If you need to remove an existing WSDL file, you can do so using the following CLI command at the global
config level:
waf wsdl delete local-filename

Request Protection
Response Validation
By default, the WAF does not validate server responses. In order to validate responses from a protected web
application, the resp-val option should be selected.
WAF JSON Checks

In ACOS 4.0, the WAF is enhanced by adding support for parsing and verifying JSON data in HTTP POST oper-
ations. The WAF supports the ability to run a format check on requests containing JSON data. This helps to
ensure that the content of the request is well-formed. In addition, the WAF supports the ability to impose
JSON parsing limits in order to protect web servers from various types of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
Types of JSON Checks
In this release, the WAF offers the following types of JSON checks:
• JSON Format Checks – This option uses the json-format-check command and examines the JSON
format of incoming requests and blocks requests that are not well-formed.
• JSON Limit Checks – This option uses the json-limit CLI to command enforce parsing limits in order
to protect the servers from various denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
JSON Format Checks

The JSON format check examines the format of incoming requests, and blocks requests if the JSON content is
not well-formed.
The JSON format check verifies that incoming requests containing JSON code are in compliance with RFC
4627.
This document can be found at the following URL: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4627.txt
Compliance Criteria
The JSON Format Check evaluates incoming requests for compliance with the following criteria:
• The JSON document must contain only properly-encoded Unicode characters.
• Strings must contain matching quotations and properly escaped characters.
• All objects must contain matching braces {}, and a set of members must be separated by commas.
• Every object member must contain a name and value, separated by a colon.

Request Protection
• All arrays must contain matching brackets [], and a set of values must be separated by commas.
• Numbers must be properly formatted.
This option can be enabled using the following CLI command at the WAF template configuration level:
json-format-check
JSON Limit Checks

When the json-limit option is configured, the WAF JSON parser will enforce parsing limits in order to pro-
tect backend servers against various types of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, which are designed to exhaust
system memory or CPU resources.
Configuring JSON Limit Parameters to Prevent DoS Attacks
To prevent DoS attacks from consuming excessive system resources, ACOS provides the following CLI com-
mand, which can be used at the WAF template configuration level.
json-limit parameter limit
The json-limit command can be completed using any of the parameters shown below:
• max-array-value-count number
Limits the maximum number of values within a single array.

number – Maximum number of values in an array. Range is 0–4096. Default is 256.
• max-depth number
Limits the maximum depth in a JSON value.

number – Maximum recursion depth in a JSON value. Range is 0–4096. Default is 16.
• max-object-member-count number
Limits the number of members in a JSON object.

number – Maximum number of values allowed. Range is 0–4096. Default is 64.
• max-string number
Limits the length of a string in a JSON request for a name or a value.

number – Maximum length of a string in bytes. Range is 0–4096. Default is 64.

Request Protection
Geo-location Based Blocking

This feature enables an administrator to configure the WAF to block attacks based upon the geo-location
information of incoming requests. You can block an attack originating from a country, region, or state that
has a known history of being a hotspot for various types of WAF-preventable attacks.
This capability allows you to limit which countries can access your resources based upon the geo-location
information associated with a request. You can create an HTTP policy that would permit or deny traffic based
upon a combination of threshold events and geo-location information.
The WAF Geo-location Based Blocking feature allows you filter incoming client requests using two different
approaches.
• “Filter Requests Using an HTTP Policy” on page 38
• “Filter Requests Using an ACL” on page 41
Filter Requests Using an HTTP Policy

The WAF Geo-location Based Blocking can use HTTP policies to detect and act upon traffic from different
regions. You can use this option to apply a different WAF template to requests coming from different regions.
The WAF geo-location feature uses an HTTP policy to apply a WAF template to an incoming request. The geo-
location database (such as an IANA file) can identify which part of the world a certain request came from. The
IANA database contains the mappings between geographic regions and IP address ranges, as assigned by
the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority. (For more information about the IANA database, see the Global
Server Load Balancing Guide.)
Using the IANA database, the WAF can evaluate incoming requests and determine that, for example, a
request with an IP of 222.111.222.111 is from, say, the North Korea. Perhaps this is a region with rampant
cyber-criminal activity. In order to prevent hackers from this region from being able to access your web serv-
ers and steal credit card numbers, the WAF can be configured to detect traffic from this region, and if there is
a match, the traffic could be denied. Alternatively, if this region is known to use XML bombs, then perhaps a
WAF template could be applied to the traffic that would offer protection from XML bombs and other DoS
attacks using the XML Limit Checks.
If an HTTP-policy file is used with a WAF template, and if the WAF is in Learning Mode, you can identify the
sources of various attacks. You can configure the relevant geo-locations in the HTTP-policy file and direct the
traffic through different WAF templates. This produces statistics for the different regions, and these statistics
can be used to identify the top countries where attacks are sourced from.
Configuration Using the CLI
You can enable the WAF Geo-location blocking feature by using the new geo-location keyword at the HTTP
policy configuration level.

Request Protection
ACOS-Inside-Primary(config)(NOLICENSE)#slb template http-policy name1

ACOS-Inside-Primary(config-http-policy)(NOLICENSE)#?
clear Clear or Reset Functions
cookie-name name of cookie to match
do To run exec commands in config mode
end Exit from configure mode
exit Exit from configure mode or sub mode
geo-location Geolocation name
...
CLI Example
This example shows how to configure the WAF geo-location feature using an HTTP policy. The policy can be
used to allow or deny traffic based on geo-location information. This example creates the geo-location infor-
mation for a region in China, and for a region in the United States, and does not rely on the IANA database.
First, we will configure the GSLB geo-location IP address range for the first region (e.g., Beijing, China)
gslb geo-location Beijing.China

ip 172.16.3.62 172.16.3.62
Configure the GSLB geo-location IP address range for the second region (e.g., San Jose, USA)
gslb geo-location Sanjose.USA

ip 172.16.3.63 mask 255.255.255.255
Configure the real server IP and port information for server “s1”:
slb server s1 172.17.3.48

port 80 tcp
port 443 tcp
port 514 udp
Configure the real server IP and port information for server “s2”:
slb server s2 172.17.3.49

port 80 tcp
port 443 tcp
port 514 udp
Create the service group “sg-http-p1” and add server “s1”:
slb service-group sg-http-p1 tcp

member s1 80

Request Protection
Create the service group “sg-http-p2” and add server “s2”:
slb service-group sg-http-p2 tcp

member s2 80
Set up the service group “syslog” and add server “s2”:
slb service-group syslog udp

member s2 514
Set up the logging template and bind it to the service group “syslog”:
slb template logging syslog

service-group syslog
Create the WAF template “waf-1", with the max parameters set to 3, and logging template called “syslog”:
waf template waf-1

max-parameters 3
Create the WAF template “waf-2”, with credit card number masking enabled, and logging template called
“syslog”:
waf template waf-2

ccn-mask
Create the http-policy template called “geo-policy-http-ipv4”, and within that HTTP policy template, enable
the geo-location feature for the first region you created (i.e. Beijing, China). Bind it to the service-group “sg-
http-p1”, and bind that to WAF template “waf-1”. Similarly, enable the geo-location feature for the second
region you created (i.e. San Jose, USA), and bind it to the service-group “sg-http-p2”, and bind that to WAF
template “waf-2”:
slb template http-policy geo-policy-http-ipv4

geo-location Beijing.China service-group sg-http-p1 template waf waf-1
geo-location Sanjose.USA service-group sg-http-p2 template waf waf-2
Create the slb virtual-server configuration “vs101”, with port 80 (HTTP), and set up the source-nat pool
“nat_IPv4”, and bind both service-groups “sg-http-p1” and “sg-http-p2”. Then, bind the HTTP-policy template
we created earlier, and bind the two waf templates.

Request Protection

port 80 http
service-group sg-http-p1
service-group sg-http-p2
template http-policy geo-policy-http-ipv4
template waf waf-1
template waf waf-2
With the above configurations, the HTTP request destined to virtual server “vs101” port 80 from clients
belonging to geo-location Beijing.China will be checked against template waf waf-1. Clients belonging to
geo-location Sanjose.USA will be checked against template waf waf-2.
Filter Requests Using an ACL

The WAF Geo-location feature also allows you to block client requests using an Access Control List (ACL).
When this feature is enabled, the WAF will evaluate client requests using the source address of the incoming
request, and then it will either permit or deny traffic if there is a match.
You can configure WAF geo-location based blocking using an ACL by creating an access control list and using
the geo-location keyword.
This example shows how to configure an IPv4 access-list with geo-location rules that would permit all traffic
to and from the United States, while denying all traffic to or from North Korea:
ACOS(config)#ip access-list geo_acl_ipv4

ACOS(config-access-list:geo_acl_ipv4)#permit geo-location Sanjose.USA any any
ACOS(config-access-list:geo_acl_ipv4)#deny geo-location Pyongyang.NorthKorea any any
Configuring the WAF with aFleX Scripts

You can configure several key areas of the WAF using aFleX scripts. This interface is provide in addition to the
CLI and GUI, and it provides a new way to configure the WAF by allowing you to set up a variety of WAF trig-
ger events.
Additional new events:
• request violation – Violations are triggered anywhere in the code where ACOS is logging a WAF action,
such as deny, sanitize, ignore a real error, and so on. (This applies to client requests.)
• response violation – Violations are triggered anywhere in the code where ACOS is logging a WAF
action, such as deny, sanitize, ignore a real error, and so on. (This applies to server responses.)

Request Protection
• WAF deny – A deny action is triggered when there is a final deny action being applied (violations may
be overridden as described below)
Examples of possible violations:
• WebDAV - In prior releases, ACOS contained a hard-coded list of HTTP methods that the WAF would
allow to traverse. Prior to ACOS 4.0, the WebDAV methods were not part of this list, so whenever a WAF
was applied in a customer environment in which WebDAV methods were used, the WAF would end up
rejecting all of the requests that used the WebDAV methods. The workaround was to avoid configur-
ing WAF on this virtual port.
However, this release adds aFleX, which in turn means that the administrator can write an aFleX script
that triggers on request violation. The WAF will check the violation ID and determine that this is a vio-
lation of the allowed methods rule. Upon learning this, the WAF will call the WAF::disable method,
which will temporarily disable WAF processing (for this connection only).
• There are some cases where specific URL patterns (or other sorts of data) match some of the expres-
sions which are used by black lists, SQLIA, XSS, or any other pattern-matching rules used by the WAF. A
user can be aware of such false-positive violations, and bypass this violation for the false-positive that
triggered the event.
Possible Actions:
If the WAF detects traffic that violates one or more rules, aFleX commands can be configured to seize upon
this trigger in order to perform one of the following actions upon that traffic:
• Allow - This action is triggered by a violation event when the WAF is deployed in Passive Mode and
Learning Mode.
• Deny - This action is triggered by a violation event when the WAF is deployed in Active Mode.
• Mask - This action is triggered for the event WAF_RESPONSE_VIOLATION, but only for the following
select features, such as ssn-mask, ccn-mask, and pcre-mask.
• Redirect - This action is triggered under violation events for the referer-check feature if the WAF is
deployed in Active Mode.
• Sanitize - This action is triggered for the WAF_REQUEST_VIOLATION event for features that support the
ability to sanitize traffic, such as xss-check, sqlia-check. The action can also be triggered for the
WAF_RESPONSE_VIOLATION event.
WAF aFleX Commands

In ACOS 4.0, the WAF supports the following new aFleX commands:
• WAF::disable – Disables WAF processing for the connection during which the aFleX script is triggered.

Response Protection
• WAF::enable – Re-enables WAF processing for the connection during which the aFleX script is trig-
gered.
• WAF::mode – Returns the current deployment mode in which WAF is configured (active, passive or
learning).
• WAF::template – Returns the name of the active WAF template.
• WAF::violation – Returns or logs information related to WAF violation events.
For syntax associated with these aFleX commands, please see the “WAF Commands” section in the aFleX Ref-
erence.
WAF Events
The following Web Application Firewall (WAF) events are available:
• WAF_REQUEST_DENY – Triggered whenever a WAF request is denied in active deployment mode.

• WAF_REQUEST_VIOLATION – Triggered whenever a violation occurs in a WAF request.
• WAF_RESPONSE_VIOLATION – Triggered whenever a violation occurs in a WAF response.
For syntax and a list of events associated with these aFleX commands, please see the “WAF Events” in the
aFleX Reference.
Response Protection
The WAF inspects the content of outbound HTTP responses and hides aspects that can equip an attacker
with valuable information. The WAF template can further protect Web servers with the following options for
HTTP responses:
• Mask Sensitive Content – Strings in a response are examined for patterns of sensitive content, such as
credit card numbers or US social security numbers. If the WAF discovers a pattern of potentially sensi-
tive information, the string is masked with an alternative character.
• Cloak Response Headers – The WAF removes content from HTTP response headers that can disclose
vulnerabilities about the Web server.
• Return Instrumented Responses – If a Web form is included in outbound responses, the WAF can tag
form fields with a nonce value before sending the reply to the outside user. The WAF then checks sub-
sequent requests for the nonce, to protect against CSRF.
The following sections describe these steps in more detail.

Response Protection
Mask Sensitive Content

To protect sensitive content, the WAF masks strings in the communication between an end-user and Web
server using the following options.
FIGURE 3 Mask sensitive content
CCN Mask
The Credit-card Number (CCN) Mask checks Web server responses for end-user credit card numbers. This
check protects user credit card information from being intercepted and viewed by unauthorized parties. For
example, the CCN mask replaces all but the final group of digits in the card number with “x” characters. A
credit card number of 4111-1111-1111-1111 would become “xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-1111”.
To protect user credit card information, you should configure the CCN mask for each accepted type of credit
card.
NOTE: A10 Networks recommends enabling this check for URLs that access or trans-
fer credit card information. For example, shopping Web sites with a check-
out page or Web sites that access back-end databases which contain cus-
tomer credit card numbers. This check is unnecessary if the Web site does
not have access to or use credit card information.
SSN Mask
Similar to a CCN mask, a Social-security Number (SSN) Check masks Web server replies for US social security
numbers. If enabled, the SSN check mask searches strings which appear to match the format of US social
security numbers and replaces all but the last 4 digits of the string with “x” characters.

Response Protection
PCRE Mask
In addition to the preconfigured CCN and SSN checks described above, you can configure custom masks
using Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) syntax. For example, you can configure a mask that checks
for driver’s license numbers. (For more information, see “Writing PCRE Expressions” on page 113.)
You can configure the portions of matching strings to keep, and which portions to mask. You also can cus-
tomize the mask character (“X” by default).
NOTE: You do not need to create a specialized PCRE mask to hide US social security
numbers or credit card information. Instead, simply enable the SSN or CCN
mask options that are provided in the WAF template.
Cloak Responses
The WAF can strip HTTP response headers to “cloak” server information that can equip a hacker to target an
attack on your Web servers. For example, the WAF can cloak an HTTP response header to hide what operat-
ing system is running on your servers. Information such as this can enable a hacker to more narrowly target
your servers with attacks that are specific to the servers’ operating systems. You can cloak server information
with the following WAF template options:
• Filter Response Headers – Checks responses coming from the Web server and removes headers with
server identifying information. For example:
• Server
• X-Runtime
• X-Powered-By
• X-AspNet-Version
• X-AspNetMvc-Version
• Hide Response Codes – Conceals 4xx and 5xx response codes for outbound responses from a Web
server and returns a generic error code instead. This option hides error codes which can provide an
attacker with information to specifically target Web server vulnerabilities.
The WAF sends an error page in response. You can configure the response error page in the Deny-Action
security check section of the WAF template.
Send Instrumented Responses

You can configure the WAF to return instrumented responses with form tags for user-modifiable fields.

Response Protection
Cross Site Request Forgery Check

The Cross Site Request Forgery (CSRF) Check tags the fields of a Web form sent by a Web site to end-users
with a nonce (a unique, unpredictable number for one-time use). The WAF examines the Web forms sent in
user requests to ensure that the supplied nonce is correct.
NOTE: You can use the Referer Check to further help prevent CSRF attacks.
FIGURE 4 Instrumented responses
Form Field Consistency Check

The Form Field Consistency Check applies to both requests from clients and responses from servers. When
this check is enabled, the WAF stores information about the intended format for Web form input fields before
sending the form to clients. The WAF then checks that the response from clients supply content to the Web
form that adheres to the correct format. For example, checking that a valid entry is used for drop-down
menus or that a radio button is selected versus supplying a string for that form field.
Cookie Encryption
This check protects against cookie tampering by encrypting cookies before sending server replies to end-
users. Clients are then unable to view the content of encrypted cookies, which clients could otherwise mod-
ify to gain illegal access. If the encrypted cookie is modified, then decryption of the tampered cookie will fail
when it is sent back from the client and the request will be rejected.
You can enable encryption based on specific cookie names or for all cookies that match a PCRE expression.
The encryption uses a secret string to decrypt and encrypt cookies that are transferred between the Web
server and client. (For a configuration example, see “WAF Deployment and Logging Examples” on page 123.)

PCI 6.6 Compliance
PCI 6.6 Compliance

The ACOS Web Application Firewall enables organizations to satisfy Payment Card Industry Data Security
Standard (PCI DSS) requirement 6.6. The PCI Security Standards Council has developed a framework to help
organizations that process, transmit, or store payment card data to secure cardholder information. The PCI
DSS, the keystone of the PCI Security Standards Council’s compliance standards, sets forth twelve high level
requirements designed to protect payment card data, including guidelines to detect, prevent, and respond
to security incidents. By deploying the ACOS Web Application Firewall, organizations can quickly and easily
achieve PCI 6.6 compliance.
ACOS WAF achieves ICSA Certification

While the PCI SSC does not officially certify Web Application Firewalls, similar recognition can be achieved
through third-party companies, such as the International Computer Security Association (ICSA) Labs.
A10 Networks has achieved WAF certification from ICSA Labs. This certification can help assure network
administrators that the ACOS WAF meets the requirements, as stated in PCI DSS section 6.6 “Compliance for
Web Apps”, the text of which appears below:
For public-facing Web applications, address new threats and vulnerabilities on an ongoing basis and ensure
these applications are protected against known attacks by either of the following methods:
• Reviewing public-facing Web applications via manual or automated application vulnerability security
assessment tools or methods, at least annually and after any changes.
NOTE: Note: This assessment is not the same as the vulnerability scans performed
for Requirement 11.2.
• Installing an automated technical solution that detects and prevents Web-based attacks (for example,
a web-application firewall) in front of public-facing web applications, to continually check all traffic.
For more information, you can access the PCI DSS at https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/
PCI_DSS_v3.pdf
How Does the ACOS WAF Achieve PCI DSS Compliance?

PCI compliance essentially means that the WAF meets a long list of requirements. The exact set of require-
ments can vary, depending on where a particular device is located in the network, as well as which services
the device offers. For the ACOS WAF, a partial list of important highlights includes the ability to do the follow-
ing:
• Restrict access to a resource (such as a web server) based on the IP address from which the request
originated

PCI 6.6 Compliance
• Restrict access to particular data at the network boundaries
• Hide sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, when this data crosses a network boundary
• Limit or prevent configuration changes (and logging each configuration change as it happens)
• Protect and store log messages
More information about PCI DSS compliance can be found at the following link:
https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/information_supplement_6.6.pdf

Overview
WAF Operational Modes
This chapter describes the WAF operational modes and how to use them to deploy the WAF.
Overview
The WAF supports the following operational modes:
• Learning – Learning Mode provides a way to initially set the thresholds for certain WAF checks based
on known, valid traffic.
• Passive – Passive Mode provides passive WAF operation. All enabled WAF checks are applied, but no
WAF action is performed upon matching traffic. This mode is useful in staging environments to iden-
tify false positives for filtering.
• Active – This is the standard operational mode. You must use Active Mode if you want the WAF to san-
itize or drop traffic based on the configured WAF policies.
Figure 5 shows a typical work flow for WAF deployment, using these modes.
CAUTION: While Learning or Passive Mode is in operation, the WAF does not block any
traffic. Only Active Mode blocks traffic.
Notes:
• Use of the Learning and Passive Modes is recommended during the deployment process.
• To block traffic, you must deploy the WAF in Active Mode.
• To access WAF data event messages, logging to external servers is required. See “WAF Event Logging”
on page 101.
• When the WAF is deployed in either learning or passive mode, traffic is not blocked. However, event
log messages will list the response action (deny, allow, or sanitize) that is configured in the WAF tem-
plate. In addition, WAF counters will continue to increment as if the WAF is deployed in active mode.

Overview
FIGURE 5 Typical Deployment Scenario
The following sections provide more details about each mode.

