Bot Defense

---

Paid Feature

This is a paid Paraxial.io feature. It is not available in the free tier.

---

This page is a tutorial to send HTTP events to the Paraxial.io backend. You should complete the Getting Started guide first.

Middleware

Update the middleware you already have with the Paraxial.record(request, status) method:

lib/middleware/ip_filter_middleware.rb

require 'paraxial'

class IpFilterMiddleware
  def initialize(app)
    @app = app
  end

  def call(env)
    request = ActionDispatch::Request.new(env)

    Paraxial.block_cloud_ip(request, ['/login'])
    Paraxial.req_allowed?(request)

    if env['paraxial.deny']
      status = 403
      Paraxial.record(request, status)
      [status, {'Content-Type' => 'text/plain'}, ['Forbidden']]
    else
      status, headers, response = @app.call(env)
      Paraxial.record(request, status)
      [status, headers, response]
    end
  end
end

This does the following:

1. Creates a new request via middleware.
2. If the request is coming from a cloud server IP, and matches the /login route, do not allow the request. Note that your own authentication route may be different.
3. Check if the request is allowed, setting the env value.
4. If the request was denied, set it to 403 and return forbidden. If it is allowed, pass it through. In both cases the request will be recorded and sent to the Paraxial.io backend.

Now update the application file to ensure the middleware is loaded:

config/application.rb

require_relative 'boot'
require 'rails/all'

Bundler.require(*Rails.groups)

module SampleApp
  class Application < Rails::Application
    # Initialize configuration defaults for originally generated Rails version.
    config.load_defaults 7.0

    # [Paraxial.io] Add these lines to ensure IpFilterMiddleware is loaded
    Dir[Rails.root.join('lib', 'middleware', '*.{rb}')].each { |file| require file }
    config.middleware.use IpFilterMiddleware

  end
end

Ensure you have the PARAXIAL_API_KEY value set and start rails:

@ sample_app % rails s               
=> Booting Puma
=> Rails 7.1.3.4 application starting in development 
=> Run `bin/rails server --help` for more startup options
[Paraxial] Agent starting...
[Paraxial] API key detected, agent starting
[Paraxial] Exploit Guard, no configuration exists, will not run
[Paraxial] Cloud IPs set
Puma starting in single mode...
* Puma version: 6.4.2 (ruby 3.1.2-p20) ("The Eagle of Durango")
*  Min threads: 5
*  Max threads: 5
*  Environment: development
*          PID: 36781
* Listening on http://127.0.0.1:3000
* Listening on http://[::1]:3000
Use Ctrl-C to stop

Load the web page in your browser. Then, go to your Paraxial.io site:

If you can see requests in HTTP Tail, it is working.

Disable HTTP Requests when not using Bot Defense

WARNING

If you are using bot defense, there is no need to set disable_http_tick. If you set this value to true, it will break bot defense. The only reason to set this value is true is if you are not using bot defense and want to disable HTTP requests to save bandwidth.

Bot defense sends an HTTP request to the Paraxial.io backend every few seconds to update the allow and ban lists. If you are not using bot defense and would like to disable the HTTP request, ensure you are on Paraxial Ruby Gem 1.4.1 or later and add the following in your project:

config/initializers/paraxial.rb

Paraxial.configure do |config|
  # Only do this if you are NOT using bot defense. It will break IP banning.
  config.disable_http_tick = true 
end