Help Center> Web Application Firewall> User Guide> Policies> Configuring IP Address Blacklist and Whitelist Rules to Block or Allow Specified IP Addresses
Updated on 2024-01-31 GMT+08:00

Configuring IP Address Blacklist and Whitelist Rules to Block or Allow Specified IP Addresses

By default, all IP addresses are allowed to access your website. You can configure blacklist and whitelist rules to block, log only, or allow access requests from specific IP addresses or IP address ranges. You can add a single IP address or import an IP address group to the blacklist or whitelist.

If you have enabled enterprise projects, ensure that you have all operation permissions for the project where your WAF instance locates. Then, you can select the project from the Enterprise Project drop-down list and configure protection policies for the domain names in the project.

Prerequisites

You have added your website to a policy.

Constraints

  • WAF supports batch import of IP address blacklists and whitelists. You can use address groups to add multiple IP addresses/ranges quickly to a blacklist or whitelist rule. For details, see Adding an IP Address Group.
  • For dedicated and ELB-accessed cloud WAF instances, if the load balancers they use support IPv6 addresses, those WAF instances also support IPv6 addresses or IPv6 address ranges.
  • It takes several minutes for a new rule to take effect. After the rule takes effect, protection events triggered by the rule will be displayed on the Events page.
  • The address 0.0.0.0/0 cannot be added to a WAF IP address blacklist or whitelist, and if a whitelist conflicts with a blacklist, the whitelist rule takes priority. If you want to allow only a specific IP address within a range of blocked addresses, add a blacklist rule to block the range and then add a whitelist rule to allow the individual address you wish to allow.

    If you want to allow only specified IP addresses to access the protected website, see How Do I Allow Only Specified IP Addresses to Access the Protected Website?

  • If you set Protective Action of a blacklist or whitelist rule to Block, you can configure known attack source rules to block the attack source IP address for a specified period of time. WAF will block requests matching the configured IP address, Cookie, or Params for a block duration you specify.

Specification Limitations

  • For details about the quota for IP address blacklist and whitelist rules, see Edition Differences.
  • If the quota for IP address whitelist and blacklist rules of your cloud WAF instance cannot meet your requirements, you can purchase rule expansion packages under the current WAF instance edition or upgrade your WAF instance edition to increase such quota.

    A rule expansion package allows you to configure up to 10 IP address blacklist and whitelist rules. For details about how to upgrade WAF specifications, see Upgrading the WAF Edition and Specifications.

Impact on the System

If an IP address is added to a blacklist or whitelist, WAF blocks or allows requests from that IP address without checking whether the requests are malicious.

Procedure

  1. Log in to the management console.
  2. Click in the upper left corner of the management console and select a region or project.
  3. Click in the upper left corner and choose Web Application Firewall under Security & Compliance.
  4. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Policies.
  5. Click the name of the target policy to go to the protection configuration page.
  6. Click the Blacklist and Whitelist configuration area and toggle it on or off if needed.

    • : enabled.
    • : disabled.

  7. In the upper left corner above the Blacklist and Whitelist list, click Add Rule.
  8. In the displayed dialog box, specify the parameters by referring to Table 1. Figure 1 and Figure 2 show two examples.

    • If you select Log only for Protective Action for an IP address, WAF only identifies and logs requests from the IP address.
    • Other IP addresses are evaluated based on other configured WAF protection rules.
    Figure 1 Adding an IP address/Range to a blacklist or whitelist rule
    Figure 2 Batching adding IP addresses/Ranges to a blacklist or whitelist rule
    Table 1 Rule parameters

    Parameter

    Description

    Example Value

    Rule Name

    Rule name you entered.

    waftest

    IP Address/Range/Group

    You can select IP address/Range or Address Group to add IP addresses a blacklist or whitelist rule.

    IP Address/Range

    IP Address/Range

    This parameter is mandatory if you select IP address/range for IP Address/Range/Group.

    IP addresses or IP address ranges are supported.

    • IP address: IP address to be added to the blacklist or whitelist
    • IP address range: IP address and subnet mask defining a network segment
    NOTICE:

    Only the professional and platinum editions support IPv6 protection.

    XXX.XXX.2.3

    Select Address Group

    This parameter is mandatory if you select Address group for IP Address/Range/Group. Select an IP address group from the drop-down list. You can also click Add Address Group to create an address group. For details, see Adding an IP Address Group.

    groupwaf

    Protective Action

    • Block: Select Block if you want to blacklist an IP address or IP address range.
    • Allow: Select Allow if you want to whitelist an IP address or IP address range.
    • Log only: Select Log only if you want to observe an IP address or IP address range. Then, WAF determines whether the IP address or IP address range are blacklisted or whitelisted based on the events data.

    Block

    Known Attack Source

    If you select Block for Protective Action, you can select a blocking type of a known attack source rule. WAF will block requests matching the configured IP address, Cookie, or Params for a length of time configured as part of the rule.

    Long-term IP address blocking

    Rule Description

    A brief description of the rule. This parameter is optional.

    None

  9. Click Confirm. You can then view the added rule in the list of blacklist and whitelist rules.

    • To disable a rule, click Disable in the Operation column of the rule. The default Rule Status is Enabled.
    • To modify a rule, click Modify in the row containing the rule.
    • To delete a rule, click Delete in the row containing the rule.

Protection Effect

If you have added domain name www.example.com to this rule, to verify WAF is protecting the corresponding website:

  1. Clear the browser cache and enter the domain name in the address bar to check whether the website is accessible.

    • If the website is inaccessible, connect the website domain name to WAF by referring to Website Settings.
    • If the website is accessible, go to Step 2.

  2. Blacklist the IP address of a client according to the instructions in Procedure.
  3. Clear the browser cache and access http://www.example.com. Normally, WAF blocks such requests and returns the block page.
  4. Return to the WAF console. In the navigation pane, choose Events. On the displayed page, view or download events data.

Example Configuration - Allowing a Specified IP Addresses

If domain name www.example.com has been connected to WAF, you can perform the following steps to verify the rule takes effect:

  1. Add the following two blacklist and whitelist rules to block all IP addresses:

    Figure 3 Blocking IP address range 1.0.0.0/1
    Figure 4 Blocking IP address range 128.0.0.0/1

    You can also add a precise protection rule to block all access requests, as shown in Figure 5.

    Figure 5 Blocking all access requests

    For details, see Configuring Custom Precise Protection Rules.

  2. Refer to Figure 6 and add a whitelist rule to allow a specified IP address, for example, XXX.XXX.2.3.

    Figure 6 Allowing the access of a specified IP address

  3. Enable the white and blacklist protection.

    Figure 7 Blacklist and Whitelist configuration area

  4. Clear the browser cache and access http://www.example.com.

    If the IP address of a visitor is not the one specified in Step 2, WAF blocks the access request. Figure 8 shows an example of the block page.

    Figure 8 Block page

  5. Go to the WAF console. In the navigation pane on the left, choose Events. View the event on the Events page.