Overview
Learning Mode
Learning Mode provides a way to dynamically set certain WAF options based on traffic.
When you enable Learning Mode in a WAF template, ACOS resets the following WAF security check values to
zero:
• Maximum Headers – set to 0
• Maximum Cookies – set to 0
• Buffer Overflow (max-url-len, max-hdrs-len, max-cookie-len, and max-post-size) – all set to 0
• Allowed HTTP Methods – set to null
• URL Check (closure list) – set to null
Figure 6 shows an example of the Learning Mode.
FIGURE 6 WAF Learning Mode
1. In Figure 6, a WAF template is configured and is bound to the HTTP/HTTPS virtual port on the ACOS
device. The domain name mapped to the VIP address by DNS is “www.example.com”.
2. Known, valid traffic is then sent to the WAF. As traffic is received by the virtual port to which the WAF
template is bound, ACOS updates the settings for the WAF parameters listed above.
In this example, the following HTTP request is sent:

Overview
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
Connection: close
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0
Accept-Encoding: gzip
Accept: text/html
Cache-Control: no-cache
3. When the WAF receives the request, Learning Mode updates the following checks in the WAF template:
Buffer Overflow Check:
• Maximum headers = 7
• Max-url-len = 15
• Max-hdrs-len = 23
Allowed HTTP Methods Check = GET

URL Check (not shown in example)
4. To “lock in” the WAF template settings, change to a different mode (for example, Passive Mode or Active
Mode). You can fine-tune the template settings later, if needed.
Notes
• Beginning in ACOS release 4.0, the WAF will display the learned values in the running-configuration
only after the WAF deployment mode is changed from Learning Mode to Active Mode or Passive
Mode. The reason for this change in behavior relative to prior releases, is that ACOS 4.0 introduces the
Configuration Manager (CM), which acts like an internal “staging area” for the configuration changes.
Such config changes are temporarily save to short-term memory and will remain there until an opera-
tion is committed, which happens when the WAF is switched from Learning Mode to Passive or Active
Mode. In previous releases, config changes were saved directly into the running-config file, and there
was no internal staging area.
• Before enabling Learning Mode, make sure the WAF is not receiving production traffic. Security checks
in the WAF template are not enforced during Learning Mode and the WAF will not deny any requests,
even if a request fails a security check.
• If the setting for a check reaches its maximum configurable value, the check is set at that value. The
setting value does not increase.
• The URL Check file is not created until the mode is changed from Learning to Passive or Active. You
cannot modify the URL check file while Learning Mode is enabled.
• For an example of Learning Mode, see “WAF Deployment and Logging Examples” on page 123.
Passive Mode
Passive Mode logs traffic that matches a WAF policy file or check, but does not perform any action on match-
ing traffic. While the WAF is operating in Passive Mode, you can monitor the data event log messages sent to

Overview
remote logging servers, and fine-tune your template settings so that valid traffic is not mistakenly blocked
by the WAF.
Typically, Passive Mode is used in a production network to check for false positives while real production traf-
fic is running. A false positive occurs when valid traffic matches a WAF check, and would be dropped during
Active Mode operation.
Figure 7 shows an example of Passive Mode.
FIGURE 7 WAF Passive Mode
This example shows a “false positive” match on the max-cookies check. In this example, the WAF template
allows a maximum of 3 cookie headers within a given request.
1. Client sends request to server.

2. Server replies. The reply contains some cookies inserted by the server.
3. The client sends a new request and inserts the cookies sent by the server in the request.
4. The WAF template allows a maximum of 3 cookies (3 separate cookie headers) in a given client request.
Because the client’s request contains more than 3 cookies, the request fails the max-cookies check, and
a data event log message is sent to the external log server. However, because the WAF is operating in
Passive Mode, the traffic is allowed.
Notes:
• Because the WAF is operating in Passive Mode, the client request is sent to the server instead of being
dropped. In Active Mode, the request would be dropped.

Overview
• To access WAF data event messages, logging to external servers is required. See “WAF Event Logging”
on page 101.
• During Passive Mode operation, data event logs for matching traffic will state that the traffic was
denied even though the traffic in fact is allowed. However, all WAF data event messages include the
operational mode.
Active Mode
Active Mode enforces the policies (definition files) and security checks that are enabled in the WAF template
bound to the virtual port. If the action configured for a specific check is to drop traffic that matches the
check, the traffic is dropped.
Figure 8 shows an example of Active Mode.
FIGURE 8 WAF Active Mode
In this example, a client POST request contains SQL code.
1. The client sends a request. The request contains SQL code. The request is an attempt to inject SQL code
onto the server.
2. The WAF SQL Injection Check detects the SQL. Based on the configuration, the WAF rejects (drops) the
request.
3. The WAF sends a log message to the log server.

Overview
Figure 9 shows a walk-through of the WAF process as it examines the client’s request.
FIGURE 9 WAF Active Mode - walk-through
1. First, the WAF checks the request URI against the entries in the White List. In this case, the URI matches.
The request passes to the next phase, the Black List check.
2. The request URI does not match any of the Black List entries, so is passed to the next phase, the request
checks.

Setting the WAF Operational Mode
3. The request passes the Allowed-HTTP-methods Check. However, the request fails the SQL Injection
Check and is denied.
Setting the WAF Operational Mode

The WAF operational mode is one of the options you can configure within the WAF template. For configura-
tion information, see either of the following chapters:
• “Configuring the WAF Using the GUI” on page 57
• “Configuring the WAF Using the CLI” on page 91

Configuration Overview
Configuring the WAF Using the GUI
The WAF operates on traffic that is addressed to the virtual IP address (VIP) and HTTP/HTTPS virtual port of
your Web site. To apply WAF protection to the virtual port, basic configuration is required. Additional,
advanced configuration is optional.
This chapter describes how to configure the WAF using the GUI.
This section summarizes the configuration tasks for the WAF. The following sections provide detailed steps
for each task.
To apply WAF security controls to a virtual port:
1. Configure a WAF template.

2. Bind the WAF template to the virtual port.
3. (Recommended) Configure external logging. ACOS supports logging of WAF events only to external log
servers. WAF events are not logged in the ACOS device’s local log buffer. (See “Configure External Log-
ging (recommended)” on page 84.)
Notes:
• External logging is the only mechanism supported for accessing WAF data plane log messages.
• The WAF comes with predefined WAF policy files. You can modify policy rules in the URI White and
Black Lists, or add search definitions used for the Bot Check, SQLIA check and so on. For more informa-
tion, see “WAF Policy Files” on page 107. A10 Networks highly recommends modifying WAF policy files
to meet your specific security demands.
• Optionally, you can pair the WAF template with an HTTP policy template to enforce WAF security
checks based on URL, host, or cookie. (See “Overriding a WAF Template” on page 117.)
• For examples of advanced WAF configuration, see “WAF Deployment and Logging Examples” on
page 123.

Bind the WAF Template to the Virtual Port
Bind the WAF Template to the Virtual Port

You can bind a WAF template to an HTTP or HTTPS virtual service port as follows:
1. Hover over Security on the menu bar, then select WAF.

2. Select the WAF Bindings tab, if not already selected.
A table of WAF binding appears. A WAF binding is the combination of a virtual IP address, or “VIP” and a
virtual port with service type HTTP or HTTPS.
3. Click Create.
4. The New WAF Binding page appears, as shown below:
FIGURE 10 Security > WAF > WAF Bindings
5. Click the Virtual Server Name drop-down menu, and select the desired pre-configured VIP that you wish
to bind.
For a VIP to appear in the Virtual Server Name drop-down list, it must be configured with one or more
HTTP/HTTPS
virtual ports.
6. Based on the VIP that you select, the Virtual Server IP field and Port and Protocol fields will automatically
update. If desired, you can click the Port and Protocol drop-down menu and select a different port/proto-
col combination from the list of HTTP or HTTPS ports associated with this VIP.
7. Click the WAF Template drop-down menu and select the desired WAF template from the list that
appears.
If desired, you can click the New WAF Template button to configure a new WAF template for this WAF ser-
vice.
(See “Configure a WAF Template” on page 59.)
8. Click the HTTP Policy drop-down menu and select the desired HTTP template.

Configure a WAF Template
If desired, you can click the New HTTP Template button to configure a new WAF template for this WAF
service.
(See “Configure an HTTP Policy Template” on page 78.)
9. Click the Create button to complete the WAF service configuration.

Use the following steps to configure a WAF template.

2. Select the WAF Templates tab.
3. Click Create.
The WAF template configuration page appears, with the General tab selected, as shown below:
FIGURE 11 WAF Template – General
Configuring General Settings

4. In the Name field, enter a name for the template.
5. In the Deploy Mode field, click the drop-down menu and select the operational mode for the WAF tem-
plate.

• Active – The WAF enforces the checks configured in the template and sends events to the external
log server.
• Passive – The WAF sends events to the external log server but does not enforce any security checks.
• Learning – The WAF template “learns” acceptable check parameters based on a stream of legitimate,
secure traffic. When in Learning Mode, the WAF continues to send events to the external log server.
For more information, see “WAF Operational Modes” on page 49.
6. From the Logging Template drop-down menu, select the name of a configured logging template to
direct WAF logging activity. See “WAF Event Logging” on page 101.
7. Select the Log Successful WAF Requests checkbox if you want the WAF to log debug messages on the suc-
cessful completion of WAF requests, and not just for errors.
8. Click the Deny Action drop-down menu and specify the action to be applied when the WAF denies a cli-
ent’s request.
• HTTP Response 403 – Sends a 403 Forbidden response to the client. When this option is selected,
the default string returns a generic “Request Denied!” page to the client, but you can clear the
“Default Response 403” checkbox and enter your own response string in the “Response URL 403”
field that appears.
• HTTP Response 200 – Sends a 200 OK response to the client with the specified response string. The
default string returns a generic “Request Denied!” page to the client. When this option is selected,
the default string returns a generic “Request Denied!” page to the client, but you can clear the
“Default Response 200” checkbox and enter your own response string in the “Response URL 200”
field that appears.
• HTTP Response Redirect – Redirects the client to the specified URL.
When this option is selected, a text box appears where you can enter a response string or redirect
URL.
• Reset Connection – Sends a TCP RST to the client to end the connection.
9. When finished, click Create to save your changes.
Configuring HTTP Request Checks

1. Select the HTTP Request Checks tab to display the list of security options that can be used to determine
how the WAF will handle HTTP requests from the client. A window similar to that shown below appears.

FIGURE 12 WAF Template – HTTP Request Checks
2. In the Allowed HTTP Methods field, click to select one or more HTTP methods (GET, POST, and so on) that
are allowed to appear in client requests.
3. Select the Bot Check checkbox to check the user-agent of incoming requests for known bots. This check
uses the list of defined bots in the “bot_defs” WAF policy file. For more information, see “Bot Check” on
page 108.
4. Select the URL Check checkbox to prevent users from accessing the URLs of your website directly. The
URL Check allows users to only access Web pages by clicking a hyperlink on your protected Web site. In
the current release, the approved URL path list for the URL Check can be configured only using Learning
Mode. For a deployment example that includes configuration of the URL Check, see “Generate Allowed
URL Paths for the URL Check” on page 127.
5. Select the HTTP Check checkbox to check that user requests are compliant with HTTP protocols.
6. Select the Referer Check checkbox to enable referer checks, or clear the checkbox to disable. The referer
check validates that the referer header in a request contains Web form data from the specified Web
server, rather than from an outside Web site, and helps protect against CSRF attacks. Referer Check
behavior is as follows:
• Enabled – When enabled, the WAF always validates the referer header. Requests will fail the check
if there is no referer header or if the referer header is not valid.
• Disabled – The WAF will not validate requests based on the referer header.
a. Select the Only If Present checkbox to display the Allowed Referer Domains field. Then enter the fully-
qualified domain names (FQDNs) from which requests are allowed to originate.

b. In the Referer safe URL field, enter the URL for redirected requests that do not come from the allowed
referer domains.
7. Select the URI Black List Check checkbox to enable. Select the WAF Black List File drop-down menu that
appears, and select the name of a configured WAF policy file. This option enforces the rules contained
within a WAF policy file for the URI blacklist.The default WAF policy file is “uri_blist_defs”. For more infor-
mation about URI blacklists, see “URI Black List” on page 109.
8. Select the URI White List Check checkbox to enable. Click the WAF White List File drop-down menu that
appears, and select the name of a configured WAF policy file. This option enforces the rules contained
within a WAF policy file for the URI whitelist. The default WAF policy file is “uri_wlist_defs”. For more
information about URI whitelists, see “URI White List” on page 110.

Configuring HTML Request Checks

1. Select the HTML Request Checks tab to display the list of security options that can be used to determine
how the WAF will handle HTML requests from the client. A window similar to that shown below appears.
FIGURE 13 WAF Template – HTML Request Checks
2. Select the Decode Entities checkbox to decode entities, such as < &#xx; &#ddd; &xXX in an internal URL.
3. Select the Decode Escaped Characters checkbox to decode escape characters, such as \r \n \"\xXX in inter-
nal URLs.
4. Select the Decode HEX Characters checkbox to decode hexadecimal characters, such as \%xx and
\%u00yy in an internal URL.
5. Select the Remove Comments checkbox to remove comments from an internal URL.
6. Select the Remove Self-References checkbox to remove self-references, such as /./ and /path/../ from
internal URLs.
7. Select the Remove Spaces checkbox to remove spaces from an internal URL.

Configuring Injection Checks

1. Select the Injection Checks tab to display the list of security options that can be used to determine how
the WAF will handle requests that do not pass the SQL injection attacks check.
A window similar to that shown below appears.
FIGURE 14 WAF Template – Injection Checks
2. In the SQL Injection Attack Check radio button, specify whether the WAF will Sanitize or Reject requests
that do not pass the SQL Injection Attack check. This option is used to check for harmful SQL strings and
protects against SQL injection attacks.
• Selecting Reject will deny the user request.
• Selecting Sanitize will forward the request to the Web server after removing the offending SQL
strings from the message.
3. Selecting either of the above radio buttons displays the SQL Injection Attack Policy File drop-down menu.
Click this drop-down and select the policy file that will be used to perform SQL Injection Attack checks.
By default, the WAF uses the list of defined SQL commands in the “sqlia_defs” WAF policy file. For more
information, see “SQL Injection Attack Check” on page 108.
4. Select the XML Validation – SQL Injection Attack Check checkbox to check XML data against the SQLIA pol-
icy file. The WAF examine the headers and bodies of incoming requests for inappropriate SQL special
characters or keywords that might indicate the presence of an SQL Injection Attack (See “XML SQL Injec-
tion Checks” on page 32 for details.)

Configuring Overflow Checks

1. Select the Overflow Checks tab to display the list of security options that can be used to determine how
the WAF will handle requests that do may be attempting to flood the resources with excessive request
parameters.
FIGURE 15 WAF Template – Overflow Checks
2. Clear the Disable Buffer Overflow Protection checkbox to display the buffer overflow protection options.
These options protect against attempts to cause a buffer overflow on the Web server.
3. In the Max Cookie Length field, enter the maximum length for cookies, cookie names, and/or cookie val-
ues allowed in a request.
4. In the Max Total Cookies Length field, enter the maximum total length for all cookies in a request.
5. In the Max Cookie Name Length field, enter the maximum length for cookie names allowed in a request.
6. In the Max Cookie Value Length field, enter the maximum cookie value length for cookie values allowed
in a request.
7. In the Max Data to Parse field, enter the maximum amount of data that can be parsed in a request.

8. In the Max Request Headers Length field, enter the maximum header length for headers, header names,
and/or header values allowed in requests.
9. In the Max Request Header Name Length field, enter the maximum header length for header names
allowed in requests.
10.In the Max Request Header Value Length field, enter the maximum header length for header values
11.In the Max URL Length field, enter the maximum URL length allowed in requests.
12.In the Max Request Line Length field, enter the maximum length for lines allowed in requests.
13.In the Max Query Length field, enter the maximum length for queries allowed in requests.
14.In the Max Post Size field, enter the maximum content length allowed in HTTP POST requests.
15.In the Max HTML Parameter Name Length field, enter the maximum HTML parameter length allowed for
the parameter names.
16.In the Max HTML Parameter Value Length field, enter the maximum HTML parameter length allowed for
the parameter values.
17.In the Max HTML Parameter Total Length field, enter the maximum HTML parameter length allowed for
the total parameters.
18.In the Max MIME entities allowed field, enter the maximum number of MIME entities allowed in the
request.
19.In the Max Cookies field, enter the maximum number of cookies allowed in a request. You can set a num-
ber ranging from 0–63. The default value is 20.
20.In the Max Headers field, enter the maximum number of header fields that are allowed in a request. You
can set a number ranging from 0–255. The default value is 20.
21.In the Max HTML Parameters field, enter the maximum number of HTML parameters that are allowed in a
request. You can set a number ranging from 0–1024. The default value is 64.
22.When finished, click Create to save your changes.
Configuring Session Checks

1. Select the Session Checks tab to display the list of security options that can be used to enable session
checks.

FIGURE 16 WAF Template – Session Checks
2. Select the Session Check checkbox to enable session checks. When this option is enabled, the WAF cre-
ates a unique ID that is inserted into a cookie and embedded in the server’s response to the client.
Future requests from the same client are validated against this ID, and if the tracking ID (or IP address)
does not match, then the request is rejected.
3. In the Session Check Lifetime field, enter a value ranging from 1–1440 minutes. The default session life-
time is 10 minutes. For more information about Session Checks, see “Session Checks” on page 20.
Configuring Web Service Checks

1. Select the Web Services Checks tab to display the list of security options that can be used to configure
JSON and XML checks.

FIGURE 17 WAF Template – Web Services Checks
2. Select the Enforce JSON compliance checkbox if you wish to have the WAF scrub incoming requests con-
taining JSON code to verify compliance with RFC 4627. Requests will be blocked if the JSON content is
not well- formed.
3. The XSS Check uses “jscript_defs” WAF policy file to examine the content of URL, cookies, headers, and
POST bodies of client requests. By default, the radio button is disabled, but you can select one of the fol-
lowing actions:
• Sanitize – select this to remove the XSS script from the message and forward the message to the Web
server.
• Reject – select this to deny the request.
4. Select the XSS Check Policy File from the drop-down menu. By default, the XSS Check uses the list of
defined Javascript commands from the “jscript_defs” WAF policy file. (See “XSS Check” on page 108.)

JSON Limits:
When the following JSON Limit options are configured, the WAF JSON parser will enforce parsing limits
to protect backend servers from denial-of-service (DoS) attacks that are designed to exhaust system
memory or CPU resources.
5. In the JSON Limit - Max Array Value Count field, enter the maximum number of values in a single array.
The default value is 256, but you can set a number ranging from 0–4096.
6. In the JSON Limit - Max Depth field, enter the maximum recursion depth in a JSON value.
7. In the JSON Limit - Max Object Member Count field, enter the maximum number of members in a JSON
object.
8. In the JSON Limit - Max String field, enter the maximum length of a string (in bytes) for a name or a value
in a JSON request.
9. Select the XML XSS Check checkbox to check XML data against the XSS policy file. The XML cross-site
scripting check examines the headers and bodies of incoming XML requests for Javascript keywords
that might indicate possible cross-site scripting attacks and blocks those requests. (See “XML Cross-Site
Scripting Checks” on page 31 for details.)
10.Select the XML Format Check checkbox to check the HTTP body of the message for XML format compli-
ance. Incoming requests containing XML code are checked for compliance with the XML 1.0 specifica-
tion. (See “XML Format Checks” on page 27 for details.)
11.In the XML Limit - Max Attributes field, enter the maximum number of attributes each individual element
is allowed to have.
The default is 256, but you can enter an integer from 0-256.
12.In the XML Limit - Attribute Max Length field, enter the maximum number of characters allowed per ele-
ment.
13.In the XML Limit - Attribute Text Max Length field, enter the maximum number of characters allowed per
attribute.
14.In the XML Limit - CDATA Section Max Length field, enter the maximum length of CDATA section for each
element.
15.In the XML Limit - Max XML Elements field, enter the maximum number of any one type of element per
XML document.
16.In the XML Limit - Max Element Children field, enter the maximum number of children each element is
allowed to have, including other elements, character information, and comments. The default is 1024,
but you can enter an integer from 0-4096.

17.In the XML Limit - Max Element Depth field, enter the maximum number of nested levels in each element.
18.In the XML Limit - Max Element Name Length field, enter the maximum name length for each element,
including the XML path.
19.In the XML Limit - Max Entity Expansions field, enter the maximum number of entity expansions allowed.
20.In the XML Limit - Max Entity Nested Depth field, enter the maximum depth of nested entity expansions.
21.In the XML Limit - Max Namespace Declarations field, enter the maximum number of namespace declara-
tions in an XML document. The default is 16, but you can enter an integer from 0-256.
22.In the XML Limit - Max Namespace URI Length field, enter the maximum URI length allowed for each
namespace declaration.
23.Select the checkbox for XML Validation - WSDL File - Resp Val if you want the WAF to validate SOAP mes-
sages from a protected web application server using a Web Services Description Language (WSDL) doc-
ument.
• If you selected the checkbox, select the desired file from the XML Validation - WSDL File - Resp Val
drop-down menu.
• If you cleared the checkbox clear (default), optionally select the XML Validation - WSDL File from the
drop-down menu.
24.Select the checkbox for XML Validation - XML-Schema file - Resp Val if you want the WAF to validate SOAP
messages from a protected web application server using an XML Schema file.
• If you selected the checkbox, select the desired file from the XML Validation - XML-Schema file - Resp
Val drop-down menu.
• If you cleared the checkbox clear (default), optionally select the XML Validation - XML-Schema file from
the drop-down menu.
25.Select the Enforce SOAP compliance on XML checkbox to check XML documents for SOAP format compli-
ance. The WAF blocks those which are not well-formed. SOAP format checks are typically done in tan-
dem with XML format checks. See “WAF SOAP Checks” on page 33 for details.
26.When finished, click Create to save your changes.
Configuring Cookie Encryption Checks

1. Select the Cookie Encryption Checks tab to display the list of security options that can be used to prevent
cookie tampering.

