NGINX App Protect DoS Access Log Request Mechanism

Learn about the NGINX App Protect DoS Request Log Mechanism.

Access Logs

Access Log is NGINX’s request log mechanism. It is controlled by the following two directives.

log_format

This directive determines the format of the log messages using predefined variables. App Protect DoS will enrich this set of variables with several security log attributes that are available to be included in the log_format. If log_format is not specified then the built-in format combined is used but, because that format does not include the extended App Protect DoS variables, this directive must be used when the user wants to add App Protect DoS information to the log.

access_log

This directive determines the destination of the access_log and the name of the format according to the official NGINX documentation.

For example: access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log log_dos; (log_dos is predefined in the log_format directive).

App Protect Variables for Access Log

These are the variables added to Access Log. They are a subset of the Security log attributes. The Security log names are prefixed with $app_protect_dos.

Name Meaning Comment
$app_protect_dos_outcome One of:
Allow: request was sent to origin server
Redirect: http redirection
Challenge: JS challenge
Block: blocked request
$app_protect_dos_outcome reason One of:
Allow: not mitigated request, passed DoS flow successfully
Bypass: not mitigated request due to internal failure
Bad_Actor:: mitigated as bad actor
Signature: mitigated as matched DoS attack signature
Global_Rate: mitigated as acceded calculated global requests rate
Slow_Body: mitigated slow request		 Combine MITIGATED_BY_GLOBAL_RATE with global rate value (in RPS) for example Global_Rate, value=152,
$app_protect_dos_tls_fp TLS Fingerprint - a value which identifies the sender Applicable only in TLS (SSL) traffic
$app_protect_dos_policy_name The name of the policy that enforced the request
$app_protect_dos_vs_name The name of the protected object
$app_protect_dos_version The App Protect DoS version string:
major.minor.build format.		 Does not include the NGINX plus version (e.g. R21). The latter is available in $version variable.
Note:
Many of the other Security log attributes that are not included here have exact or similar parallels among the NGINX variables also available for access log. For example, $request is parallel to the request security log attribute. See the full list of NGINX variables.

Logging Rate Limit - mandatory configuration

During a DoS attack, there is a large quantity of incoming requests which can flood the Access Log. The rate of the access log’s entries can be limited in order to avoid this flood.

NGINX logs all the requests during peacetime and logs up to 10 entries per second for each outcome reason during attack time. In worst case it can be 50 requests per second under attack.

Two things should be configured in the nginx conf file:

  1. Create a variable called loggable using NGINX’s set directive and give it any value (string or numerical).
    Note that the scope of the set directive is server or location block.
    For example: set $loggable ‘1’;

  2. Add the string “if=$loggable” to the access_log directive’s argument. For example: access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log custom if=$loggable;

Example 

http {
    log_format security_dos 'request_time=$request_time client_ip=$remote_addr,'
                            'request="$request", status=$status,'
                            'dos_policy=$app_protect_dos_policy_name, dos_protected_object=app_protect_dos_vs_name'
                            'dos_action=$app_protect_dos_outcome, dos_action_reason=$app_protect_dos_outcome_reason';

    server {
        location / {
            set $loggable 1;
            access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log security_dos if=$loggable;;
            ...
        }
    }
}