My Experience with SafeLine: A Powerful and Free Web Application Firewall

I've always admired Chaitin Technology, so when I heard that they released a community edition of their WAF product, "SafeLine," I was eager to give it a try. I had known about SafeLine for quite some time, but it was previously only available as a paid version. Now that it's free, I decided to see how the community edition performs.

What is SafeLine?

2. Installation:

To install SafeLine, you'll need a server with Docker installed (Docker version >= 20.10.14, Docker Compose >= 2.0.0). Here’s a quick guide to setting it up:

1.Install Docker:

   yum install -y yum-utils

   yum-config-manager --add-repo https://mirrors.aliyun.com/docker-ce/linux/centos/docker-ce.repo

   yum -y install docker-ce

   systemctl start docker

2.Check Docker Version:

   yum list installed | grep docker

3.Download and Install SafeLine:

Run the following command to start the installation:

   bash -c "$(curl -fsSLk https://waf.chaitin.com/release/latest/setup.sh)"

Once the installation is complete, you can access the SafeLine dashboard by visiting http://[Server_IP]:9443.

Configuring SafeLine WAF

Here’s how I set up SafeLine WAF on a dedicated server, which filters all incoming traffic before it reaches my website server. This setup ensures that all attacks and traffic are handled by SafeLine first.

Server Specs:

• 
  CPU: 2 cores


• 
  RAM: 2GB


• 
  Bandwidth: 20Mbps


• 
  Operating System: Linux

Steps to Configure:

1. Add Your Website Domain:
   
   After logging into the SafeLine dashboard, go to the protection section and add the domain you want to protect.




2. Update Domain DNS:
   
   Point your domain to the IP of the server where SafeLine is installed, ensuring that all traffic is filtered through SafeLine first.




3. Enable Dynamic Protection:
   
   SafeLine's dynamic protection feature is impressive. It can encrypt your website pages in real time, making the content unreadable to potential attackers. I usually enable this feature on login and registration pages, which are critical points that need extra protection.

Now that your server is configured with SafeLine, it effectively functions as a high-security server. Any attack attempts will be intercepted by SafeLine before they can reach your actual website server.