FIGURE 18 WAF Template – Cookie Encryption Checks
2. In the Cookie Name field, enter the name of a cookie or PCRE expression. This option protect against
cookie tampering by encrypting cookies by a specific name or for all cookies that match a PCRE expres-
sion.
3. In the Cookie Encryption Secret field, enter a string which will be used to encrypt and decrypt the cook-
ies. The encryption uses a secret passphrase to decrypt and encrypt cookies that are transferred
between the Web server and client.

Configuring Server Filter Checks

1. Select the Server Filter Checks tab to display the list of security options that can be used to block or pre-
vent the outbound responses from Web server to client. A window similar to that shown below appears.
FIGURE 19 WAF Template – Server Filter Checks
2. Select the Filter Response Headers checkbox to remove the Web server’s identifying headers in outgoing
responses.
3. Select the Hide Response Codes checkbox to enable this option to cloak 4xx and 5xx response codes for
outbound responses from the Web server. By default, this check uses the “allowed_resp_codes” WAF
policy file for a list of acceptable HTTP response codes. However, you can click the Hide Response Codes
file drop-down menu that appears to specify a different file. For more information, see “Allowed HTTP
Response Codes” on page 110.
4. Select the Redirect Whitelist checkbox to enable protection against unvalidated redirects, which can
occur if a hacker uses social networking to trick unsuspecting users into clicking on a malicious hyper-
link. The WAF must be deployed in Learning Mode when the redirect-wlist CLI command is used for the
first time so the list of acceptable locations can be built up. The WAF pre-learns a white-list of acceptable
locations to which users can safely be redirected. If one of the web servers gets hacked and attempts to
redirect a user to a location that does not appear in the redirect white-list, then the WAF blocks the redi-
rect. See “Open Redirect Mitigation” on page 22 for details.

Configuring Content Filter Checks

1. Select the Content Filter Checks tab to display the configurable content filtering options.
FIGURE 20 WAF Template – Content Filter Checks
2. Select the CCN Mask checkbox if you want the WAF to examine strings of outbound replies from the Web
server for patterns of numerical characters that resemble credit card numbers (CCN). If the WAF identi-
fies a credit card number, the WAF replaces all but the last four digits of credit card numbers with “x”
characters.
NOTE: From the CLI, you can view counters for the CCN check. These counters dis-
play the number of masked credit card numbers for various bank providers.
3. Select the SSN Mask checkbox if you want the WAF to scan HTTP responses for strings that resemble US
Social Security numbers and masks all but the last four digits of the string with “x” characters in a
response.
4. The PCRE Mask hides strings that match the specified PCRE pattern. (See “Writing PCRE Expressions” on
page 113 for details.) In the PCRE fields, enter the following values:
• PCRE Pattern – Masks patterns in a response that match the specified PCRE pattern.
• PCRE Mask Character – Selects a character to masked the matched pattern of a string. By default,
strings are masked with an “X” character.
• PCRE Keep Start – Sets the number of unmasked characters at the beginning of the string. This can
be 0-65535, the default is 0.

• PCRE Keep End – Sets the number of unmasked characters at the end of the string. This can be 0-
65535, the default is 0.
NOTE: You can configure PCRE patterns to match only on string of fixed length. For
this reason, wild-card characters that can mask excessively long strings (*
and +) are not supported.
If either the asterisk (*) or plus symbol (+) is detected during the syntax check, the syntax
check will automatically fail. To use an expression that matches an actual “*” or “+” char-
acter, use an escape character (\) before the matched symbol. For example, to search for
the actual asterisk (*) or plus character (+), enter “\*” or “\+”.
Configuring Form Checks

1. Select the Form Checks tab to display the list of security options that can be used to configure Web form
options.
FIGURE 21 WAF Template – Form Checks
2. Select the Deny Forms Not Using POST checkbox to deny HTTP requests containing forms if the method
used is anything other than POST.
3. Select the CSRF Check checkbox to tag the fields of a web form with a nonce (a unique FormID). This
check protects against cross-site request forgery (CSRF).
4. Select the Form Consistency Check checkbox to check that the user input to a Web form field conforms to
the intended format for that entry. For example, it checks that a radio button is selected versus supply-
ing a string for that form field. WAF also parses HTTP bodies encoded as multipart/form-data. Extracted
form fields are verified against previously parsed HTML forms.

5. Select the Deny non-SSL Forms checkbox to deny user passwords that are sent over a non-encrypted
connection. If the connection between the client and the WAF is secured with SSL/TLS, the user pass-
word is allowed, but if the client attempts to submit to a form field where “input type=password”, and if
the connection is not encrypted with SSL/TLS, the WAF blocks the transmission. (For more information,
see “Deny Passwords Sent Over an Unencrypted Connection” on page 21.)
6. Select the Deny Caching of Form Responses checkbox to add “no-cache directives” if the HTTP response
contains <form> tags. The “no-cache” behavior is enforced by adding the following headers: (1) Cache-
Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, (2) Pragma: no-cache, (3) Expires: 0
Configuring Password Checks

1. Select the Password Checks tab to display the list of security options related to password options.
FIGURE 22 WAF Template – Password Checks
2. Select the Deny non-masked password fields checkbox to prevent “should surfing” by denying the web
server’s attempt to send a form through the WAF unless the field type for the password field has been
set to “password”. (For more information, see “Deny Unmasked Passwords” on page 20.)
3. Select the Deny Autocompleted Passwords checkbox to deny web server attempts to transmit the form if
one of the form fields type is set to “password” and if the “autocomplete=on/off” attribute is set to “on”.
Enabling this option blocks browser “autocomplete” behavior. Although convenient for users, password
auto-completion weakens security by allowing browsers to store user passwords in order to later guess
the user’s password for some websites. (For more information, see “Deny Passwords if Autocomplete is
Enabled” on page 21.)
4. Select the Deny non-SSL Passwords checkbox to deny HTTP requests containing forms if the transmission
protocol used is anything other than SSL (TLS).

Create a WAF File
Create a WAF File

You can create a WAF files that will be used to parse incoming requests that contain XML, SOAP, of JSON
code.

2. Select the WAF Files tab. A table of WAF files appears, similar to that shown in Figure 23 below.
FIGURE 23 Security > WAF > WAF Files
3. Enter a value in the Max Filesize field. Enter a value from 16–256 (KBytes). The default value is 32Kb.
4. Click Create to create a new WAF Policy.
5. Select the one of the following tabs:
• WAF Policies – see “WAF Policy Files” on page 107 for background information.
The WAF Policy table lists the default policy files, such as “bot_defs”, “jscript_defs”, and “sqlia_defs”. If
the Bot Checks, Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) Check, or SQL Injection Checks are enabled in a WAF tem-
plate, the policy files can be used to scrub incoming requests. For example, if the Bot Check option is
enabled in the WAF template and a match is found on an incoming request (using the “bot_defs”
file), the request we be denied automatically. You can copy the “bot_defs” file and modify the con-

Create a WAF File
tents to include or remove bot search terms. Simply click the Edit link, make changes, and save the
new copy.
To configure, click the Create button in the WAF Policy section. A window similar to that shown in
Figure 23 on page 76 appears.
~ If selecting the Local radio button, then enter the name and definition, and then click Create.
~ If selecting the Remote radio button, enter the name, transport protocol (e.g., TFTP, FTP, SCP, SFTP),
Host IP/FQDN, Port, Location, and user credentials (user/password) for the server where the file is
located. Then click Create.
• XML Schemas – see “WAF XML Checks” on page 26 for background information.
To configure, click the Create button in the XML Schemas section.

~ If selecting the Local radio button, then enter the name and definition, and click Create.
~ If selecting the Remote radio button, enter the name, transport protocol, Host IP/FQDN, and path
to the file. Then click Create.
• SOAP WSDLs – see “WAF SOAP Checks” on page 33 for background information.
To configure, click the Create button in the SOAP WSDL section.

~ If selecting the Local radio button, then enter the name and definition, and then click Create.
~ If selecting the Remote radio button, enter the name, transport protocol (e.g., TFTP, FTP, SCP, SFTP),
Host IP/FQDN, Port, Location, and option credentials (user/password) for the server where the file is
located. Then click Create.
FIGURE 24 WAF > Files > (WAF Policy/XML Scheme/SOAP WSDL) > Create
6. Click the Update button.

Configure an HTTP Policy Template

You can configure ACOS to override the WAF settings applied to the HTTP/HTTPS virtual port with another
set of WAF settings, using an HTTP policy template. You can configure rules in the HTTP template to match
on URLs, hostnames, or cookie names in traffic.
For a general discussion of configuring an HTTP Policy Template, see “Overriding a WAF Template” on
page 117.
Configure an HTTP Policy Template to Override a WAF Template
You can configure an HTTP policy template as follows:

2. Select the HTTP Policies tab. A table listing the configured HTTP Policies appears.
3. You can create a new HTTP Policy Template by clicking the Create button, or simply click Edit link in the
Actions column.
The Create HTTP Policies window appears, as shown below:
FIGURE 25 Create HTTP Policies
4. The Name field is not editable, since this example show how to update an existing HTTP policy template.
5. In the Cookie Name field, enter the cookie name associated with this HTTP Policy.
6. In the Match Rules section of the window, click the Add button.
The Add HTTP Policy Match Rule window appears, similar to that shown below:

FIGURE 26 Add HTTP Policy Match Rule
Configure rules that match on URLs, hostnames, or cookie names. Client requests that match a rule in
the HTTP policy template are handled using the alternative WAF template that you will later bind to the
HTTP policy template.
7. To configure rules for matching:
a. Click the Type drop-down list and select one of the follow rule types:
• URL
• Host
• Cookie Name
a. Click the Match Type drop-down list and select the match operation:
• Starts With
• Ends With
• Contains
• Equals
b. In the Match field, enter the match pattern.

• Equals string – matches only if the URL, hostname, or cookie name completely matches the
specified string.
• Starts-with string – matches only if the URL, hostname, or cookie name starts with the speci-
fied string.
• Contains string – matches if the string appears anywhere within the URL, hostname, or cookie
name.
• Ends-with string – matches only if the URL, hostname, or cookie name ends with the specified
string.

These match options are always applied in the order shown above, regardless of the order in which
the rules appear in the configuration. The WAF template associated with the rule that matches first is
used.
If a template has more than one rule with the same match option (equals, starts-with, contains, or
ends-with) and a URL matches on more than one of them, the most-specific match is always used.
c. From the Service Group drop-down menu, select the desired drop-down menu that you wish to asso-
ciate with this match rule.
d. From the WAF drop-down menu, select the WAF template to which to bind this HTTP policy tem-
plate. The WAF template you select will be used for traffic that matches the rule.
e. Click the Add button.
f. Repeat this process for each rule you wish to add to the HTTP Policy.
8. Click the Add button to save your changes.
9. In the Geo Location Matches section of the window, click the Add button.
The Add HTTP Policy Geo Location Match Rule window appears, similar to that shown below:
FIGURE 27 Add HTTP Policy Geo Location Match Rule
10.Enter the Geo Location. (See “Geo-location Based Blocking” on page 38 for more information.)
11.From the Service Group drop-down menu, select the desired drop-down menu that you wish to associ-
ate with this match rule.
12.From the WAF drop-down menu, select the WAF template to which to bind this HTTP policy template.
The WAF template you select will be used for geo-location traffic that matches the rule.
13.Click the Add button to save your changes.

WAF Reporting
WAF Reporting
ACOS offers a reporting feature that allows you to view WAF statistics through the Web GUI. Currently, this
information can be displayed using the following WAF report types:
• Top URL – this report type indicates the most frequently accessed URLs during a specified time inter-
val.
• Top Violation – this report type indicates the most common WAF violations that occurred during a
specified time interval. This report provides information similar to the violations listed under the
Global Stats page, such as SQL Injection Attacks and Buffer Overflows.
• Top Attacker – this report type indicates the source IP where most attacks originated during a speci-
fied time interval.
WAF Reporting can be helpful, because it provides complex information in a visual format, making it easier to
see, for example, the types of attacks that might be occurring, when they occurred, how long they lasted,
and the size or magnitude of the attack. Similarly, WAF Reporting can show you which URLs are being
accessed on your network and the times of day this is happening.
To generate a WAF Report, follow the procedure below:

2. Select the Reporting tab.
A window similar to that shown in Figure 28 appears.

WAF Reporting
FIGURE 28 WAF > Reporting (Top 10 URLs over Last Day)
3. Click the Report Type drop-down menu and select one of the following menu items: Top URL, Top Viola-
tion, or Top Attacker.
4. In the Top N field, enter the desired number (1–20). For example, entering 10 will result in a “Top 10”
report.
5. Click the Time Interval drop-down menu and select one of the following tabs:
• Last Hour
• Last Day
• Last Week
• Last Month
• Last Year
• Select Period – specify the Unit (Minute, Hour, Day, Week, Month) and then enter the Period.
• Select Date Time – enter the Start Time and End Time by selecting a date from the calendar window
that appears.
NOTE: The granularity of the history shown in a WAF report varies depending on
the time interval specified. Reports with shorter durations, (for example, the
Last Day) will include more granular information than reports that are spread
out over a month.

WAF Reporting
6. Click the Apply button to generate your desired chart/graph.

A window similar to that shown in Figure 28 appears. In this example, the Top 10 Violations are shown.
FIGURE 29 WAF Report with Top 10 Violations During Last Week
Details:
• The figure above shows a WAF Report for the Top 10 Violations during the last week. The most com-
mon violation
(URI While List Failure) appears at the top of the chart, and the second most common violation
(Response Headers Filtered), appears in the second position from the top of the chart, and so on.
• The horizontal axis shows Date Time, and the vertical axis is used to show the Count.
• The blue dots represent the number of times a particular violation occurred during the time interval.
In this example, a blue dot appears every hour.
• You can optionally click the green Show Charts button (at upper right) to toggle between showing
and hiding the charts.
7. (Optional) To see where attacks are coming from, you can select Top Attacker from the Report Type, and
click Apply to generate the desired chart.
A window similar to that shown in Figure 30 appears. In this example, the Top 10 Attackers are shown.
However, in this particular example, the attacks are all coming from one hypothetical source IP address:
172.128.9.154.

Configure External Logging (recommended)
FIGURE 30 WAF Report with Top 10 Attackers During Last Day

Although optional, A10 Networks strongly recommends configuring external logging. It is the only mecha-
nism supported for accessing WAF log messages.
Logging of WAF events to external logging servers is supported over TCP or UDP, although UDP is typically
used for Syslog.
You can configure logging to a single server or a group of servers. If you use a group of servers, ACOS bal-
ances the log traffic among the servers for optimal efficiency.
To configure web logging:
1. Create a server configuration for each log server. On each server, add a UDP port with the port number
on which the log server listens for log messages. (While either TCP or UDP would work, Syslog typically
uses UDP.)
2. Add the log servers to a service group. Make sure to use the round-robin load-balancing method. (This is
the default method.)
3. (Optional) If logging over TCP, configure a TCP-proxy template to customize TCP settings for connections
between ACOS and the log servers. For example, you can enable use of keepalive probes to ensure that
the TCP connections with the log servers remain established during idle periods between logs.

4. Configure a logging template. Add the service group containing the log servers to the logging template.
If you configure a custom TCP-proxy template, also add that template to the logging template.
5. Apply the logging template to the WAF template.
External logging is activated once you bind the WAF template to a virtual port.
Configure Log Servers

1. Hover over ADC on the menu bar, then select SLB.
2. Select the Servers tab.
3. Click the Create button.
A window similar to that shown below appears:
FIGURE 31 Create WAF Logging server
4. In the Name field, enter a name for the external log server.
5. In the Type radio button, select the IP version, IPv4, IPv6, or FQDN.
6. In the Host field, enter the server’s IP address or FQDN.
7. In the Port section of the window, configure the protocol port information:
a. Click the Create button.
b. Enter the following:

• Port Number – enter the port number in this field (514, which is the default for Syslog)
• Protocol – click the drop-down and select UDP protocol for this port.
• Range – enter the range of port values
• Health Check – select one of the radio buttons for Default, Disable, Monitor, Follow Port
• Connection Limit – enter a value ranging from 1-8000000.
• Select the No Logging checkbox.
• Click Create. The port appears in the list of ports for this server.
8. Click Create again. The server appears in the list of servers.

9. Repeat this process to add additional servers, as needed.
Add Server to Service Group

1. Hover over ADC on the menu bar, then select SLB.
2. Select the Service Groups tab.
3. Click Create.
FIGURE 32 Create Service Group
4. Enter a name for the service group in the Name field.

5. Click the Protocol drop-down and select UDP from the list. (Optionally, you could select TCP, but not rec-
ommended.)

6. Click the Algorithm drop-down and select the desired load balancing algorithm (e.g., Round Robin, Least
Connection).
7. If desired, select the Health Check Disable checkbox, or if health checks are desired, then select one from
the Health Monitor drop-down menu.
8. In the Member section, click Create to add the server.
FIGURE 33 Adding a Member to the Service Group
a. For the desired Choose creation type radio button, select Existing Server.
b. Click the Server drop-down list and select the server(s) you just created in “Configure Log Servers” on
page 85.
c. Enter 514 in the Port field, since we are using Syslog. (Use the same number as specified in the server
config.)
d. In the Priority field, enter an appropriate value from 1-16.
Assign a higher priority number to the primary servers, and assign lower numbers for the servers that
will be used as backups. By default, the ACOS device will not use the lower-priority backup servers
unless all of the primary servers are down. The same priority number should be used for all the pri-
mary servers, but keep in mind that assigning the same priority value to the primary servers will
cause the logs to be load balanced across the primary servers, and will NOT cause duplicate copies of
the logs to be sent to multiple primary servers. For a detailed discussion and background informa-
tion on how Priority works, please see the “Priority Affinity” chapter in the Application Delivery and
Server Load Balancing Guide.
e. (Optional) Click the Template drop-down and select an HTTP template.
f. Click the State drop-down menu and select Enable or Disable to decide if the server will be active or
not.

g. (Optional) You can select Stats Data Disable checkbox if you wish to disable statistical data collection
for system resources, such as CPU, memory, disk, or interfaces.
h. Click Create button.
i. Repeat these steps for each server you wish to add to this service group.
Configure the Logging Template

1. Hover over ADC on the menu bar, then select Templates.
2. Select the General tab.
3. Click the Create button, and from the drop-down menu that appears, select Logging.
FIGURE 34 Create Logging Template
4. In the Name field, enter a name for the template.

5. In the Format field, enter the log format. (See “WAF Log Examples” on page 104.)
6. In the Local Logging field, enter the local logging information.
7. Click the Service Group drop-down menu and select the service group that contains the log servers.
8. For the PCRE Mask radio button, select Enable or Disable. (See “Writing PCRE Expressions” on page 113 for
details.)
9. If you configured a custom TCP-proxy template for logging over TCP, select the template from the drop-
down.
10.Click the OK button.

Apply the Log Template to the WAF Template

2. Select the WAF Templates tab.
3. Click the Edit link next to the desired WAF template name to display the General Settings. (See Figure 11
on page 59.)
4. Click the Logging Template drop-down menu and select the logging template you just created.
5. Click the Update button.


Required Configuration
Configuring the WAF Using the CLI
The WAF operates on traffic that is addressed to the virtual IP address (VIP) and HTTP/HTTPS virtual port of
your Web site. To apply WAF protection to the virtual port, basic configuration is required. Additional,
advanced configuration is optional.
This chapter describes how to configure the WAF using the command-line interface (CLI).
NOTE: For deployment examples, see “WAF Deployment and Logging Examples” on
page 123.
Required Configuration
The minimum required configuration for the WAF consists of the following tasks:
1. Create a WAF template.

2. Bind the WAF template to the HTTP/HTTPS virtual port on the VIP.
NOTE: Configuration of other SLB resources required by the virtual port, such as real
servers and service groups, are not covered here. However, the deployment
examples in the guide include the commands for configuring these
resources. (See “WAF Deployment and Logging Examples” on page 123.)
Create a WAF Template

To create or modify a WAF template, use the following command at the global configuration level of the CLI:
waf template template-name
For the template-name option, enter the name of an existing WAF template to modify the template’s configu-
ration, or an unused name to create a new WAF template. This command enters the CLI configuration level
for the template.
If you plan to use all the default settings for the template (including Active Mode operation) no further tem-
plate configuration is required. To customize template settings, see “Optional Configuration” on page 93.

