Entry Point Handler

Purpose

The Entry Point Handler only has an effect when the Session Handler is also active. In detection mode, the Entry Point Handler is ignored.

The Entry Point Handler forces the entry to the web application via specific URLs and can therefore prevent undesirable deep linking.

When the Entry Point Handler is activated, the first request in a session must either be to one of the URLs specified under entrypoint or to the main page specified under mainpage. If this isn’t the case, vWAF generates an HTTP redirect to the URL specified in the mainpage field.

For more information regarding adding and editing Handlers, see Editing Handlers.

Severity

Events triggered by this handler are given the severity: low. (For details on severity levels, see Severity of Events Triggered by Handlers).

Recommendations for use

This handler should be activated if you want to prevent other sites linking to parts of your content. Alternatively you can use the Url Encryption Handler if you also want to encrypt the URLs of your web application.

Attributes

Attribute Meaning

mainpage

Main page to which the user is redirected when the first request in a session is onto a page that isn't included in the entrypoint list.

Example: index.html

entrypoint

List of permissible entry points to your web application.

Examples: /demos/myentry.html

content types

In order to achieve maximum performance, the handler only analyzes requests of the content types that are stated here.

url protection

If you activate this option, vWAF stores the URLs of all outgoing links of your web application. Users can only re-enter a page of your web application (using the back or history function of their browser, e.g.) if they come from exactly one of these URLs. In case of a mismatch, vWAF generates an HTTP redirect to the URL specified in the mainpage field.

usertext

Optional:

Here you can specify some text that vWAF adds to the log file entries created by this handler. You can use this, for example, to document why you've added the handler to your configuration, and how the handler is intended to behave.

enable logging

Disable this option if you do not want vWAF to create a log file entry when the handler is executed. This can be useful to keep log files smaller in case the handler creates a large number of entries but you don't need these entries.

When in detection mode, disabling logging de facto makes the handler ineffective. Disabling logging also prevents the actions of the handler from being taken into account for the Top-10 lists in Attack Analysis, and from being listed in Reports. To decrease the size of the log files, also consider to enable reduced logging, which excludes all non-handler-related information from the log files (see Editing Applications).

For details regarding entries added to the log file by this handler, see the relevant section in Entries in Application-Specific Log Files.