WAF-GUARD

Welcome to the official GitHub repository for WAF-GUARD, a powerful tool designed to assist in troubleshooting Web Application Firewall (WAF) configurations by leveraging an ontological representation. This repository contains the source code and documentation necessary to understand and utilize WAF-GUARD.

Overview

Configuring and maintaining a WAF, especially in large-scale environments, presents significant challenges due to the complexity and interconnectivity of rules and directives. WAF-GUARD addresses these challenges by providing a comprehensive ontology that helps administrators navigate and manage complex WAF configurations efficiently.

Features

• Ontology-Based Representation: Leverages ontology to model WAF configurations, enabling better traceability, transparency, and management.
• Easy Navigation: Facilitates the exploration of large rule sets, macros, and configurations through an intuitive interface.
• Real-World Application: Tested on extensive real-world configurations, demonstrating its effectiveness in diagnosing and resolving WAF configuration issues.

Getting Started

Installation

Prerequisites

• Java 17+: WAF-GUARD is built using Java, and has been tested with Java 17.
• Maven: is used to build the java project. It has been tested with maven 3.9.6

Build from source

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/csvl/CWAF_config.git
   cd CWAF_config/cwaf-ontology

2. Build the project using Maven:

   mvn clean package

Usage

For ontology editing and visualization, we strongly advice to use Protege.

Run the different classes:

java -cp cwaf-ontology/target/cwaf-ontology-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar be.uclouvain.service.Parser conf/httpd.conf

Will produce config.ttl and full_schema.ttl. The full_schema.ttl is designed to be explored manually, while config.ttl is provided for the compiler.

java -cp cwaf-ontology/target/cwaf-ontology-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar be.uclouvain.service.Compiler 

Will produce entities.ttl and full_entities.ttl. The full_entities.ttl is designed to be explored manually, while entities.ttl can be imported into the full_schema.ttl for a complete overview of the configuration.

java -cp cwaf-ontology/target/cwaf-ontology-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar be.uclouvain.service.Filter > output

Will output the directives information in the same order Apache would applie them.

License

WAF-GUARD is released under the MIT License.

Acknowledgements

This project is supported by Approach Cyber. This study has been conducted as part of the COODEVIIS project (agreement no. 8887), funded by the Wallonia Public Service (SPW) under the framework of the region’s recovery plan. It was in part supported by the CyberExcellence project (RW, Convention 2110186).

Contact

For questions, suggestions, or issues, please open an issue on this repository or contact us directly at bastien.wiaux@uclouvain.be.

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Thank you for using WAF-GUARD! We hope it enhances your experience in managing WAF configurations.