External Logging Configuration
Bind the WAF Template to the HTTP/HTTPS Virtual Port

The WAF template goes into operation after you bind the template to an HTTP/HTTPS port.
To bind a template to a virtual port, you must access the configuration level for the port.
1. From the global configuration level of the CLI, use the following command to access the configuration
level for the virtual server that will receive HTTP/HTTPS traffic to be secured using the WAF:
slb virtual-server name ipaddr
2. At the configuration level for the virtual server, use the following command to access the configuration
level for the virtual port:
port port-number {http | https}
3. At the configuration level for the virtual port, use the following command to bind the WAF template to
the port:
template waf template-name
External Logging Configuration

Although optional, A10 Networks strongly recommends external logging. It is the only mechanism sup-
ported for accessing WAF data event messages.
To configure external logging for WAF:
1. Create a server configuration for each log server. Add a TCP or UDP port to each server configuration,
with the port number on which the external log server listens for log messages.
a. Use the following command to add a server and access the configuration level for it:
slb server server-name ipaddr
b. Use the following command to add a TCP or UDP port to the server. Specify the port number on
which the server will listen for log traffic.
port port-num {tcp | udp}
2. Add the log servers to a service group. Make sure to use the round-robin load-balancing method. (This is
the default method.)
a. Use the following command to add the service group and access the configuration level for it:
slb service-group group-name {tcp | udp}
b. Use the following command to add each log server and its TCP or UDP port to the group:
member server-name portnum

Optional Configuration
3. (TCP only) If logging over TCP, configure a TCP-proxy template to customize TCP settings for connections
to log servers. For example, you can enable use of keepalive probes, to ensure that the TCP connections
with the log servers remain established during idle periods between logs.
a. Use the following command to create the TCP-proxy template and access the configuration level for
it:
slb template tcp-proxy template-name
b. Use the following command to set keep-alive probes:

keepalive-probes num
4. Configure a logging template:

a. Use the following command to create the logging template and access the configuration level for it:
slb template logging template-name
b. Use the following command to add the service group containing the log servers to the logging tem-
plate:
service-group group-name
c. If you configured a TCP-proxy template, use the following command to add that template to the log-
ging template:
template tcp-proxy template-name
5. Bind the logging template to the WAF template:

a. Use the following command to access the configuration level for the WAF template:
waf template template-name
b. Use the following command to bind the logging template to the WAF template:
template logging template-name
NOTE: External logging is activated once you bind the WAF template that uses the
logging template to an HTTP/HTTPS virtual port.
This section provides syntax for the following WAF configuration options:
• Deployment mode
• Custom policy files (definitions)
• Request checks
• Deny action (WAF response sent to client when a request is denied by the WAF)
• Response checks

Set Deployment Mode

The default operational mode for WAF is active. To change the operational mode, use the following com-
mand at the configuration level for the WAF template:
deploy-mode {active | passive | learning}
You can deploy WAF in one of the following operational modes:
• active – The WAF enforces the security checks configured on the template and sends events to the
external log server.
• passive– The WAF sends events to the external log server only and does not enforce any security
checks.
• learning – The WAF template “learns” acceptable check parameters based on a stream of legitimate,
secure traffic. In Learning Mode, the WAF continues to send events to the external log server.
For more information, see “WAF Operational Modes” on page 49.
Customize WAF Policy Files
CAUTION: A mis-configured PCRE expression can negatively impact system perfor-

mance. Do not apply a PCRE expression to a WAF policy file unless you are
completely certain that the PCRE expression will achieve the desired result.
The WAF is pre-loaded with a set of default policy files which are used for certain security checks. For exam-
ple, if you enable bot checking with the WAF template, the default “bots_def” WAF policy file is used for a list
of known bot names. (See “Bot Check” on page 108.)
Optionally, you can customize WAF policy files and apply these files to security checks. For example, you can
copy the default bots policy file, modify and import the copied file, then update the corresponding WAF
template option to use the custom policy file.
For more information, see “WAF Policy Files” on page 107.

Configure Security Checks for Requests

To configure individual WAF security checks for requests, use the following commands:
• allowed-http-methods method-list – Use this command to specify the HTTP methods (GET, POST,
and so on) that are allowed in requests.
• bot-check – Use this command to check the user-agent of incoming requests for known bots. This
check uses the list of defined bots in the “bot_defs” WAF policy file. See “Bot Check” on page 108.
• buf-ovf option – Use this command to configure checks for attempts to cause a buffer overflow on
the Web server.
• disable – Disables buffer overflow protection.
• max-cookie-len bytes – Sets the maximum length for cookies allowed in requests.
• max-cookie-name-len bytes – Sets the maximum length for cookie names in requests.
• max-cookie-value-len bytes – Sets the maximum length for cookie values in requests.
• max-cookies-len bytes – Sets the maximum total length for cookies allowed in requests.
• max-data-parse bytes – Sets the maximum data parsed for Web Application Firewall.
• max-hdr-name-len bytes - Sets the maximum header name length allowed in requests.
• max-hdr-value-len bytes - Sets the maximum header value length allowed in requests.
• max-hdrs-len bytes – Sets the maximum header length for headers allowed in requests.
• max-line-len bytes - Sets the maximum line length allowed in requests.
• max-parameter-name-len bytes - Sets the maximum parameter name length allowed in requests.
• max-parameter-total-len bytes - Sets the maximum total number of parameters allowed in

requests.
• max-parameter-value-len bytes - Sets the maximum parameter value length allowed in requests.
• max-post-size bytes – Sets the maximum content length allowed in HTTP POST requests.
• max-query-len bytes - Sets the maximum query length allowed in requests.
• max-url-len bytes – Sets the maximum URL length allowed in requests.
• csrf-check – Use this command to tag the fields of a web form with a nonce. This check protects
against cross-site request forgery (CSRF). “XSS Check” on page 108
• deny-action response-type – Use this command to specify the type of response string sent to a cli-
ent when WAF denies a request
• http-resp-403 resp-string – Sends a 403 Forbidden response to the client. The default string
returns a generic “Request Denied!” page to the client.
• http-resp-200 resp-string– Sends a 200 OK response to the client with the specified resp-string.
The default string returns a generic “Request Denied!” page to the client.

• http-redirect url-string – Sends a 302 Found redirection address to the client with the URL spec-
ified in the redirect-url.
• reset-conn – Terminates the client connection.
• deny-non-masked-passwords – Prevents “should surfing” by denying the web server’s attempt to send
a form through the WAF unless the field type for the password field has been set to “password”. See
“Deny Unmasked Passwords” on page 20.
• deny-non-ssl-passwords – Denies user passwords that are sent over a non-encrypted connection. If
the connection between the client and the WAF is secured with SSL/TLS, then the user password is
allowed, but if the client attempts to submit to a form field where “input type=password”, and if the
connection is not encrypted with SSL/TLS, then the WAF blocks the transmission. The feature is dis-
abled by default, meaning that forms not using the SSL/TLS protocol will not be denied. See “Deny
Passwords Sent Over an Unencrypted Connection” on page 21.
• deny-password-autocomplete – Denies web server attempts to transmit the form if one of the form
fields type is set to “password” and if the “autocomplete=on/off” attribute is set to “on”. Enabling this
option blocks browser “autocomplete” behavior. Although convenient for users, password auto-com-
pletion weakens security by allowing browsers to store user passwords in order to later guess the
user’s password for some websites. See “Deny Passwords if Autocomplete is Enabled” on page 21.
• form-consistency-check – Use this command to check that the user input to a form field conforms
to the form field tag. WAF also parses HTTP bodies encoded as multipart/form-data. Extracted form
fields are verified against previously parsed HTML forms.
• form-deny-non-post – Deny request with forms if the method is not POST.
• form-deny-non-ssl – Deny request with forms if the protocol is not SSL.
• form-set-no-cache – Disable caching of form-containing responses.
• http-check – Use this command to check that user requests are compliant with HTTP protocols.
• json-format-check – Checks that incoming requests containing JSON code are in compliance with
RFC 4627, and blocks requests if the JSON content is not well- formed.
• json-limit – Enforces parsing limits to protect backend servers against various types of denial-of-
service (DoS) attacks, which are designed to exhaust system memory or CPU resources.
• max-array-value-count num – Limits the maximum number of values within a single array.
• max-depth num – Limits the maximum recursion depth in a JSON value.
• max-object-member-count num – Limits the number of members in a JSON object.
• max-string num – Limits the length of a string in a JSON request for a name or a value.
• log-succ-reqs – Enabling this option logs a debug message on the successful completion of WAF
requests, and not just for errors.
• max-cookies num – Specifies the maximum number of cookies allowed in a request.
• max-entities num – Specifies the maximum number of MIME entities allowed in request.

• max-hdrs num – Specifies the maximum number of headers allowed in a request.
• max-parameters num – Specifies the maximum number of parameters allowed in a request.
• redirect-wlist– Enables protection against unvalidated redirects, which can occur if a hacker uses
social networking to trick unsuspecting users into clicking on a malicious hyperlink. The WAF must be
deployed in Learning Mode when the redirect-wlist CLI command is used for the first time so the list of
acceptable locations can be built up. The WAF pre-learns a white-list of acceptable locations to which
users can safely be redirected. If one of the web servers gets hacked and attempts to redirect a user to
a location that does not appear in the redirect white-list, then the WAF blocks the redirect. See “Open
Redirect Mitigation” on page 22 for details.
• referer-check {enable | only-if-present}
safe-referer-domain safe-redirect-url – Use this command to validate that the referer header in
a request contains Web form data from the specified Web server, rather than from an outside Web site.
This check protects against CSRF attacks.
• enable – always validates the referer header. If selected, the request fails the referer check if there is
no referer header or if the referer header is invalid.
• only-if-present – validates the referer header only if a referer header exists. If the check finds an
invalid referer header, the request fails the check. However, the request does not fail the check if
there is no referer header in the request.
• session-check secs – This command creates an ID for a client request and inserts it in a cookie in the
response. Future requests from the same client are validated against the session cookie. If the ID or IP
do not match, then the request will be rejected. The default lifetime for the session ID is 600 seconds.
See “Session Checks” on page 20.
• soap-format-check – Check XML documents for SOAP format compliance and blocks those which are
not well-formed. SOAP format checks are typically done in tandem with XML format checks. See “WAF
SOAP Checks” on page 33 for details.
• sqlia-check {reject | sanitize} – Use this command to check for SQL strings to protect against
SQL injection attacks. This check uses the list of defined SQL commands in the “sqlia_defs” WAF policy
file. See “SQL Injection Attack Check” on page 108.
• reject – denies requests that contain SQL injection attacks.
• sanitize – removes the SQL injection attack and forwards the request to the Web server.
• uri-blist-check file-name – Enforces the rules contained within a WAF policy file for the URI Black
List. For more information see, “URI Black List” on page 109.
• uri-wlist-check file-name – Enforces the rules contained within a WAF policy file for the URI White
List. For more information, see “URI White List” on page 110.
• url-check – The URL Check allows users to access Web pages only by clicking hyperlinks on your pro-
tected Web site, as opposed to allowing users to access hidden web pages by typing the full URL in the
browser. Select this option to prevent users from manually typing the URL for content on your website
that you do not want accessible.
The list of approved URL paths is initially generated as a policy file during Learning Mode. After this list
is generated, you can customize the contents of the URL Check policy file. For a deployment example

that includes configuration of the URL Check, see “Generate Allowed URL Paths for the URL Check” on
page 127.
• url-options option – This command is used to normalize requested URLs.
The url-options command helps shorten URLs, thus preventing buffer overflows from long URLs.
• decode-entities - Decode entities, such as <, in an internal URL.
• decode-escaped-chars - Decode escaped chars, such as \r or \n, in an internal URL.
• decode-hex-chars - Decode hexadecimal characters, such as \%xx and \%u00yy, in an internal URL.
• remove-comments - Remove comments from an internal URL.
• remove-selfref - Remove self-references, such as /./ and /path/../, from an internal URL.
• remove-spaces - Remove spaces from an internal URL.
NOTE: ACOS 4.0 does not support the ability to decode a plus symbol “+” in the URL
if it is being used to represent a space by the browsers.
• xml-format-check – Check HTTP body for XML format compliance. Incoming requests containing
XML code are checked for compliance with the XML 1.0 specification. (See “XML Format Checks” on
page 27 for details.)
• xml-limit – XML parsing limits. (See “XML Limit Checks” on page 29 for details.)
• max-attr num – Limits the maximum number of attributes/children each individual element is
allowed to have.
• max-attr-name-len num – Limits the maximum length of each attribute name.
• max-attr-value-len num – Limits the maximum length of each attribute value.
• max-cdata-len num – Limits the length of the CDATA section for each element.
• max-elem num – Limits the maximum number of any one type of element per XML document.
• max-elem-child num – Limits the maximum number of children each element is allowed, and
includes other elements, character information, and comments. Range is 1–65535. Default is 65535.
• max-elem-depth depth – Limits the maximum number of nested levels in each element.
• max-elem-name-len length – Limits the maximum length of name of each element, and includes the
XML path, which is in the following format: http://<site>/<path>/page.xml

• max-entity-exp num – Limits the number of entity expansions allowed.

• max-entity-exp-depth num – Limits the maximum depth of nested entity expansions.
• max-namespace num – Limits the number of namespace declarations in XML document.
• max-namespace-uri-len num – Limits the URL length for each namespace declaration.
• xml-sqlia-check – Checks XML data against SQLIA policy. Checking for XML SQL Injection attacks
means the WAF examine the headers and bodies of incoming requests for inappropriate SQL special
characters or keywords that might indicate the presence of an SQL Injection Attack (See “XML SQL
Injection Checks” on page 32 for details.)
• xml-validation xml-schema [resp-val] xml-schema-file-name – Checks incoming requests
against an XML schema file to validate the XML content. Used to prevent hackers from using invalid
XML messages that have been specially-constructed to evade application security. (See “XML Valida-
tion Checks” on page 27 for details.)
• xml-xss-check – Checks XML data against XSS policy. The XML cross-site scripting check examines the
headers and bodies of incoming XML requests for Javascript keywords that might indicate possible
cross-site scripting attacks and blocks those requests. (See “XML Cross-Site Scripting Checks” on
page 31 for details.)
• xss-check {reject | sanitize} – Use this command to check for potential HTML XSS scripts to pro-
tect against cross-site scripting attacks. This check uses the list of defined Javascript commands in the
“jscript_defs” WAF policy file. See “XSS Check” on page 108.
• reject – denies requests that contain cross-site scripting.
• sanitize – removes the detected XSS script and forwards the request to the Web server.
Configure Security Checks for Responses

To configure individual WAF security checks for responses, use the following commands:
• ccn-mask – Use this command to examine strings of outbound replies from the Web server for pat-
terns of numerical characters that resemble credit card numbers (CCN). If the WAF identifies a credit
card number, the WAF replaces all but the last four digits of credit card numbers with “x” characters.
• cookie-encrypt – Use this command to encrypt specified cookies matching PCRE pattern. Used to
protect against cookie tampering by encrypting cookies before sending the server replies to a client.
(See “Cookie Encryption” on page 133.)
• filter-resp-hdrs – Use this command to removes the Web server’s identifying headers in outgoing
responses.

• hide-resp-codes – Cloaks 4xx and 5xx response codes for outbound responses from the Web server.
NOTE: Do not enter the secret-encrypted option when configuring this check. This
option is placed into the configuration by the WAF to indicate that the string
is the encrypted form.
• pcre-mask options pcre-pattern – Use this command to masks patterns in a response that match
the specified PCRE pattern.
• For options you can enter the following:
• keep-end num-length – Specifies the number of unmasked characters at the end of the string.
The default is 0.
• keep-start num-length – Sets the number of unmasked characters at the beginning of the
string. The default is 0.
• mask character – Selects a character to mask the matched pattern of a string. The default is x.
• For pcre-pattern, enter a PCRE expression. (See “Writing PCRE Expressions” on page 113.)
NOTE: You can configure PCRE patterns to match only on a fixed-length string. For
this reason, wildcard characters that can mask excessively long strings (* and
+) are not supported.
If either the asterisk (*) or plus symbol (+) is detected during the syntax
check, the syntax check will automatically fail. To use an expression that
matches an actual “*” or “+” character, use an escape character (\) before the
matched symbol. For example, to search for the actual asterisk (*) or plus
character (+), enter “\*” or “\+”
• ssn-mask – Use this command to examine server responses for strings that resemble US Social Secu-
rity numbers and masks all but the last four digits of the string with “x” characters in a response.
WAF Event Types and Where They Are Logged
WAF Event Logging
This chapter describes where WAF events are logged and the format used for WAF log messages.
There is no external logging by default. To configure external logging, see either of the following sections:
• Using the GUI – “Configure External Logging (recommended)” on page 84
• Using the CLI – “External Logging Configuration” on page 92
NOTE: After external logging is enabled, WAF messages for configuration events
will be sent to the local log, but messages for data events will be sent to the
external logging servers.
Deny actions are not written to the log. To view the configured response to
denied client requests, check the WAF template currently in use.

WAF log messages consist of the following basic event types:
• Configuration events – Indicate that a configuration change has occurred. Typically, this type of WAF
event is generated when you configure WAF settings.
• Data events – Indicate that traffic has matched a WAF template check.
By default, only configuration events are logged to the local logging buffer on ACOS.
Data events are not logged by default. Due to the potentially high volume of data event messages, they are
accessible only by using remote logging servers. You can configure the WAF to use a single logging server or
a group of servers.
After you enable WAF logging to remote logging servers, WAF configuration events also are sent to the
remote servers. In this case, the WAF configuration events are no longer sent to the local logging buffer.
Figure 35 shows the WAF logging behavior without external logging. WAF configuration events are logged
locally. WAF data events are not logged.
FIGURE 35 WAF logging without external log server
Figure 36 shows the WAF logging behavior after external logging is configured for the WAF template. WAF
configuration events and WAF data events both are logged to the external log server.
FIGURE 36 WAF logging with external log server
Log Format
Log Format
For optimal interoperability, WAF uses the Common Event Format (CEF), an open standard used by other
security appliances and network devices.
WAF log messages can contain the following fields:
Timestamp CEF:version|device-vendor|device-product|
device-version|module|event-type|severity|CEF-extension
Table 2 describes the data fields that can appear in WAF logs
TABLE 2 WAF log data fields

Field Description
Timestamp Date and time that the log was generated, in the following format: Mon Day
hh:mm:ss
CEF version CEF version.
device-vendor Vendor name, “A10”.
device-product A10 Thunder or AX model number.
device-version Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS) version.
module System module that generated the log message. For WAF messages, the module is
“WAF”.
event-type WAF feature or policy on which the traffic matched. Examples:
• bot-check
• buf-ovf
• ccn-mask
• cookie-encrypt
• csrf-check
• deny-action
• filter-resp-hdrs
• form-consistency-check
• hide-resp-codes
• http-check
• pcre-mask
• referer-check
• sqlia-check
• ssn-mask
• uri-blist-check
• uri-wlist-check
• url-check
• xss-check
WAF Log Examples
TABLE 2 WAF log data fields (Continued)

Field Description
severity Severity of the event.
• 1 – Debug
• 2 – Info
• 3 – Notice
• 4 – Warning
• 5 – Error
• 6 – Critical
• 7 – Alert
• 8 – Emergency
CEF-extension Set of any number of key/value pairs, in any order, that further describe the event
that generated the log. The CEF extension for WAF uses the following elements:
• src – Source IP of the request or response.
• spt – Source protocol port of the request or response.
• method – HTTP method used (if applicable).
• req – URL in the request.
• n – Number (n) of bytes of content in the request
• msg – Message associated with the event type.
• cs1 – Name of the template that was in use when the event was generated.
• act – Action the WAF took in response to the event:
• deny
• allow
• sanitize
• learn
• md – Deployment mode.
WAF Log Examples

The following sections show some examples of WAF log messages.
• Basic Log Message
• Bot Check
• Learning Mode
WAF Log Examples
Basic Log Message

Here is a sample log message:
Dec 22 17:13:03 CEF:0|A10|AX3200|2.7.1|WAF|http-check|2|src=20.20.25.10 spt=32462

dst=20.20.25.130 dpt=80 req="GET /tours/index.html HTTP/1.1" 0 msg="Learning: Updating
allowed HTTP methods" cs1=waf1 act=n md=learn
Table 3 labels each field in the message.
TABLE 3 WAF log example

Field Value
Timestamp Dec 22 17:13:03
CEF version 0
device-vendor A10
device-product AX3200
device-version 2.7.1
module WAF
event-type http-check
severity 2
CEF-extension src=20.20.25.10
spt=32462
dst=20.20.25.130
dpt=80
req=”GET /tours/index.html HTTP/1.1”
0 = Bytes of content in the request
msg=”Learning: Updating allowed HTTP methods”
cs1=waf1
act=learn
md=learn
NOTE: For more log examples, see “WAF Deployment and Logging Examples” on
page 123.
Bot Check
Here is an example of a WAF log that indicates the detection of a bad bot:
Oct 20 18:16:13 CEF:0|A10|AX3200|2.7.1|WAF|bot-check|6|src=20.20.25.10 spt=30842

dst=20.20.25.130 dpt=80 request="GET /tours/index.html HTTP/1.1" 0 msg="Bad bot detected!
User-Agent " cs1=w2 act=deny md=nrm
Here is the same message, formatted to more clearly show each field:
WAF Log Examples
Oct 20 18:16:13
CEF:0
A10
AX3200
2.7.1
WAF
bot-check
6
src=20.20.25.10
spt=30842
dst=20.20.25.130
dpt=80
request=”GET /tours/index.html HTTP/1.1” 0
msg=”Bad bot detected! User-Agent drip”
cs1=w2
act=deny
md=nrm
This message indicates that an HTTP GET request from 20.20.25.10:30842 to VIP 20.20.25.130:80 contained a
bot whose name matches a name in the bots WAF policy file. The WAF template name is “w2”. Based on the
WAF configuration, the request was denied. The WAF is running in normal mode.
Learning Mode
Below are example log messages for when the WAF is deployed in learning mode:
Oct 19 16:24:43 CEF:0|A10|AX3200|2.7.1|WAF|buf-ovf|2|src=20.20.25.10 spt=1892

dst=20.20.25.130 dpt=80 request="GET /tours/index.html HTTP/1.1" 0 msg="Learning Mode:
Increasing headers length limit from 0 to 172" cs1=w2 act=learn md=lrn
Oct 19 16:25:03 CEF:0|A10|AX3200|2.7.1|WAF|http-check|2|src=20.20.25.10 spt=1892

dst=20.20.25.130 dpt=80 request="GET /tours/index.html HTTP/1.1" 0 msg="Learning Mode:
Increasing max_hdrs from 0 to 3" cs1=w2 act=learn md=lrn
The first message indicates that WAF updated the header-length limit based on traffic observed during
Learning Mode. Likewise, the second message indicates that WAF updated the maximum-headers limit. The
act=learn field indicates that the value was learned. The md=lrn field indicates that Learning Mode was
enabled.
Pre-Loaded WAF Policies
WAF Policy Files
WAF Policy Files (also referred to as WAF Definitions) give you the ability to define a set of rules for custom-
ized security checks. WAF policy files enable you to specify security checks for enhanced response- and
request-side protection to protect against security risks, such as SQL injection attacks or forceful browsing.
CAUTION: Misconfigured PCRE expressions can negatively impact system performance.

