Help Center/ Web Application Firewall/ User Guide/ Connecting Your Website to WAF/ Recommended Configurations After Website Connection/ Configuring a Timeout for Connections Between WAF and a Website Server
Updated on 2025-08-19 GMT+08:00
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Configuring a Timeout for Connections Between WAF and a Website Server

If you want to set a timeout duration for each request between your WAF instance and origin server, enable Timeout Settings and specify WAF-to-Server connection timeout (s), Read timeout (s), and Write timeout (s). This function cannot be disabled once it is enabled.

  • WAF-to-Server Connection Timeout: timeout for WAF and the origin server to establish a TCP connection.
  • Write Timeout: Timeout set for WAF to send a request to the origin server. If the origin server does not receive a request within the specified write timeout, the connection times out.
  • Read Timeout: Timeout set for WAF to read responses from the origin server. If WAF does not receive any response from the origin server within the specified read timeout, the connection times out.

Figure 1 shows the three steps for WAF to forward requests to an origin server.

Figure 1 WAF forwarding requests to origin servers.
  • The timeout for connections from a browser to WAF is 120 seconds. The value varies depending on your browser settings and cannot be changed on the WAF console.
  • The default timeout for connections between WAF and your origin server is 30 seconds. You can customize this timeout. If you are using a dedicated WAF instance or professional or enterprise edition cloud WAF instance, you can configure connection timeout, read timeout, and write timeout.

Prerequisites

You have connected the website you want to protect to WAF.

Constraints

  • You have selected Cloud Mode - CNAME or Dedicated Mode when adding the website to WAF.
  • In cloud mode, only professional and enterprise editions support custom connection timeouts.
  • The timeout duration for connections between a browser and WAF cannot be modified. Only timeout duration for connections between WAF and your origin server can be modified.
  • This function cannot be disabled once it is enabled.
  • For details about regions where you can configure a connection timeout, see Functions.

Configuring a Timeout for Connections Between WAF and a Website Server

  1. Log in to the WAF console.
  2. Click in the upper left corner and select a region or project.
  3. (Optional) If you have enabled the enterprise project function, in the upper part of the navigation pane on the left, select your enterprise project from the Filter by enterprise project drop-down list. Then, WAF will display the related security data in the enterprise project on the page.
  4. In the navigation pane on the left, click Website Settings.
  5. On the Website Settings page, click the target website domain name.
  6. In the Timeout Settings row, toggle on if needed.
  7. Click , specify WAF-to-Server connection timeout (s), Read timeout (s), and Write timeout (s), and click OK to save settings.
Parent Topic: Recommended Configurations After Website Connection