Inspiration

Choosing the right project

I began my research by exploring general firewall software before delving into Web Application Firewalls (WAFs). One prominent discovery was an open-source WAF called Naxsi, based on NGINX, which piqued my interest.

To understand more about the inner workings of firewalls, I delved into the source code of UFW, the Uncomplicated Firewall used in Debian Linux machines. To my surprise, it was predominantly written in Python, a choice that intrigued me given Python's latency issues.

In my quest for a stack that combines type-safety with NGINX, I found Naxsi, which served as a valuable example. It was built as an NGINX module, aligning with my vision. However, I recognized that I had much to learn about the principles of WAFs in this exciting journey.