Do not apply a PCRE expression to a WAF policy file unless you are com-
pletely certain that the PCRE expression will achieve the desired result.

Default WAF policy files are pre-loaded onto ACOS to allow immediate protection against common threats.
Default WAF policies apply to the following checks:
• XSS Check
• Bot Check
• SQLIA Check
• URI White List
• URI Black List
• Hide Response Codes
If one of these checks is enabled and a WAF policy file is not specified, the default WAF policy file is applied.
These policy files are described in more detail below.
NOTE: You cannot rename, edit, or delete default files. However, you can copy a
default WAF policy file and customize its contents to fit your specific
demands.
Table 4 lists pre-loaded WAF policy files
TABLE 4 Pre-Loaded WAF Policy Files

Check Policy File Description
Hide Response Codes allowed_resp_codes Defines a list of permitted HTTP response codes.
Bot Check bot_defs Defines a list of known bots.
XSS Check jscript_defs Defines a set of commonly used javascript commands.
SQLIA Check sqlia_defs Defines common search terms for SQL injection attacks.
URI Black List uri_blist_defs Lists exclusion criteria for the URI Black List.
See Table 5 on page 109.
URI White List uri_wlist_defs Lists inclusion criteria for the URI White List.
See Table 6 on page 110.
Request Protection
The following checks point to WAF policy files for enhanced protection against incoming requests. By
default, these checks refer to the default WAF policy files, as described below. Optionally, you can configure
these checks to use customized policy files.
Bot Check
The WAF bot check option uses the “bot_defs” policy file for search definitions of known bot agents. If bot
checking is enabled in the WAF template and a match is found with the “bot_defs” policy file, the request is
denied automatically. You can add or modify the “bot_defs” policy file to include or remove bot search terms.
XSS Check
The “jscript_defs” WAF policy file defines a list of common Javascript commands. The XSS check uses
this policy file for examining the content of URL, cookies, headers, and POST bodies of client requests. This
type of policy file is useful for Web sites that use Javascript-based web content.
NOTE: If your Web site contains embedded Javascript, A10 Networks recommends
enabling the XSS check in the WAF template.
SQL Injection Attack Check

The WAF policy file “sqlia_defs” provides a basic collection of SQL special characters and keywords that
are common to SQL injection attacks. The terms in this policy file can trigger commands in the back-end SQL
database and allow unauthorized users to obtain sensitive information. If a request contains a term that
matches a search definition in the “sqlia_defs” policy file, you can configure the WAF to sanitize the
request of the SQL command or deny the request entirely.
URI Black List

A URI Black List specifies exclusion criteria for incoming requests. If the URI of an incoming request matches a
rule in the URI Black List, the request is automatically blocked.
The URI Black List takes priority over a URI White List. That is, even if a URI matches acceptance criteria within
the URI White List, a connection is blocked automatically if it meets a rule in the separate URI Black List.
Table 5 lists URI Black List criteria in the default “uri_blist_defs” file.
TABLE 5 URI Black List – Default

Description Attack Pattern
Access attacks access,^[^?]*(?:htaccess|access_log)(?:[.][^/
?]*)?(?:[~])?(?:[?].*)?$
Apache possible directory index apache_dir,^[^?]*/[?][SM]=[AD]
disclosure vulnerability
Command injection attack cmd_inj,(?:[ /=]|\t|\n)(?:ls|rm|cat)(?:[
;'\"&].*)?$
CodeRed code_red,^[^?]*/default[.]ida[?]N+
Debug attacks debug,debug[.][^/?]*(?:|[?].*)$
Front Page server extensions buffer fp_srvr_ext_bo1,^[^?]*dvwssr[.]dll
overflow-1
Front Page server extensions buffer fp_srvr_ext_bo2,^[^?]*fp30reg[.]dll
overflow-2
Front Page server extensions path fp_srvr_ext_pb,^[^?]*/_vti_bin/shtml[.]
disclosure vulnerability
HTR source disclosure htr_sd,^[^?]*[+][.]htr
Index server buffer overflow idx_srvr_bo,^[^?]*[.]id[aq]
IIS executable file parsing vulnerability- iis_exe_fp1,^[^?]*[+]dir
1
IIS executable file parsing vulnerability- iis_exe_fp2,^[^?]*/georgi[.]asp
2
IIS executable file parsing vulnerability- iis_exe_fp3,^[^?]*[.](?:bat|ini|exe)(?:|[?].*)$
3
Microsoft IIS UNC mapped virtual host iis_unc_mvh,^[^?]*[.]asp/.*
vulnerability
Microsoft IIS UNC path disclosure iis_unc_pd,^[^?]*[.]htx
vulnerability
Nimbda-3 nimda3,^[^?]*Admin[.]dll
Nimbda-4 nimda4,^[^?]*/winnt/
Netscape enterprise server directory nses_dir_idx,^[^?]*/[?]wp-
indexing vulnerability
Netscape enterprise server web nses_web_pub,^[^?]*/publisher
publishing vulnerability
Printer buffer overflow print_bo,^[^?]*/NULL[.]printer
TABLE 5 URI Black List – Default

Description Attack Pattern
Password file attacks pwd_file,^[^?]*(?:passwd|passwords?)(?:[.][^/
?]*)?(?:[?].*)?$
Script exploit script,^[^?]*[.](?:cgi|pl|php|bat)(?:[/?].*)?[|]
System command attacks sys_cmd,system(?: |\t|\n)*[(?:]
Unix core file attacks unix_core,/core(?:/.*)?$
Unix file attacks unix_file,[\\/]etc[\\/](?:passwd|group|hosts)
Webhits source disclosure webhits_sd,^[^?]*null[.]htw
URI White List

You can configure the WAF to check the URIs of incoming requests and only accept connection attempts that
meet specified criteria. A URI White List check compares the URI of an incoming request with the expressions
contained in the URI Whitelist policy file. Connection requests are accepted only if the request matches a cri-
terion in the URI White List.
Table 6 lists URI White List criteria in the default “uri_wlist_defs” file.
TABLE 6 URI White List – Default

Description Expression
URL Path Component root,^/$
Common file types static,^[^?]+[.](?:html?|shtml|js|gif|jpg|jpeg|png|
swf|pif|pdf|css|csv)
Common Web site scripts dynamic,^[^?]+[.](?:cgi|aspx?|jsp|php|pl)(?:[?].*)?$
Response Protection
This section describes policy-based security checks for outbound responses from the Web server.
Allowed HTTP Response Codes

The WAF policy file “allowed_resp_codes” lists acceptable HTTP response codes in outbound replies from
the Web server. If the Hide Response Codes option is enabled within the WAF template, then response codes
that do not match a value contained in the “allowed_resp_codes” file are cloaked in replies.

You cannot remove or edit a pre-loaded WAF policy file. However, you can quickly duplicate an existing file to
an unused name and modify the contents.
The following sections describe how to write PCRE patterns for customized WAF policies. ACOS incorporates
aspects of PCRE expressions for writing WAF policies, but does not support full PCRE functionality.
Syntax Check
After the file is created or modified, a syntax check is automatically performed on the file. If you modify a
WAF policy file that is currently bound to a WAF template and the file does not pass the syntax check, it is
automatically restored to the previous version.
Files which do not pass the syntax check cannot be bound to a WAF
template. A policy can fail a syntax check for various reasons, including the following:
• Invalid PCRE syntax
• Duplicate policies (more than one policy file containing the same PCRE expressions)
• Pair of brackets missing the escape character sequence; for example:
(a|b) – Incorrect
instead of
(?:a|b) – Correct
Using the CLI

This section describes procedures to create, edit, or manage WAF policy files in the CLI.
Configure Policy Files

To configure a WAF policy file using the CLI:
1. Enter the following command at the global configuration level:

waf policy edit file-name
For the file-name option, enter the name of an existing WAF policy file to edit the file, or an unused
name to create a new WAF policy. Do not include the “.waf” extension in the file name, this is automati-
cally applied during creation.
The CLI enters the input mode for the policy file.
NOTE: You cannot modify default files. If you enter the name of a pre-loaded WAF
policy for file-name, the following message will display:
Editing of default WAF policy file not allowed.
2. Type or copy-and-paste a collection of PCRE expressions for the file. If you type the script, press the
Enter key at the end of each line. For information about writing PCRE expressions, see “Writing PCRE
Expressions” on page 113.
3. To save the file and complete the input process, press the Escape key, type “:wq” or “ZZ” and press Enter.
Alternatively, use “:q!” to exit without saving the file.
Syntax Checks
After you finish entering the policy text, the CLI performs a syntax check and displays one of the following
messages:
• WAF file-name edited; syntax check passed. –
Indicates the syntax is valid for file-name.

• WAF policy syntax error. Line n: –
Indicates a failed syntax check and reports the line (n) with invalid
syntax.
Manage Files
The following commands allow you to manage WAF policy files.
Copy Files
Use the following command to copy a WAF policy to a new file name:
waf copy source-name destination-name
For the source-name option, use the name of an existing WAF policy.
For the destination-name option, enter an unused name for the copied file.
Rename Files
Use the following command to rename a WAF policy file:
waf policy rename old-name new-name
Delete Files
Enter the following command to delete a WAF policy file:
waf policy delete file-name
NOTE: You cannot rename, edit, or delete default files. However, you can copy a
default WAF policy file and customize its contents to fit your specific
demands.
Writing PCRE Expressions

The following section provides guidelines for writing WAF policy files which the WAF can use to search for
attack patterns or define policy rules.
General Guidelines
This section summarizes common characters used in PCRE expressions and provides a quick reference to
basic PCRE syntax. To learn more about writing detailed PCRE expressions, consult outside reference mate-
rial.

PCRE Characters
Table 7 describes frequently used characters in PCRE expressions.
TABLE 7 PCRE Characters

Character Purpose
\ Escape character.
^ Start of a subject or line.
$ End of a subject or line.
. Matches with any type of character.
- Character range. Use this symbol within square brackets.
For example, [a-f ] will indicate the range a, b, c, d, e, f.
[ Start of a character class definition.
] End of a character class definition.
| Logical “or” operator.
For example, (yellow | red | orange) will return true if either yellow, red, or orange is
found.
( Start of a sub-pattern.
) End of a sub-pattern.
* Quantifier for a value of 0 or more.
+ Quantifier for a value of 1 or more.
{ Start of a minimum or maximum quantifier.
} End of a minimum or maximum quantifier.
Enclose Patterns
You can enclose patterns with any non-alphanumeric character that is not a backslash \ or whitespace. You
can also use special symbols that may otherwise carry an alternative function as long as the same symbol is
used in the beginning and end of the string.
Table 8 displays a few valid examples of enclosed expressions:
TABLE 8 PCRE Syntax – Enclose Patterns

Character Example
+ +positive+
/ /ahoy/
# #numeric#
% %percentages%
! !eep!
Basic Syntax
WAF policy files consist of PCRE expressions and comment lines. Lines with PCRE expressions are structured
as follows:
name,PCRE expression
The name is a string which you can use to title the line. Follow the description with a comma “,” before writing
the PCRE expression. As shown below:
FromDefaultBlackList,^[^?]*[.]htx
NOTE: Everything following the comma is included in the PCRE expression. Do not
include whitespace unless this is intended as part of the expression.
Comments
To insert a comment into the policy file enter a pound character ‘#’ before the comment line.
example_expression,^[^?]*/[?]wp-
# comment
...
Alternatively, you can enter a comment in-line as follows:
(# comment)
The comment string is not recognized in pattern matching.
Example Applications
Outlined below are various examples of PCRE expressions.
Attack Patterns
You can create customized WAF policies with search criteria for attack
patterns.
• Use the " | " symbol as a separator in lists of elements. Traffic matches a policy rule if the traffic matches
any of the elements delimited by " | ". For example, "(apples | oranges)" is read as a single object that
can be triggered when either "apples" or "oranges" is found in traffic.
• Use parentheses to enclose each separate element. For example, the set of elements "(apples)
(oranges)" is read by WAF as two individual objects: an "apples" object and an "oranges" object.
The following example uses a segment of the “bot_defs” file.
(builtbottough|bunnyslippers|capture|cegbfeieh|cherrypicker|cheesebot|chinaclaw|cicc|civa|
clipping|collage|collector|copyrightcheck|cosmos|crescent|custo|cyberalert|deweb|diagem|di
gger|digimarc|diibot|directupdate|disco|dittospyder|download accelerator|download
demon|download wonder)
To add three additional known bots under the names “brewster”, “nook” and “peanut”, you would modify the
policy file similar to the following. The additions are indicated in bold:
(builtbottough|bunnyslippers|capture|cegbfeieh|cherrypicker|cheesebot|
chinaclaw|cicc|civa|clipping|collage|collector|brewster|nook|
copyrightcheck|cosmos|crescent|custo|cyberalert|deweb|diagem|
digger|digimarc|diibot|directupdate|disco|dittospyder|
download accelerator|download demon|download wonder|peanut)
Policy Rules
You can write WAF policy files to list more complicated policy rules. The following examples illustrate the var-
ious rules that you can create as a PCRE expression.
The following example defines a rule for the URI Black List. The rule denies user requests to access the image
server at img.example.com directly:
^http://img[.]example[.]com$
The following example defines a rule for the URI Black List. The rule denies user requests to access CGI (.cgi)
or PERL (.pl) scripts directly:
^http://www[.]example[.]com/(?:[0-9A-Za-z][0-9A-Za-z_-]*/)*
[0-9A-Za-z][0-9A-Za-z_.-]*[.](?:cgi|pl)
The following PCRE expression looks for strings that resemble a California driver’s license ID number. This
policy rule can be used in conjunction with the PCRE mask option to mask strings that match the expression:
[A-Za-z][0-9]{7,7}
Overriding a WAF Template
You can configure ACOS to override the WAF settings applied to the HTTP/HTTPS virtual port with another
set of WAF settings, using an HTTP policy template. You can configure rules in the HTTP template to match
on URLs, hostnames, or cookie names in traffic.
To configure WAF override:
1. Configure a second WAF template with the alternative settings to use. See either of the following:
• Using the GUI – “Configure a WAF Template” on page 59
• Using the CLI – “Create a WAF Template” on page 91
2. Configure an HTTP policy template. Within the template:

• Configure match rules. You can match on one or more of the following:
• Requested URL
• Requested hostname
• Cookie name within request
• Add (bind) the second WAF template to the HTTP policy template.
3. Bind the HTTP policy template to the virtual port.
NOTE: For the WAF to operate, it is still required to bind a WAF template directly to
the virtual port, to use as the virtual port’s primary WAF template. HTTP pol-
icy templates can be used only to override the primary WAF template with
secondary WAF template, based on the match rules in the HTTP policy tem-
plate.

Within an HTTP policy template, you can configure rules that match on URLs, hostnames, or cookie names.
Requests that match a rule in the HTTP policy template are handled using the alternative WAF template that
you bind to the HTTP policy template.
Below are the match options:
• Equals string – matches only if the URL, hostname, or cookie name completely matches the speci-
fied string.
• Starts-with string – matches only if the URL, hostname, or cookie name starts with the specified
string.
• Contains string – matches if the specified string appears anywhere within the URL, hostname, or
cookie name.
• Ends-with string – matches only if the URL, hostname, or cookie name ends with the specified
string.
These match options are always applied in the order shown above, regardless of the order in which the rules
appear in the configuration. The WAF template associated with the rule that matches first is used.
If a template has more than one rule with the same match option (equals, starts-with, contains, or ends-with)
and a URL matches on more than one of them, the most-specific match is always used.
In addition to URLs, hostnames and cookies, HTTP policy also supports “geo-location”. Below is an example of
a geo location configuration with the assumption that waf-template-1 has been previously configured.
ACOS(config)#gslb geo-location America.USA.LSG.LSG

ACOS(config-geo-location:America.USA.LSG.)#ip 100.100.100.1 mask 255.255.255.255
ACOS(config-geo-location:America.USA.LSG.)#exit
ACOS(config)#slb template http-policy waf-http-policy
ACOS(config-http-policy)#geo-location America.USA.LSG.LSG template waf waf-template-1
ACOS(config-http-policy)#exit
ACOS(config)#slb virtual-server vs-geo_location 100.17.3.70
ACOS(config-slb vserver)#port 80 http
ACOS(config-slb vserver-vport)#template http-policy waf-http-policy
Use the GUI to Configure an HTTP Policy Template

To configure a WAF HTTP policy template using the GUI:

2. Select the HTTP Policies tab.
3. Click Create.
4. Enter a name for the template in the Name field.
5. Configure match rules and other fields as desired; refer to the GUI online help for detailed information
about each field.
Bind the HTTP Policy Template to the Virtual Port
6. Click Create.
Use the CLI to Configure an HTTP Policy Template

To configure an HTTP policy template, use the slb template http-policy command at the global configu-
ration level of the CLI. For more information about this command, refer to the Command Line Interface Reference.
Below is an example of this command and HTTP policy template configuration:
ACOS(config)#slb template http-policy http-pol-temp1

ACOS(config-http-policy)#url contains exampledomain template waf waf-temp1

The HTTP policy does not take effect until you bind it to the HTTP/HTTPS virtual port.
Use the GUI to Bind the HTTP Policy Template to a Virtual Port
To bind the HTTP policy to an existing virtual port:

2. Select the Bindings tab.
3. Click Create.
4. Select the virtual server name, IP address, and port and protocol to which you will bind the template.
5. In the HTTP Policy field, select the HTTP policy template you want to bind to the specified virtual port.
6. Click Create.
Use the CLI to Bind the HTTP Policy Template to a Virtual Port
To bind a template to a virtual service port, create the VIP and the port, as well as the service group, and then
enter
the template waf command at the configuration level for the port. For example:
ACOS(config)#slb virtual-server vs1 8.8.8.8

ACOS(config-slb vserver-vport)#template http-policy http-pol-temp1
For a complete CLI example, see “HTTP Virtual Port Configuration” on page 124.
Displaying WAF Statistics
WAF Statistics
The sections of this chapter describe GUI and CLI procedures to display WAF statistics.
NOTE: Statistics counters increment from 0 after the most recent reboot or from
when the statistics were most recently cleared.
Displaying WAF Statistics
Use the GUI to View WAF Statistics

You can use the GUI to view global WAF statistics by:
1. Hover over Security in the menu bar, then select WAF.

2. Select the Global Stats tab.
Use the CLI to View WAF Statistics

From the CLI, use the show waf stats command to view statistics for a specific virtual server and virtual port.
See “show waf stats” on page 156 for sample output.
Clearing WAF Statistics
Use the GUI to Clear WAF Statistics

You can use the GUI to clear global WAF statistics by:
1. Hover over Security in the menu bar, then select WAF.

