Resolved WAF / NGINX ONLY

[othmaqsa]

Server operating system version

Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS

Plesk version and microupdate number

18.0.49

Hello,

I use nginx only (reverse proxy unchecked).

How can I use a WAF in this case ?

 

[Peter Debik]

Hi @othmaqsa, you can run WAF basically the same like with the Nginx/Apache combination, however on the "settings" page of your WAF configuration, please select the appropriate web server. Please see the documentation for details:

Web Application Firewall (ModSecurity)

In this topic, you will learn how to protect your web applications (such as WordPress, Joomla!, or Drupal) from attacks using ModSecurity, an Open Source web application firewall.

docs.plesk.com

 

[othmaqsa]

Nginx and ModSecurity Notes (Linux)​

On Linux, ModSecurity is a module for Apache. Thus, it can check only HTTP requests that reach Apache. Apache can be supplemented with another web server - nginx. If you turn on the Process PHP by nginx option of the nginx web server for dynamic content of your website (in Apache & nginx settings for a website), the web application firewall will not be able to check HTTP requests because they will never reach Apache. For static content, if the Serve static files directly by nginx option is on, then HTTP requests will not reach Apache, so ModSecurity will not check them.

So there is no way to run a WAF in NGINX server ?

 

[Peter Debik]

I've seen the "Notes" yesterday, too, and immediately asked staff about it. We believe that is a leftover of the times when only Apache was supported. These notes will be removed in a future update of the documentation.

 

[othmaqsa]

I've seen the "Notes" yesterday, too, and immediately asked staff about it. We believe that is a leftover of the times when only Apache was supported. These notes will be removed in a future update of the documentation.

Hello @Peter Debik ,

Is is it safe to keep Modsec + Comodo even if Comodo have not updated the rulesets since 2020-11-19 22:32:48 ?

If not, what is the best alternative ?

 

[Peter Debik]

Some users recommend to stop using Comodo. I am not using that on my servers either. Instead I am back to Atomic, but this is probably a matter of taste.

 

[othmaqsa]

Hello,
I'm using Ubuntu 20.04.5 LTS, Atomic is not available unfortunately.

Just Comodo and OWASP are available.

 

[othmaqsa]

Hello @Peter Debik

You can now mark this thread as resolved.