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How to Protect a Laravel Website with a WAF

This guide explains what a WAF is and how to use one to protect your Laravel website.

Domains and DNS2 min read13 steps

What is a WAF?

WAF stands for Web Application Firewall. Think of a guard at the door of a shop. The guard looks at every visitor. Bad visitors are turned away. A WAF does this for your website. It checks each request and blocks the harmful ones.

Laravel is a popular tool for building websites with PHP. PHP is a language that runs websites. A WAF helps stop common attacks such as SQL injection. That is when an attacker sneaks database commands into a form. It also helps with bots and floods of fake visitors.

A WAF can be a service in front of your site, such as Cloudflare. It can also be software on your server, such as ModSecurity. Ask Hostvento support which one is available on your plan.

Steps using a WAF service

  1. Sign up with a WAF provider. Cloudflare is one well-known choice.
  2. Add your domain name to the provider.
  3. The provider shows you two name servers. Name servers tell the internet where to find your domain.
  4. Log in to your client area. Open Domains and then My Domains.
  5. Choose your domain and open the name server settings.
  6. Replace the name servers with the two from the provider. Save.
  7. Wait for the change to spread. This can take a few hours.
  8. In the provider dashboard, turn on the managed WAF rules and the proxy option for your domain.
  9. Turn on a rate limit rule for your login page. This stops people from guessing passwords again and again.
Warning: Changing name servers can break email and website settings. Copy your DNS records before you change them.

Also harden Laravel itself

A WAF helps, but it is not enough alone. Do these too.

  1. In your .env file, set APP_DEBUG=false on a live site. This hides error details from visitors.
  2. Keep Laravel and its packages updated with composer update.
  3. Keep the .env file private. Never share it.
  4. Use HTTPS so that data is encrypted.

Test your site

Browse your site and log in. If a real page is blocked, check the WAF event log. Then allow that rule or page.

Quick recap

  • A WAF is a guard that blocks harmful requests.
  • Use a service in front of your site or server software.
  • Change name servers carefully after saving your DNS records.
  • Set APP_DEBUG=false and keep Laravel updated.
  • Ask support what your plan includes.