2. Select the Global Stats tab.
3. Click Clear.
Clearing WAF Statistics
Use the CLI to Clear WAF Statistics

From the CLI:
• use the clear waf command to clear all “show waf” counters.
• use the clear waf stats command to clear statistics for a specific virtual server and virtual port.
See “clear waf stats” on page 166 for more information about this CLI command.
Initial Configuration
WAF Deployment and Logging Examples
This chapter provides some examples for WAF deployment. Since logging is a crucial part of WAF configura-
tion and management of the WAF, the examples include applicable log messages.
The following examples are provided:
• “Initial Configuration” on page 123
• “Learning” on page 125
• “Response Header Filtering” on page 129
• “SQLIA Check” on page 131
• “Cross-site Scripting Check” on page 131
• “Cookie Encryption” on page 133
The commands in this example configure the following resources:
• Logging configuration
• WAF template
• HTTP virtual port
Logging Configuration
The commands in this section configure the resources required for external logging of WAF events.
To begin, the following commands configure external logging for the WAF. A single log server is used. Log
messages are sent over TCP.
A TCP-proxy template is used to periodically send keepalive probes to the syslog port on the server. The kee-
palive probes prevent the TCP session from aging out during periods of inactivity.
The following commands create the server configuration and add it to a TCP service group:
ACOS(config)#slb server waf-log2 10.10.10.22

ACOS(config-real server)#port 514 tcp
ACOS((config-real server-node port)#exit

ACOS(config-real server)#exit
ACOS(config)#slb service-group waf-log tcp
ACOS(config-slb svc group)#member waf-log1 514
The following commands configure the TCP-proxy template, to enable keepalive messages:
ACOS(config)#slb template tcp-proxy logtcp

ACOS(config-tcp proxy)#keepalive-probes 4
The following commands configure the logging template. This includes binding the TCP-proxy template to
the logging template.
ACOS(config-slb)#slb template logging waf-log

ACOS(config-logging)#service-group waf-log tcp
ACOS(config-logging)#template tcp-proxy logtcp
WAF Template Configuration

The following commands create a WAF template and bind the logging template to the WAF template:
ACOS(config)#waf template waf1

ACOS(config-waf)#template logging waf-log
HTTP Virtual Port Configuration

The following commands configure an HTTP virtual port and bind the WAF template to the port.
To begin, the following commands create server configurations for the web servers to be load balanced and
protected by the WAF:
ACOS(config)#slb server http1 20.20.25.11

ACOS(config-real server-node port)#exit
ACOS(config-waf)#slb server http2 20.20.25.12
ACOS(config-real server-node port)#exit
The following commands add the server configurations to a service group:
ACOS(config)#slb service-group http tcp

ACOS(config-slb svc group)#member http1 80
ACOS(config-slb svc group)#member http2 80
Learning
The following commands configure the virtual server and bind it to the service group and WAF template:
ACOS(config)#slb virtual-server http-vip 20.20.25.130

ACOS(config-slb vserver-vport)#service-group http
ACOS(config-slb vserver-vport)#template waf waf1
At this point, the WAF is active.
Log Example
When done configuring, you can use the show log command to display log messages. These log messages
indicate whenever a WAF template is updated, created, or deleted. Hypothetical log messages are shown
below for illustration purposes.
ACOS(config:8)#show log
Log Buffer: 30000
Mar 24 2016 15:37:12 Info [WAF]:CEF:1|A10|AX3030|4.1.0|WAF|Mar 24 2016 15:37:11|con-
fig|2|msg="Template waf-check-doc: buf-ovf max-hdr-value-len set to 65535"
Mar 24 2016 15:37:12 Info [VCS]:dcs config seq number increase (45,0,652)
fig|2|msg="Template waf-check-doc: bot-check ON (policy-file=bot_defs)"
fig|2|msg="Template waf-check-doc created"
fig|2|msg="Template waf-check-doc deleted"
NOTE: If external logging has not been configured for the WAF, then the log mes-
sages will appear in the local log buffer of the ACOS device.
Learning
The commands in this section use Learning Mode to dynamically set some WAF options based on traffic.
NOTE: This example assumes that the VIP using the WAF template is not yet receiv-
ing live traffic but is instead receiving known, valid traffic sent in order to pre-
set WAF parameters. The following caution explains why.
CAUTION: While Learning or Passive Mode is in operation, the WAF does not block any
traffic. Only Active Mode blocks traffic.
Learning
Enable Learning Mode

The following commands access the configuration level for the WAF template, and change the mode to
Learning Mode:

ACOS(config-waf)#deploy-mode learning
Switching to learning mode will reset all WAF template parameters and may expose you to
attacks if done in a production environment.
Are you sure you wish to proceed? (N/Y): y
Generate Traffic
On a client device, the following requests are generated and sent to the HTTP virtual port:
curl -v http://20.20.25.130/tours/index.html
curl -v http://20.20.25.130/batblue.html
curl -v http://20.20.25.130/file_set/dir00000/about.html
View External Log

On the external log server, messages such as the following one indicate that the WAF is setting some of its
parameters based on the traffic:

dst=20.20.25.130 dpt=80 req="GET /tours/index.html HTTP/1.1" 0 msg="Learning: Updating
allowed HTTP methods" cs1=waf1 act=n md=learn
This message indicates that the GET method was observed in the first request sent to the HTTP virtual port,
and that the Allowed HTTP Methods list was updated with the method.
Here are some more examples:
Dec 22 17:13:03 CEF:0|A10|AX3200|2.7.1|WAF|buf-ovf|2|src=20.20.25.10 spt=32462

dst=20.20.25.130 dpt=80 req="GET /tours/index.html HTTP/1.1" 0 msg="Learning: Increasing
max-url-len from 0 to 17" cs1=waf1 act=n md=learn
Dec 22 17:13:03 CEF:0|A10|AX3200|2.7.1|WAF|buf-ovf|2|src=20.20.25.10 spt=32462
max-hdrs-len from 0 to 172" cs1=waf1 act=n md=learn
max-hdrs from 0 to 3" cs1=waf1 act=n md=learn
...
View WAF Template Settings

The following command displays the current template settings:
Learning
ACOS(config-waf)#show default-running-config waf | section waf

waf template waf1
allowed-http-methods "GET POST"
bot-check
buf-ovf max-cookie-len 4096
buf-ovf max-cookie-name-len 64
buf-ovf max-cookie-value-len 4096
buf-ovf max-cookies-len 4096
buf-ovf max-data-parse 65536
buf-ovf max-hdr-name-len 63
buf-ovf max-hdr-value-len 4096
buf-ovf max-hdrs-len 4096
buf-ovf max-line-len 1024
buf-ovf max-parameter-name-len 256
buf-ovf max-parameter-total-len 4096
...
Generate Allowed URL Paths for the URL Check

An additional WAF parameter you can set during Learning Mode is the URL Check. The URL Check prevents
users from navigating directly to any URL paths other than the ones explicitly defined by the URL Check pol-
icy file.
To configure the URL Check:
1. Set the WAF to Learning Mode.

2. Enable the URL Check within a WAF template.
3. Send secure traffic to the Web site. This step will generate a WAF policy file containing acceptable URL
paths.
4. After the URL Check policy file has been generated, change the WAF operational mode to Active to
enforce the URL Check on client requests.
Configuration Example
The following example outlines steps for customizing the URL Check in learning mode and enforcing the
check for your Web site.
Create the URL Check Policy File
1. The following commands set the WAF to learning mode and enable the URL Check option in the WAF
template:
ACOS(config)#waf template w1
Learning
ACOS(config-waf)#deploy-mode learning
Switching to learning mode will reset all WAF template parameters and may expose you to
attacks if done in a production environment.
Are you sure you wish to proceed? (N/Y): Y
ACOS(config-waf)#url-check
NOTE: In this example, the WAF template “w1” is bound to a virtual server with the
IP address 192.168.25.130.
2. Send secure traffic from a client. In this example, traffic from the client is sent to the following addresses:
http://192.168.25.130/tours/index.html
http://192.168.25.130/batblue.html
http://192.168.25.130/file_set/dir00000/about.html
3. Check the logs on the external log server. The log should contain a message such as the following, for
each URL path requested:
Mar 24 16:34:40 CEF: 1|A10|AX3030|4.1.0|WAF|Mar 24 2016 15:46:12|session-
id|2|src=172.17.3.100 spt=55150 dst=172.17.3.61 dpt=8080 hst="172.17.3.61:8080"
cs1=waf-url-check cs2=90f0c225f82e4cb8 act=learn md=passive svc=http req="GET /foooo/
rest/upload/aaa.txt HTTP/1.1" 0 msg="New session created: Id=90f0c225f82e4cb8"
4. The log will contain similar messages for each URL path clients are allowed to access. The following com-
mands verify that the URL Check policy file is created and display the contents of the file:
ACOS(config-waf)#show waf policy
Total WAF policy number: 14
Max WAF policy file size: 32K
Name Syntax Template
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_w1_url_check_ Check Bind
allowed_resp_codes Check Bind
bot_defs Check Bind
jscript_defs Check Bind
...
ACOS(config-waf)#show waf policy _w1_url_check_

Name: _w1_url_check_
Syntax: Check
In WAF Template:
w1 (for url-check)
Content:
Matches Value
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 /tours/
1 /batblue.html
1 /file_set/dir00000/
Response Header Filtering
Apply the URL Check
5. Change the WAF deployment mode. (See “Save Template Settings” on page 129.) When you change the
deployment mode from Learning Mode, ACOS writes the observed URL paths into a policy file. The URL
Check will start operating.
ACOS(config-waf)#waf template w1
ACOS(config-waf)#deploy-mode active
NOTE: In Passive Mode, requests for other URL paths still are allowed, but they are
logged. The URL path list is enforced only while the URL Check is enabled
and the WAF template is in Active Mode.
6. Optionally, edit the contents of the URL Check policy file to explicitly define acceptable URI paths.
NOTE: The contents of the URL Check policy file are first generated in Learning
Mode. After which you can remove or define additional URL paths in the pol-
icy file. You cannot create the URL Check policy file without first deploying a
WAF template in Learning Mode with the URL Check enabled.
Save Template Settings

To “lock down” WAF template settings configured by Learning Mode, change the mode. The following com-
mand changes to Passive Mode:
ACOS(config-waf)#deploy-mode passive
In Passive Mode, WAF checks are performed but the filter actions are not applied. Requests to the HTTP vir-
tual port are logged but are sent to the server without being altered. (For more information, see “WAF Oper-
ational Modes” on page 49.)

Header Response Filtering removes the Web server’s identifying headers in outgoing responses. This infor-
mation can be exploited by hackers to send an attack targeted specifically to your server’s operating system
(OS).
Header That Includes OS-identifying Fields
Here is an example of header fields in the HTTP response from a server. The fields shown in bold provide
information about the server OS.
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK

< Transfer-Encoding: chunked
< Content-Type: text/html
< Server: hpd
< X-Powered-By: Cavisson
< X-AspNet-Version: 1.0
< X-AspNetMvc-Version: 2.0
< Cache-Control: public, max-age=100
< Age: 52
< Via: AX-CACHE-2.7:130
<
...
Header Without OS-identifying Fields
Here is the same excerpt from the server response, with the OS-identifying headers removed:
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK

< Transfer-Encoding: chunked
< Content-Type: text/html
< Cache-Control: public, max-age=100
< Age: 0
< Via: AX-CACHE-2.7:130
...
The response received by the client does not contain the OS-identifying headers.
Enable Header Response Filtering

The following commands access the configuration level for the WAF template and enable Header Response
Filtering:

ACOS(config-waf)#filter-resp-hdrs
View External Log

Messages in the external WAF log indicate when header fields are removed by Header Response Filtering:

id|2|src=172.17.3.100 spt=50621 dst=172.17.3.73 dpt=8080 hst="172.17.3.73:8080" cs1=waf-
filter-resp-hdrs cs2=8c59ef7fc665dbb act=learn md=active svc=http req="GET /hello.php
HTTP/1.1" 0 msg="New session created: Id=8c59ef7fc665dbb"
Mar 24 16:39:12 CEF: 1|A10|AX3030|4.1.0|WAF|Mar 24 2016 15:50:44|filter-resp-
hdrs|6|src=172.17.3.100 spt=50621 dst=172.17.3.73 dpt=8080 hst="" cs1=waf-filter-resp-hdrs
cs2=8c59ef7fc665dbb act=sanitize md=active svc=http req="GET /hello.php HTTP/1.1" 135
SQLIA Check
msg="Header Server filtered"

Mar 24 16:39:12 CEF: 1|A10|AX3030|4.1.0|WAF|Mar 24 2016 15:50:44|filter-resp-
hdrs|6|src=172.17.3.100 spt=50621 dst=172.17.3.73 dpt=8080 hst="" cs1=waf-filter-resp-hdrs
cs2=8c59ef7fc665dbb act=sanitize md=active svc=http req="GET /hello.php HTTP/1.1" 135
msg="Header X-Powered-By filtered"
Mar 24 16:39:12 173.17.3.14 A10
Mar 24 16:39:12 200.0.0.14 A10
SQLIA Check
The SQLIA Check protects against SQL commands hidden in requests sent to database servers. The check
looks for SQL code in form arguments, URLs, and cookies. In general, these places are not supposed to con-
tain SQL code.
Enable the SQLIA Check

The following commands access the configuration level for the WAF template and enable the SQLIA Check.
In this example, the sanitize option is used. This option removes the SQL and then forwards the request.

ACOS(config-waf)#sqlia-check sanitize
View External Log

The following log messages indicates that SQL was detected in a request:

id|2|src=172.17.3.100 spt=44427 dst=172.17.3.57 dpt=8080 hst="172.17.3.57:8080" cs1=waf-
sql-check-sanitize cs2=61b6f0af51703b87 act=learn md=active svc=http req="GET /
hello.php?aa=bb-- HTTP/1.1" 0 msg="New session created: Id=61b6f0af51703b87"
Mar 24 17:13:21 CEF: 1|A10|AX3030|4.1.0|WAF|Mar 24 2016 16:24:52|sqlia-
check|6|src=172.17.3.100 spt=44427 dst=172.17.3.57 dpt=8080 hst="172.17.3.57:8080"
cs1=waf-sql-check-sanitize cs2=61b6f0af51703b87 act=sanitize md=active svc=http req="GET /
hello.php?aa=bb-- HTTP/1.1" 0 msg="SQLIA pattern detected! bb-- matches #1 in rule1 sani-
tizing.."
Mar 24 17:13:22 1730::14 A10
Cross-site Scripting Check

The Cross-site Scripting Check (XSS Check) protects against cross-site scripting attacks.
Cross-site Scripting Check
Enable the XSS Check

The following commands access the configuration level for the WAF template and enable the XSS Check. In
this example, the reject option is used. This option logs the XSS attempt and then drops the request instead
of forwarding it to the server.

ACOS(config-waf)#xss-check reject
View External Log

The following log message indicates that an XSS attempt was detected and denied:

id|2|src=172.17.3.100 spt=58140 dst=172.17.3.54 dpt=81 hst="172.17.3.54:81" cs1=waf-xss-
check cs2=ffde33f6ff0dfa70 act=learn md=active svc=http req="POST /digest.html HTTP/1.1" 9
msg="New session created: Id=ffde33f6ff0dfa70"
Mar 24 17:17:03 CEF: 1|A10|AX3030|4.1.0|WAF|Mar 24 2016 16:28:35|xss-
check|6|src=172.17.3.100 spt=58140 dst=172.17.3.54 dpt=81 hst="172.17.3.54:81" cs1=waf-
xss-check cs2=ffde33f6ff0dfa70 act=deny md=active svc=http req="POST /digest.html HTTP/
1.1" 9 msg="Javascript pattern detected! applet matches #1 in a1"
Mar 24 17:17:04 173.17.3.221 A10
Since the reject option is used in the configuration, a Deny page such as the one in “Deny page” on
page 132 is sent to the client.
FIGURE 37 Deny page
Cookie Encryption
Cookie Encryption
Cookie Encryption protects against cookie tampering by encrypting cookies before sending server replies
to clients.
You can enable encryption based on specific cookie names or for all cookies that match a PCRE expression.
The encryption uses a secret string to decrypt and encrypt cookies that are transferred between the Web
server and client.
The following commands access the configuration level for WAF template “resetti” and configure encryption
for all cookies containing “hiddencookie” in the name:
ACOS(config)#waf template resetti

ACOS(config-waf)#cookie-encrypt ".*hiddencookie" r0cc0
The secret value “r0cc0” is used for encryption. To view the encrypted value created by the WAF and used in
responses, display the configuration:
ACOS(config-waf)#show default-running-config | section waf

waf template waf1
...
cookie-encrypt ".*hiddencookie" secret-encrypted m3nvbYs/EBg8EIy41dsA5zwQjLjV2wDnPBCMuNX-
bAOc8EIy41dsA5zwQjLjV2wDn
...
NOTE: Do not enter the secret-encrypted option when configuring this check.
This option is placed into the configuration by the WAF to indicate that the
string is the encrypted form.
Cookie Encryption
WAF Template Reference
WAF templates allow you to easily enforce the following security filters.
Table 9 lists the parameters you can configure.
NOTE: This table is a reference. For configuration procedures, see either of the fol-
lowing:
“Configuring the WAF Using the GUI” on page 57
“Configuring the WAF Using the CLI” on page 91
TABLE 9 WAF Template Options

Parameter Description and Syntax Supported Values
General Fields
Template Name Name of the WAF template in the ACOS configura- String
tion.
Default: Not set
[no] waf template template-name
GUI:
Security > WAF > WAF Templates > Create
Deployment Sets the operational mode for the WAF template. You can select one of the following:
Mode
[no] deploy-mode • Active – Standard operational mode. You
{active | passive | learning} must use Active Mode if you want the
WAF to sanitize or drop traffic based on
the configured WAF policies.
GUI: • Passive – Provides passive WAF opera-
Security > WAF > WAF Templates > Create, and tion. All enabled WAF checks are applied,
then select the Deploy Mode drop-down. but no WAF action is performed upon
matching traffic. This mode is useful in
(For more information, see “WAF Operational staging environments to identify false
Modes” on page 49.) positives for filtering.
• Learning – Provides a way to initially set
the thresholds for certain WAF checks
based on known, valid traffic.
Default: Active Mode
Logging Applies a configured logging template to the WAF Name of a logging template
template. See “WAF Event Logging” on page 101.
Default: None selected
[no] template logging template-name
GUI:
Security > WAF > WAF Templates > Create, and
then select the Logging Template drop-down.
Request Checks
URI White List Enforces the rules contained within a WAF policy Name of a WAF policy file
file for the URI White List. For more information Default: uri_wlist_defs
about URI White Lists, see “URI White List” on
page 110.
[no] uri-wlist-check file-name
GUI:
then select the HTTP Requests Check tab, and
select the checkbox for URI White List Check.
TABLE 9 WAF Template Options (Continued)

URI Black List Enforces the rules contained within a WAF policy Name of a WAF policy file
file for the URI Black List. For more information
Default: uri_blist_defs
about URI Black Lists, see “URI Black List” on
page 109.
[no] uri-blist-check file-name
GUI:
then select the HTTP Requests Check tab, and
select the checkbox for URI Black List Check.
Deny Action WAF response sent to the client if traffic is denied One of the following:
by the WAF template.
• http-resp-403 – Sends a 403 Forbidden
[no] deny-action options response to the client. The default string
resp-string returns a generic “Request Denied!”
page to the client.
GUI:
• http-resp-200 – Sends a 200 OK
Security > WAF > WAF Templates > Create, and response to the client with the specified
then select the General tab, and select the Deny resp-string. The default string returns a
Action drop-down. generic “Request Denied!” page to the
client.
• http-redirect – Redirects the client to the
specified URL.
• reset-conn – Sends a TCP RST to the cli-
ent to end the connection.
Default: http-resp-403
Allowed HTTP Checks requests to ensure they contain only the Valid HTTP method names:
Methods HTTP methods that are allowed by this option.
• GET
[no] allowed-http-methods • POST
method-name
• HEAD
• PUT
GUI:
• OPTIONS
Security > WAF > WAF Templates > Create, and • DELETE
then select the HTTP Request Checks tab, and in
the Allowed HTTP Methods field, click the desired • TRACE
methods to highlight them. • CONNECT
• PURGE
Default: GET, POST

Bot Check Checks the user-agent of incoming requests for Name of a WAF policy file
known bots. This check uses the list of defined
Default: bot_defs
bots in the specified WAF policy file. See “Bot
Check” on page 108. Default: Disabled
[no] bot-check file-name
GUI:
then select the HTTP Request Checks tab. Then
select the Bot Check checkbox, and from the
drop-down menu that appears, select the Bot
Check Policy File.

Disable Buffer Checks for attempts to cause a buffer overflow on Enabled or Disabled
Overflow the Web server.
The maximum accepted URL length can be
Protection
• Max Cookie Length – Sets the maximum set between 0 to 16127. The maximum
length for cookies, cookie names, and/or cookie accepted length for all other limits can be
values allowed in a request. set between 0 to 65535.
• Max Headers Length – Sets the maximum Default: Enabled
header length for headers, header names, and/
or header values allowed in requests. If enabled, the following default values
apply:
• Max Line Length - Sets the maximum length
for lines. • Max Cookie Length – 4,096
• Max Parameters Length - Sets the maximum • Max Cookie Name Length - 64
parameter length allowed for the total parame-
• Max Cookie Value Length - 4,096
ters, the parameter names, and/or the parame-
ter values. • Max Total Cookies Length - 4,096
• Max Post Size – Sets the maximum content • Max Data To Parse - 65,536
length allowed in HTTP POST requests. • Max Header Name Length - 64
• Max Query Length - Sets the maximum length • Max Header Value Length - 4,096
for queries.
• Max Header Length – 4,096
• Max URL Length – Sets the maximum URL
length allowed in requests. • Max Line Length - 1,024
[no] buf-ovf • Max Parameter Name Length - 256
{disable | • Max Parameter Total - 4,096
max-cookie-len |
• Max Parameter Value Length - 4,096
max-cookie-name-len |
max-cookie-value-len | • Max Query Length - 1,024
max-cookies-len | • Max URL Length – 1,024
max-data-parse |
• Max POST content size – 20,480
max-hdr-name-len
max-hdr-value-len |
max-hdrs-len |
max-line-len |
max-parameter-name-len |
max-parameter-total-len |
max-parameter-value-len |
max-post-size |
max-query-len |
max-url-len} [bytes]
[no] max-parameters
GUI:
select the Overflow Checks tab.

Cross-Site Tags fields of a web form to protect against cross- Enabled or Disabled
Forgery (CSRF) site request forgery (CSRF).
Default: Disabled
Check
[no] csrf-check
GUI:
select the Form Checks tab. Then select the check-
box for CSRF Check.
Form Checks that user input to form fields is consistent Enabled or Disabled
Consistency with the intended format.
Default: Disabled
Check
[no] form-consistency-check
GUI:
select the Form Checks tab. Then select the check-
box for Form Consistency Check.
HTTP Check Checks that user requests are compliant with Enabled or Disabled
HTTP protocols.
Default: Disabled
[no] http-check
GUI:
select the checkbox for HTTP Check.
Session Check Checks that user requests match a unique session 1-1440
ID created for them.
Default: 10
[no] session-check [secs]
GUI:
then select the Session Checks tab. Then select
the checkbox for Session Check, and from the
Session Check Lifetime field that appears, enter
the session lifetime in minutes.

Max Cookies Specifies the maximum number of cookies a 0-63
request can contain.
Default: 20
[no] max-cookies num
GUI:
then select the Overflow Checks tab. Then enter
the number in the Max Cookies field.
Max Headers Specifies the maximum number of headers a 0-255

request can contain.
Default: 20
[no] max-hdrs num
GUI:
the number in the Max Request Headers field.
Max HTML Specifies the maximum number of parameters a 0-1024

Parameters request can contain.
Default: 64
[no] max-parameters num
GUI:
the number in the Max HTML Parameters field.

Referer Check Validates that the referer header in a request con- One of the following:
tains Web form data from the specified Web
• Enabled
server, rather than from an outside Web site. This
check protects against CSRF attacks. • Disabled
• Enabled – Always validates the referer header. If • Only-If-Present

selected, the request fails the check if there is If this check is activated, you can set the fol-
no referer header or if the referer header is lowing additional options:
invalid.
• Allowed Referer Domains – String
• Disabled – Configures WAF to not validate
requests based on the referer header. • Safe URL – String
• Only-If-Present – Validates the referer header Default: Disabled
only if a referer header exists. If the check finds
an invalid referer header, the request fails the
check. However, the request does not fail the
check if there is no referer header in the request.
[no] referer-check
{enable | only-if-present}
GUI:
select the checkbox for Referer Check.
SQL Injection Checks for SQL strings to protect against SQL One of the following:
Attack (SQLIA) injection attacks. This check uses the list of
• Reject
Check defined SQL commands in the “sqlia_defs” WAF
policy file. See “SQL Injection Attack Check” on • Disabled
page 108. • Sanitize
[no] sqlia-check Definition – Name of a configured WAF pol-
{reject | sanitize} icy file
GUI: Default: Disabled
then select the Injection Checks tab. Then select
the Sanitize or Reject radio button.

Cross-site Checks for potential HTML XSS scripts to protect One of the following:
Scripting (XSS) against cross-site scripting attacks. This check uses
• Reject
Check the list of defined Javascript commands in the
“jscript_defs” WAF policy file. See “XSS Check” on • Disabled
page 108. • Sanitize
[no] xss-check Default: Disabled
{reject | sanitize}
GUI:
then select the Form Checks tab. Then select the
checkbox for CSRF Check.
URL Check Select this option to prevent users from accessing Enabled or Disabled
the URLs of your website directly. The URL Check
Default: Disabled
allows users to only access Web pages by clicking
a hyperlink on your protected Web site.
Note: In the current release, the approved URL
path list for the URL Check can be configured only
using Learning Mode. For a deployment example
that includes configuration of the URL Check, see
“Generate Allowed URL Paths for the URL Check”
on page 127.
[no] url-check
GUI:
select the checkbox for URL Check.

URL Options Use this command to normalize request URLs. This Enabled or Disabled
helps shorten the URLs and helps protect web
Default: Disabled
servers from attacks that hide in the non-normal-
ized, recursive encoding of the data.
One example of such an attack is the so-called
directory traversal attack, which exploits non-sani-
tized file names in order to gain access to sensitive
directories or unauthorized files.
See “Normalization Enhancements for URL
Options” on page 24.
URL Normalization Options include:
• Decode Entities
• Decode Escaped Characters
• Decode HEX Characters
• Comment Removal
• Remove Self-References
• Remove Spaces
[no] url-options
GUI:
then select the HTML Request Checks tab.
Response Checks
CCN Mask Replaces all but the last four digits of credit card Enabled or Disabled
numbers with an “x” character.
Default: Disabled
[no] ccn-mask
GUI:
then select the Content Filter Checks tab, and
select the CCN Mask checkbox.
SSN Mask Replaces all but the last four digits of US Social Enabled or Disabled
Security numbers with an “x” character. Default: Disabled
[no] ssn-mask
GUI:
then select the Content Filter Checks tab, and
select the SSN Mask checkbox.

Filter Response Removes the Web server’s identifying headers in Enabled or Disabled
Headers responses. By default, this check uses the
Default: Disabled
“allowed_resp_codes” WAF policy file for a list of
acceptable HTTP response codes.
[no] filter-resp-hdrs
GUI:
then select the Server Filter Checks tab, and
select the Filter Response Headers checkbox.
Hide Response “Cloaks” your Web servers by hiding response Enabled or Disabled
Codes codes from them instead of forwarding them to
Default: Disabled
the client.
Definition – Name of a configured WAF pol-
[no] hide-resp-codes
icy file
waf-policy-file-name
If disabled, the default policy file
GUI:
is “allowed_resp_codes”
then select the Server Filter Checks tab, and
select the Hide Response Codes checkbox.

PCRE Mask Cloaks patterns in a response that match the spec- You can specify the following options:
ified PCRE pattern.
• PCRE Pattern – Valid string
• PCRE Pattern – Specifies the pattern to search • Mask – Single character
for in responses.
• Keep Start – 0-65535
• Mask – Selects a character to mask the matched
pattern of a string. • Keep End – 0-65535
• Keep Start – Sets the number of unmasked Default:
characters at the beginning of the string. • PCRE Pattern – Not set
• Keep End – Specifies the number of unmasked • Mask – x
characters at the end of the string.
• Keep Start – 0
[no] pcre-mask pcre-pattern
[keep-end num-length | • Keep End – 0
keep-start num-length |
mask character ]
GUI:
then select the Content Filter Checks tab.
Cookie Encryp- Uses the specified Secret string to encrypt and Cookie Name – String or PCRE expression
tion Secret decrypt cookies in server to client communication.
Cookie Encryption Secret – String
For Cookie Name, you can enter the name of a
specific cookie as a string, or a PCRE expression to Default: Not set
encrypt all cookies which match the expression.
[no] cookie-encrypt
{cookie-name | pcre-pattern}
GUI:
then select the Cookie Encryption Checks tab.
WAF CLI Command Reference
This chapter lists the CLI commands for WAF. The commands are organized into the following section:
• “WAF Template Commands” on page 147
• “WAF File Management Commands” on page 167
WAF Template Commands

The commands in this section configure WAF template parameters:
• waf template
• show waf stats
• clear waf stats
waf template
Description Configure a WAF template.
Syntax [no] waf template template-name
Parameter Description
template-name Name of the template.
This command changes the CLI to the configuration level for the specified WAF
template, where the following commands are available.
Command Description
[no] Specifies the HTTP methods that requests are allowed to contain.
allowed-http-methods
method-list For example, method list:
allowed-http-methods “GET POST”
Default methods are GET and POST, but you can specify the following:
• GET
• POST
• HEAD
• PUT
• OPTIONS
• TRACE
• CONNECT
• DELETE
• PURGE
• PROPFIND
• PROPPATCH
• MKCOL
• COPY
• MOVE
• LOCK
• UNLOCK
[no] bot-check Checks user requests for bot activity. This check uses the specified WAF policy
waf-policy file for a list of search terms. For more information see, “Bot Check” on
page 108.
By default, bot-checks are disabled.
Command Description
[no] brute-force option Configure protection against brute-force attacks. The sub-options for this
command can include the following:
• challenge-limit num – Specify the maximum number of triggers that
can occur within the test period. If this limit is breached, then the WAF initi-
ates all of the configured challenge-actions against the client.
Setting this field to zero disables the feature and the challenge will never
be sent. You can set a value from 0-65535. The default is 2.
• global – When enabled, this option will cause the WAF to maintain a single
counter for all clients, as opposed to having a separate counter for each cli-
ent. When enabled, all clients will be locked out for the configured lock-
out-period once the lockout-limit is reached. Similarly, all responses will
include a challenge once the challenge-limit is reached. This default is
disabled.
• lockout-limit – This options sets the maximum number of brute-force
events (or triggers) that can occur within the test period. If the limit is
exceeded, then the WAF will deny all future requests from this client.
You can set a value from 0-65535. The default is 5.
If the lockout limit is set to zero, then clients will never be locked out.
The lockout-limit is a learned parameter, so it will be set to the maximum
number of triggers within a test period seen during learning mode.
• lockout-period – This option sets the number of seconds that a client
should be locked out. You can set a value from 0-1800. The default is 600.
• resp-codes name – This option triggers a brute-force check based on the
HTTP response code. Specify the name of the WAF policy that will be used to
define which response codes will trigger brute force checking. You must
configure this policy file prior to setting this parameter, and it must contain
a set of regular expressions that will be matched against the response
status-code.
• resp-headers name– This option triggers a brute-force check based on
the HTTP response header names. Specify the name of the WAF policy that
will be used to define which response headers will trigger brute force check-
ing. You must configure this policy file prior to setting this parameter, and it
must contain a set of regular expressions that will be matched against the
response header names.
• resp-string name – This option triggers a brute-force check based on
the HTTP response string. Specify the name of the WAF policy that will be
used to define which response line messages will trigger brute force check-
ing. You must configure this policy file prior to setting this parameter, and it
must contain a set of regular expressions that will be matched against the
response line messages. This default is disabled.
• test-period – This option sets the number of seconds between clearing
of the brute-force counters. The range is 0-600. Default is 60.
[no] brute-force-check Enable brute force attack mitigation checks for this template. This option is dis-
abled by default.
Command Description
[no] buf-ovf option Checks for attempts to cause a buffer overflow on the Web server. Can include
the following sub-options:
• disable – Disables buffer overflow protection. Default is Enabled.
• max-cookie-len bytes – Sets the maximum length for cookies allowed
in a request. Default is 4096.
• max-cookie-name-len bytes – Sets the maximum length for cookie
names allowed in a request. Default is 64.
• max-cookie-value-len bytes – Sets the maximum length for cookie
values allowed in a request. Default is 4096.
• max-cookies-len – Sets the maximum total length for cookies in a
request. The default value is 4096.
• max-data-parse – Sets the maximum data parsed for internal HTTP data
tests (XML, WAF, Forms). The request will not be rejected when the limit is
reached. The range is 0-262144. The default value is 65536.
• max-hdr-name-len bytes – Sets the maximum header name length for
headers allowed in requests.
• max-hdr-value-len bytes – Sets the maximum header value length for
headers allowed in requests.
• max-hdrs-len bytes – Sets the maximum header length for headers
• max-line-len bytes – Sets the maximum line length allowed in a
request. You can specify 0-16127. The default is 1024.
• max-parameter-name-len – Sets the maximum parameter name length
allowed in an HTTP request. You can specify 0-512. The default is 256.
• max-parameter-total-len – Sets the maximum parameter total length
• max-parameter-value-len – Sets the maximum parameter value length
• max-post-size bytes – Sets the maximum content length allowed in
HTTP POST requests. The default is 20480.
• max-query-len bytes – Sets the maximum query length allowed in a
request. The default is 1024.
• max-url-len bytes – Sets the maximum URL length allowed in requests.
The default is 1024.
[no] ccn-mask Replaces all but the last four digits of credit card numbers with “x” characters.
The default is disabled.
Command Description
[no] challenge-actions The action to be taken to determine if a client is automated. Can include the
options following options:
If one or more of the challenge-limit triggers occurs within the test period,
then the WAF will initiate one or more of the configured challenge-actions
below:
• captcha – CLI option is not supported in ACOS 4.1.1.
• cookie – Use Set-Cookie to determine if the client allows cookies.
This option enabled cookie-based challenges to verify whether the client
will honor the “Set-Cookie requests”. Presence of this cookie will disable
brute-force checking.
• javascript – This option will insert a block of Javascript into HTML
responses that will insert a cookie if the client contains an input device.
Presence of this cookie will disable brute-force checking.
[no] cookie-encrypt Encrypts the specified cookie using the specified secret value. The cookie-
cookie-name name can be the name of a specific cookie or a PCRE pattern (see “Writing PCRE
secret-value Expressions” on page 113). The default is disabled.
NOTE: Do not enter the secret-encrypted option when configuring this
check. This option is placed into the configuration by the WAF to indicate that
the string is the encrypted form.
[no] csrf-check Tags fields of a web form to protect against Cross-site Request Forgery (CSRF).
[no] deny-action options Specifies the action performed by the WAF after a client request is denied:
resp-string
• http-resp-403 {default | resp-string} – Sends a 403 Forbid-
den response to the client. The default string returns a generic “Request
Denied!” page to the client. (Default)
• http-resp-200 {default | resp-string} – Sends a 200 OK
response to the client with the specified resp-string. The default string
returns a generic “Request Denied!” page to the client.
• http-redirect url-string – Sends a 302 Found redirection
address to the client with the URL specified in the url-string.
• reset-conn – Terminates the client connection.
[no] Prevents “should surfing” by denying the web server’s attempt to send a form
deny-non-masked-passwords through the WAF unless the field type for the password field has been set to
“password”.
(For more information, see “Deny Unmasked Passwords” on page 20.)
[no] Denies user passwords that are sent over a non-encrypted connection. If the
deny-non-ssl-passwords connection between the client and the WAF is secured with SSL/TLS, then the
user password is allowed, but if the client attempts to submit to a form field
where “input type=password”, and if the connection is not encrypted with SSL/
TLS, then the WAF blocks the transmission. The feature is disabled by default,
meaning that forms not using the SSL/TLS protocol will not be denied.
(For more information, see “Deny Passwords Sent Over an Unencrypted Con-
nection” on page 21.)
Command Description
[no] Denies web server attempts to transmit the form if one of the form fields type
deny-password-autocomplete is set to “password” and if the “autocomplete=on/off” attribute is set to “on”.
Enabling this option blocks browser “autocomplete” behavior. Although con-
venient for users, password auto-completion weakens security by allowing
browsers to store user passwords in order to later guess the user’s password
for some websites.
(For more information, see “Deny Passwords if Autocomplete is Enabled” on
page 21.)
[no] deploy-mode option Sets the operational mode for the WAF template.
• active – Standard operational mode. You must use Active Mode if you
want the WAF to sanitize or drop traffic based on the configured WAF poli-
cies. (Default)
• learning – Provides a way to initially set the thresholds for certain WAF
checks based on known, valid traffic.
• passive – Provides passive WAF operation. All enabled WAF checks are
applied, but no WAF action is performed upon matching traffic. This mode is
useful in staging environments to identify false positives for filtering.
(For more information, see “WAF Operational Modes” on page 49.)
[no] filter-resp-hdrs Removes the Web server’s identifying headers in responses.
[no] Verifies that user input to form fields is consistent with the intended format.
form-consistency-check
[no] form-deny-non-post Denies HTTP requests containing forms if the method used is anything other
than POST.
The feature is disabled by default, meaning that forms not using POST will not
be denied.
[no] form-deny-non-ssl Denies HTTP requests containing forms if the transmission protocol
used is anything other than SSL (TLS). This option is disabled by default,
meaning that forms not using the SSL/TLS protocol will not be denied.
[no] form-set-no-cache This option adds “no-cache directives” if the HTTP response contains
<form> tags. The feature is disabled by default, and the “no-cache”
behavior is enforced by adding the following headers:
• Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate

• Pragma: no-cache
• Expires: 0
[no] hide-resp-codes Cloaks 4xx and 5xx response codes for outbound responses from the Web
server. The default is disabled.
[no] http-check Verifies that user requests are compliant with HTTP protocols. The default is
disabled.
[no] json-format-check Examines the format of incoming JSON requests, checks for compliance with
RFC 4627, and blocks requests if the JSON content is not well-formed.
Command Description
[no] json-limit Enforces parsing limits in order to protect backend servers against various
types of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, which are designed to exhaust system
memory or CPU resources.
Various limits can be set, including:
• max-array-value-count num – Limits the maximum number of values
within a single array from 0–4096. Default is 256.
• max-depth number – Limits the maximum depth in a JSON value to a
maximum recursion depth ranging from 0–4096. Default is 16.
• max-object-member-count number – Limits the number of members
allowed in a JSON object. Range is 0–4096. Default is 64.
• max-string number – Limits the length of a string (in bytes) in a JSON
request for a name or a value. Range is 0–4096. Default is 64.
[no] log-succ-reqs Enabling this option creates a log debug message on the successful comple-
tion of WAF requests, and not just for errors.
[no] max-cookies num Specifies the maximum number of cookies allowed in a request. You can spec-
ify 0-63.
The default value is 20.
[no] max-entities num Specifies the maximum number of MIME entities allowed in a request. You can
specify 0–512.
[no] max-hdrs num Specifies the maximum number of headers allowed in a request. You can spec-
ify 0–255.
[no] max-parameters num Specifies the maximum number of parameters allowed in a request. You can
specify 0–1024.
[no] pcre-mask options Masks patterns in a response that match the specified PCRE pattern.
pcre-pattern
• keep-end num-length – Specifies the number of unmasked characters
at the end of the string. The default is 0.
• keep-start num-length – Sets the number of unmasked characters at
the beginning of the string. The default is 0.
• mask character – Selects a character to mask the matched pattern of a
string. The default is x.
[no] redirect-wlist Enables protection against unvalidated redirects, which can occur if a hacker
uses social networking to trick unsuspecting users into clicking on a malicious
hyperlink. When enabled, the WAF pre-learns a white-list of acceptable loca-
tions to which users can safely be redirected. If one of the web servers gets
hacked and attempts to redirect a user to a location that does not appear in
the redirect white-list, then the WAF blocks the redirect.
The WAF must be deployed in Learning Mode when the redirect-wlist CLI
command is used for the first time so the list of acceptable locations can be
built up.
See “Open Redirect Mitigation” on page 22 for details.
Command Description
[no] referer-check option Validates that the referer header in a request contains Web form data from the
specified Web server, rather than from an outside Web site. This check protects
against CSRF attacks. The feature is disabled by default.
• enable safe-referer-domain safe-url – Always validates the referer
header. If selected, the request fails the check if there is no referer header or
if the referer header is invalid.
• only-if-present safe-referer-domain safe-url – Validates the
referer header only if a referer header exists. If the check finds an invalid ref-
erer header, the request fails the check. However, the request does not fail
the check if there is no referer header in the request.
[no] session-check [secs] Enable cookie-based session tracking for WAF sessions.
With this option enabled, the WAF uses a cookie to track user sessions. When a
request is received from a client for the first time, ACOS creates a unique ID for
the session, stores it in a table, and inserts the ID into a cookie that is returned
to the client.
Subsequent requests from this client are validated against the session ID. If the
session ID does not match the saved ID, or if the ID is coming from a different IP
address than that of the original client, then the request is rejected.
The session cookie is named “awaf-sid”, and it is inserted into the header of the
response sent by the server.
The header appears in the following format:
Set-Cookie: awaf-sid=<session-id>; path=/' max-age=<session-lifetime>
The feature is disabled by default. When enabled, the default lifetime for the
session ID is 600 seconds, but you can enter a range from 1 - 86400 seconds (24
hours).
[no] soap-format-check Check the XML document for SOAP format compliance.
For more information, see “SOAP Format Checks” on page 33.
[no] sqlia-check option The feature is disabled by default, but when enabled, it checks for SQL strings
to protect against SQL injection attacks.
• reject – Denies the request.
• sanitize – Removes suspected SQL injection scripts from requests.
[no] ssn-mask Scans content for strings that resemble US Social Security numbers and
replaces all but the last four characters of the string with “x” characters. The
feature is disabled by default.
[no] template logging Applies a configured logging template to the WAF template. The default is not
template-name set.
[no] uri-blist-check Enforces the rules contained within a WAF policy file for the URI Black List. The
file-name default is “uri_blist_defs” policy file.
For more information see, “URI Black List” on page 109.
[no] uri-wlist-check Enforces the rules contained within a WAF policy file for the URI White List. The
file-name default is “uri_wlist_defs” policy file.
For more information, see “URI White List” on page 110.
Command Description
[no] url-check Enables the URL Check. This check allows users to access Web pages by click-
ing hyperlinks within the Web site only and does not allow users to access the
URLs of a Web site directly.
An approved list of URL paths can be initially configured only when the WAF is
deployed in Learning Mode. For a deployment example that includes configu-
ration of the URL Check, see “Generate Allowed URL Paths for the URL Check”
on page 127.
The feature is disabled by default.
[no] url-options options Use this command to normalize request URLs. This helps shorten the URLs and
prevent buffer overflows from length URLs.
• decode-entities – Decode entities, such as <, in an internal URL.
• decode-escaped-chars – Decode escaped chars, such as \r or \n, in an
internal URL.
• decode-hex-chars – Decode hexadecimal characters, such as \%xx and
\%u00yy, in an internal URL.
• remove-comments – Remove comments from an internal URL.
• remove-selfref – Remove self-references, such as /./ and /path/../, from
an internal URL.
• remove-spaces – Remove spaces from an internal URL.
[no] xml-format-check Checks the HTTP body for XML format compliance.
For more information, see “XML Format Checks” on page 27.
[no] xml-limit Checks for XML parsing limits.
For more information, see “XML Limit Checks” on page 29.
[no] xml-sqlia-check Check XML data against the selected SQLIA policy.
For more information, see “XML SQL Injection Checks” on page 32.
[no] xml-validation Checks for XML content validation.
For more information, see “XML Validation Checks” on page 27.
[no] xml-xss-check Check XML data against the specified XSS policy.
For more information, see “XML Cross-Site Scripting Checks” on page 31.
[no] xss-check option The feature is disabled by default, but when enabled, it checks for potential
HTML XSS scripts to protect against cross-site scripting attacks.
• reject – Rejects requests with XSS patterns.
• sanitize – Removes suspected cross-site scripts from requests.
show waf stats

Description Show WAF statistics for a specific virtual port on a specific virtual server.
Syntax show waf stats virtual-server-name portnum
Command Description
virtual-server-name Name of the virtual server.
portnum Virtual port number.
Default N/A
Mode All
Example The following example shows WAF statistics:
ACOS#show waf
Total
---------------------------------------------------------------
Requests 5666
Requests allowed 295630
Requests denied 3995
Responses denied 0
Session Check
- Success 0
- Failed 1
- None 73
Bad Bot Check
- Success 0
- Failed 0
Buffer Overflow Check
- URL too long 57
- Request line too long 18
- Query too long 0
- Cookie too long 0
- Total Cookies too long 0
- Cookie Name too long 0
- Cookie Value too long 0
- Headers too long 117
- Header Name too long 3
- Header Value too long 2460
- POST body too long 256
- Parameter name too long 0
- Parameter value too long 0
- Parameter total too long 0
- Too much data to parse 53
- Too many parameters 0
- Too many cookies 18
- Too many headers 1
- Too many MIME entities 18
Allowed HTTP Methods Check
- Success 299662
- Failed 13
HTTP Protocol Check
- Success 53
- Failed 44
Referer Check
- Success 51
- Failed 17
- No Referer (Redirect) 51
URI Whitelist Check
- Success (Match) 36
- Failed 18
URI Blacklist Check
- Success 35
- Failed (Match) 36
URL Check
- Learned 0
- Success 54
- Failed 126
Form Consistency Check
- Success 0
- Failed 0
Form CSRF Tag Check
- Success 0
- Failed 0
CCN Mask
- Amex 0
- Diners 0
- Visa 0
- MasterCard 0
- Discover 0
- JCB 0
SSN Mask
- US SSN's masked 0
PCRE Mask
- PCRE's masked 0
Cookie Encryption
- Encrypt Success 0
- Encrypt Failed 0
- Encrypt Limit Exceeded 0
- Encrypt Skipped 0
- Decrypt Success 0
- Decrypt Failed 0
SQLIA Check
- URL Success 54
- URL Sanitized 72
- URL Rejected 36
- POST Success 0
- POST Sanitized 0
- POST Rejected 0
- XML Success 72
- XML Failed 36
XSS Check
- Cookie Success 0
- Cookie Sanitized 0
- Cookie Rejected 0
- URL Success 18
- URL Sanitized 0
- URL Rejected 18
- POST Success 36
- POST Sanitized 18
- POST Rejected 18
- XML Success 36
- XML Failed 36
JSON Format Check
- Parse Success 882
- Parse Failure 630
- too many array values 0
- nested too deep 0
- too many object members 0
- string too long 18
XML Format Check
- Parse Success 306
- Parse Failure 252
- too many attributes 0
- attribute name too long 0
- attribute value too long 0
- CDATA field too long 18
- too many elements 0
- too many children 18
- elements nested too deep 0
- element name too long 0
- too many entity expansions 0
- entity expansions nested too deep 36
- too many namespaces 0
- namespace URI too long 0
- XML Schema success 18
- XML Schema failure 0
SOAP Format Check
- Parse Success 0
- Parse Failure 0
- WSDL Success 0
- WSDL Failure 0
Password Security Check
- Non masked passwords Rejected 0
- Non ssl passwords Rejected 0

- Password autocomplete Rejected 0
Redirect Whitelist Check
- Learned 0
- Success 0
- Failed 0
Brute-force Check
- Success 0
- Failed 0
Form non-SSL Rejected 0
Form non-POST Rejected 0
Form no-cache header inserted 0
Resp code hidden 0
Resp hdrs filtered 0
Cookie challenges 0
JavaScript challenges 0
Captcha challenges 0
Learning updates 0
The number at the top of the output (vip1 80 in this example) indicates the name of the virtual server and
port number. Table 10 describes the rest of fields in the command output.
TABLE 10 show waf stats fields

Field Description
Requests Total number of HTTP requests.
Requests allowed Total number of HTTP requests allowed.
Requests denied Total number of HTTP requests denied due to security violations.
Responses denied Total number or HTTP responses denied.
Session Check Session check injects a cookie into the HTTP session and makes sure that subsequent
requests on this session have this cookie.
• Success – Total number of requests that had a session ID inserted into the cookie and
passed the subsequent validation checks for that same ID.
• Failed – Total number of requests that had a session ID inserted into the cookie, failed
a subsequent check for that same ID, and were denied.
• None – Number of requests that did not contain a session ID.
Bad Bot Check Counters for bot checking:
• Success – Total number of requests that included a bot.
• Failed – Total number of requests that were screened for bots and did not match.
TABLE 10 show waf stats fields (Continued)

Field Description
Buffer Overflow Check Counters for buffer overflow checks:
• URL too long – Total number of requests that included URL headers which exceeded
the configured limit.
• Request line too long - Total number of request lines that exceeded the configured
limit.
• Query too long - Total number of request queries that exceeded the configured limit.
• Cookie too long – Total number of requests that included cookies which exceeded
• Total Cookies too long - Total number of cookies that exceeded the configured limit.
• Cookie Name too long - Total number of cookie names that exceeded the configured
limit.
• Cookie Value too long - Total number of cookie values that exceeded the configured
limit.
• Headers too long – Total number of requests that included headers which exceeded
• Header Name too long - Total number of header names that exceeded the configured
limit.
• Header Value too long - Total number of header values that exceeded the configured
limit.
• POST body too long – Total number of POST requests with content length which
exceeded the configured limit.
• Parameter name too long - Total number of parameter names that exceeded the con-
figured limit.
• Parameter value too long - Total number of parameter values that exceeded the con-
figured limit.
• Parameter total too long - Total number of requests that exceeded the configured
limit of allowed parameters.
• Too much data to parse - Total number of request that were denied because they
exceeded the configured data limit.
• Too many parameters - Total number of requests that were denied because they
exceeded the configured parameter limit.
• Too many cookies – Total number of requests that were denied because they
exceeded the configured cookie limit.
• Too many headers – Total number of requests that were denied because they
exceeded the configured header limit.
• Too many MIME entities - Total number of requests that were denied because they
contained too many MIME entities.
Allowed HTTP Methods Counters for allowed HTTP methods:
Check • Success – Total number of requests that contained only a method that is present in
the Allowed HTTP Methods list.
• Failed – Total number of requests that contained a method that is not in the Allowed
HTTP Methods list.

Field Description
HTTP Protocol Check Counters for responses that adhere to HTTP protocol:
• Success – Number of requests that followed valid HTTP protocol.
• Failed – Number of requests that did not adhere to HTTP protocol.
Referer Check Counters for referer header validation for incoming requests:
• Success – Number of requests that passed the referer header check.
• Failed – Number of requests that did not pass the referer header check.
• No Referer (Redirect) – Number of requests that did not contain a referer header.
URI White List Check URI White List counters:
• Success (Match) – Number of requests that matched criteria in the URI White List and
were accepted.
• Failed – Number of requests that did not match criteria in the URI White List and were
denied.
URI Black List Check URI Black List counters:
• Success – Number of requests that did not match criteria in the URI Black List and
were accepted.
• Failed (Match) – Number of requests that matched criteria in the URI Black List and
were denied.
URL Check URL Check counters:
• Learned – Number of URL paths learned during Learning Mode and added to the URL
Check list.
• Success – Number of requests that matched the URL Check list and were accepted.
• Failed – Number of requests that did not match the URL Check list and were denied.
Form Counters for Web form consistency:
Consistency Check
• Success – Number of requests that passed the Web form consistency check.
• Failed – Number of requests which did not match the original structure of the Web
form and were denied.
Form CSRF Tag Check Counters for the CSRF check on Web form field tags in
outbound responses:
• Success – Number of requests that passed the check.
• Failed – Number of requests which did not match the nonce for the Web form and
denied.
CCN Mask Counters for credit card numbers masked in requests. This counter is separated into the
following credit card types:
• Amex
• Diners
• Visa
• MasterCard
• Discover
• JCB

Field Description
SSN Mask Counters for US social security number checks:
• US SSNs masked – Total number of SSN numbers that the WAF discovered and
masked.
PCRE Mask Counters for custom PCRE pattern checks:
• PCREs masked – Total number of custom PCRE string matches the WAF discovered
and masked.
Cookie Counters for cookie encryption:
Encryption
• Encrypt Success – Number of times a cookie was successfully encrypted with the
specified secret string.
• Encrypt Failed – Number of times encryption of a cookie failed.
• Encrypt Limit Exceeded – Number of times cookies were not encrypted because of
the a configured limit.
• Encrypt Skipped – Number of cookies that skipped encryption because the remove-
cookies option is enforced in the RAM caching template.
• Decrypt Success – Number of cookies in clients’ requests that were successfully
decrypted with the configured secret string.
• Decrypt Failed – Number of client requests that were rejected because they could not
be decrypted.
SQLIA Check Counters for the SQL Inject Attack (SQLIA) check:
• URL Success – Number of requests that passed the SQLIA check for the URL.
• URL Sanitized – Total number of requests that the URL component was sanitized of an
SQL attack pattern and accepted.
• URL Failed – Number of requests that contained an SQLIA in the URL.
• POST Success – Number of requests that passed the SQLIA check for the POST body.
• POST Sanitized – Total number of requests that the POST body component was sani-
tized of an SQL attack pattern and accepted.
• POST Rejected – Total number of requests that were denied because they contained
an SQL injection attack in the POST body of a request.
• XML Success – Number of requests that passed the SQLIA check for XML.
• XML Failed – Number of requests that contained an SQLIA in the XML.

Field Description
XSS Check Counters for cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks:
• Cookie Success – Number of requests that passed the cookie inspection portion of
the XSS check.
• Cookie Sanitized – Number of requests that contained an XSS attack in the cookie,
were sanitized, and accepted.
• Cookie Rejected – Number of requests that contained an XSS attack in the cookie and
were denied.
• URL Success – Number of requests that passed the URL inspection portion of the XSS
check.
• URL Sanitized – Number of requests that contained an XSS attack in the URL, were
sanitized, and accepted.
• URL Rejected – Number of requests that contained an XSS attack in the URL and were
denied.
• POST Success – Number of requests that passed the POST body inspection portion of
the XSS check.
• POST Sanitized – Number of requests that contained an XSS attack in the POST body,
were sanitized, and accepted.
• POST Rejected – Number of requests that contained an XSS attack in the POST body
and were denied.
• XML Success – Number of requests that passed the XML inspection portion of the XSS
check.
• XML Rejected – Number of requests that contained an XSS attack in the XML and
were denied.
JSON Format Check Stats for performing JSON format parsing and validation and making sure the JSON
object is well constructed.
• Parse Success - Number of valid JSON objects.
• Parse Failure - Number of invalid JSON objects.
• too many array values - Number of JSON objects with too many array values.
• nested too deep - Number of JSON objects with invalid nesting.
• too many object members - Number of JSON objects with too many members.
• string too long - Number of JSON objects with invalid string lengths.

Field Description
XML Format Check Stats for performing XML format parsing and validation and making sure the XML object
is well constructed.
• Parse Success - Number of valid XML objects.
• Parse Failure - Number of XML objects that could not be parsed due to some error.
• too many attributes - Number of XML objects with too many attributes.
• attribute name too long - Number of XML objects with invalid attribute names.
• attribute value too long - Number of XML objects with invalid attribute values.
• CDATA field too long - Number of XML objects with invalid CDATA fields.
• too many elements - Number of XML objects with too many elements.
• too many children - Number of XML objects with too many children.
• elements nested too deep - Number of XML objects with improper nesting.
• element name too long - Number of XML objects with improper element names.
• too many entity expansions - Number of XML objects with too many entity expan-
sions.
• entity expansions nested too deep - Number of XML objects with improper entity
nesting.
• too many namespaces - Number of XML objects with too many namespaces.
• namespace URI too long - Number of XML objects with improper URI lengths.
• XML Schema success - Number of XML schemas parsed successfully.
• XML Schema failure - Number of XML schemas that could not be parsed.
SOAP Format Check Validates that SOAP messages are properly constructed and also checks the provided
WSDL file to make sure that the fields are aligned with the expected template.
• Parse Success - Number of valid SOAP messages.
• Parse Failure - Number of SOAP messages that could not be processed due to error.
• WSDL Success - Number of times a SOAP message is validated against the WSDL file.
• WSDL Failure - Number of times a SOAP message fails validation against the WSDL
file.
Password Security Check Counters for the Password Security check:
• Non masked passwords Rejected – when a form has an input field for a password
which is not masked (so when you type your password the characters are not
replaced by asterisks)
• Non ssl passwords Rejected – When a form containing a password field is POSTed
over a non-SSL connection
• Password autocomplete Rejected – When the password field of a form has autocom-
plete turned on, which means that an unauthorized person with access to the
browser will not need to actually type in the password

Field Description
Redirect Whitelist Check Counters for the Redirect Whitelist check:
• Learned – Number of redirect locations (URIs) learned during Learning Mode and
added to the redirect white-list.
• Success – Number of requests that matched a URI entry in the redirect white-list and
were accepted.
• Failed – Number of requests that did not match a URI entry in the redirect white-list
and were blocked.
Form non-SSL Rejected Total number of forms that were rejected due to having been submitted over a non-SSL
connection.
Form non-POST Rejected Number of times a form is sent using an HTTP method other than POST.
Form no-cache header Number of times WAF inserted a pragma to tell the client not to cache the content.
inserted
Response Code Hidden Number of times WAF masked out an HTTP response code and replaced it with a generic
200/403.
Response headers fil- Total number of response headers that WAF sanitized and forwarded.
tered
Learning updates Number of additional rules generated from the WAF learning mechanisms when the
WAF is operating in Learning Mode.
clear waf stats

Description Clear WAF statistics for a specific virtual port on a specific virtual server.
Syntax clear waf stats virtual-server-name portnum
Command Description
virtual-server-name Name of the virtual server.
portnum Virtual port number.
Default N/A
Mode Privileged EXEC and all configuration levels
WAF File Management Commands

The commands in this section manage WAF policy files:
• waf policy check
• waf policy copy
• waf policy delete
• waf policy edit
• waf policy max-filesize
• waf policy rename
• waf wsdl check
• waf wsdl copy
• waf wsdl delete
• waf wsdl edit
• waf wsdl max-filesize
• waf wsdl rename
• waf xml-schema check
• waf xml-schema copy
• waf xml-schema delete
• waf xml-schema edit
• waf xml-schema max-filesize
• waf xml-schema rename
• show waf policy
waf policy check

Description Validate a WAF policy file’s syntax.
Syntax waf policy check file-name
file-name Name of a configured WAF policy file.
waf policy copy

Description Copy a WAF policy file to a different file name.
Syntax waf policy copy source-name destination-name
source-name Name of a configured WAF policy file.
destination-name Name of the new, copied WAF policy file.
Default N/A
waf policy delete

Description Delete a WAF policy file.
Syntax waf policy delete file-name
Replace file-name with the name of the WAF policy file to be deleted.
Default N/A
waf policy edit

Description Edit or create a WAF policy file from within the CLI.
Syntax waf policy edit file-name
Replace file-name with the name of the WAF policy file to be modified, or an un-
used name to create a new file.
Default N/A
Usage Editing the default WAF policy files is not allowed. However, you can copy a
default WAF policy file and customize its contents to fit your specific demands.
waf policy max-filesize

Description Sets the maximum size of a WAF policy file.
Syntax waf policy max-filesize
Default 32K
Usage Set a maximum file size in KBytes ranging from 16-256K.
waf policy rename

Description Renames a WAF policy file.
Syntax waf policy rename source-name destination-name
source-name This is the old name of the WAF policy file.
destination-name This is the new name of the WAF policy file.
Default N/A
waf wsdl check

Description Validate a WAF WSDL file’s syntax.
Syntax waf wsdl check file-name
file-name Name of a configured WSDL file.
waf wsdl copy

Description Copy a WAF WSDL file to a different file name.
Syntax waf wsdl copy source-name destination-name
source-name Name of a configured WAF WSDL file.
destination-name Name of the new, copied WAF WSDL file.
Default N/A
waf wsdl delete

Description Delete a WAF WSDL file.
Syntax waf wsdl delete file-name
Replace file-name with the name of the WAF WSDL file to be deleted.
Default N/A
waf wsdl edit

Description Edit or create a WAF WSDL file from within the CLI.
Syntax waf wsdl edit file-name
Replace file-name with the name of the WAF WSDL file to be modified, or an un-
used name to create a new file.
Default N/A
waf wsdl max-filesize

Description Sets the maximum size of a WAF WSDL file.
Syntax waf wsdl max-filesize
Default 32K
waf wsdl rename

Description Renames a WAF WSDL file.
Syntax waf wsdl rename source-name destination-name
source-name This is the old name of the WAF WSDL file.
destination-name This is the new name of the WAF WSDL file.
Default N/A
waf xml-schema check

Description Validate a WAF XML-Schema file’s syntax.
Syntax waf xml-schema check file-name
file-name Name of a configured WSDL file.
waf xml-schema copy

Description Copy a WAF XML-Schema file to a different file name.
Syntax waf xml-schema copy source-name destination-name
source-name Name of a configured WAF XML-Schema file.
destination-name Name of the new, copied WAF XML-Schema file.
Default N/A
waf xml-schema delete

Description Delete a WAF XML-Schema file.
Syntax waf xml-schema delete file-name
Replace file-name with the name of the WAF XML-Schema file to be deleted.
Default N/A
waf xml-schema edit

Description Edit or create a WAF XML-Schema file from within the CLI.
Syntax waf xml-schema edit file-name
Replace file-name with the name of the WAF XML-Schema file to be modified, or
an un-used name to create a new file.
Default N/A
waf xml-schema max-filesize

Description Sets the maximum size of a WAF XML-Schema file.
Syntax waf xml-schema max-filesize
Default 32K
waf xml-schema rename

Description Renames a WAF XML-Schema file.
Syntax waf xml-schema rename source-name destination-name
source-name This is the old name of the WAF XML-Schema file.
destination-name This is the new name of the WAF XML-Schema file.
Default N/A
show waf policy

Description Displays WAF policy files.
Syntax show waf policy [def-file-name]

[all-partitions | partition {shared | partition-name}]
def-file-name Returns a list of WAF policy files with names that partially
match the specified string.
all-partitions Returns a list of WAF policy files for all partitions.
partition {shared | Returns a list of WAF policy files for the shared partition
partition-name} or the specified private partition.
Default N/A
Mode All
Example The following command lists all WAF policy files, for all partitions:
ACOS(config-waf)#show waf policy all-partitions

Total WAF policy number: 10
Max WAF policy file size: 32K
Name Syntax Template Learning
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
allowed_resp_codes Check Bind No
bot_defs Check Bind No
jscript_defs Check No No
sqlia_defs Check Bind No
uri_blist_defs Check Bind No
uri_wlist_defs Check Bind No
1
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Web Application Firewall Guide

ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall

A10 Networks Inc. Software License and End User Agreement

2. sublicense, rent or lease the Software.

page 3 | ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016

WAF aFleX Commands ................................................................................................................................................................................... 42

WAF Operational Modes ......................................................................................................................................49

Configuring the WAF Using the GUI ................................................................................................................57

ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016 | page 4

Configure the Logging Template .................................................................................................................................................88

Configuring the WAF Using the CLI .................................................................................................................91

WAF Event Logging ............................................................................................................................................. 101

WAF Policy Files .................................................................................................................................................... 107

Overriding a WAF Template ............................................................................................................................. 117

page 5 | ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016

Bind the HTTP Policy Template to the Virtual Port .............................................................................................119

WAF Statistics ........................................................................................................................................................ 121

WAF Deployment and Logging Examples .................................................................................................. 123

WAF Template Reference .................................................................................................................................. 135

WAF CLI Command Reference ........................................................................................................................ 147

ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016 | page 6

waf policy copy .......................................................................................................................................................................................168

page 7 | ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016

ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016 | page 8

This chapter contains the following topics:

• WAF External Logging

• Protection Against Common Web Attacks

• WAF Security Models

• PCI 6.6 Compliance

page 9 | ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016

WAF External Logging

(For more information, see “WAF Event Logging” on page 101.)

Protection Against Common Web Attacks

Buffer Overflow Attacks

ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016 | page 10

Web Form Security Attacks

page 11 | ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016

WAF Security Models

Positive Security Model

(For more information, see “WAF Operational Modes” on page 49.)

Negative Security Model

ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016 | page 12

Compare Request URI to White List and Black List

page 13 | ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016

FIGURE 1 Screen URI requests

ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016 | page 14

Scan Request for Threats

FIGURE 2 Scan requests

page 15 | ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016

Form Field Consistency Check

HTTP Protocol Compliance Check

• POST request with Content-Length: 0

• Header name with no header value

• Several Content-Length headers

• Chunked request with Content-Length header

ACOS 4.1.1-P1 Web Application Firewall Guide - 22 November 2016 | page 16

• Body in GET or HEAD requests

• No Host header in HTTP/1.1 request

• Host header contains IP address

• Content length should be a positive number

• Bad HTTP version

• Maximum number of headers

• Bad host header value