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Managing web ACLs for AWS WAF - AWS Network Security Manager
AWS WAF concepts

Managing web ACLs for AWS WAF

With AWS Network Security Manager, you centrally configure and deploy AWS WAF web access control lists (web ACLs) across accounts and resources in your organization. You can define AWS Network Security Manager rules for AWS WAF, group them into protection templates, and enforce them at scale through AWS Network Security Manager policies and deployments.

AWS WAF concepts

The following concepts are specific to using AWS Network Security Manager with AWS WAF. For more information about how AWS Network Security Manager works, see How AWS Network Security Manager works.

AWS WAF rule types

For AWS WAF, a rule is one of two types:

  • INSPECTION – Contains a rule group definition using PreProcessFirewallManagerRuleGroups (rules that run before customer-defined rules) or PostProcessFirewallManagerRuleGroups (rules that run after).

  • CONFIGURATION – Contains a single web ACL configuration setting. The configuration JSON must contain exactly one top-level key matching a supported setting (for example, Description, DefaultAction, VisibilityConfig, LoggingConfiguration, CaptchaConfig, ChallengeConfig, CustomResponseBodies, DataProtectionConfig, AssociationConfig, OnSourceDDoSProtectionConfig, TokenDomains, or MonetizationConfig).

Most web ACL configuration settings correspond to parameters of the AWS WAF CreateWebACL operation. For more information about these settings and their definitions, see CreateWebACL in the AWS WAF API Reference.

The exception is LoggingConfiguration, which you configure separately. For more information, see Logging web ACL traffic.

AWS WAF policy merging

For AWS WAF, each configuration setting uses one of the following merge strategies:

SingleValue

Settings that can have only one value. The highest-priority policy wins. Priority values are unique, so two policies cannot define different values at the same priority. For more information about how AWS Network Security Manager resolves priority, see Priority-based policy merging. The following settings use SingleValue: DefaultAction, VisibilityConfig, CaptchaConfig, ChallengeConfig, OnSourceDDoSProtectionConfig, LoggingConfiguration, MonetizationConfig, and Description.

Append (and AppendAndSort)

Entries from all policies append to the list in priority order. TokenDomains and DataProtectionConfig.DataProtections use Append. PreProcessFirewallManagerRuleGroups and PostProcessFirewallManagerRuleGroups use AppendAndSort, which appends rule groups from all policies and sorts them by priority. Order matters because AWS WAF evaluates rule groups sequentially.

Merge

Entries from all policies merge into a single set, regardless of priority. CustomResponseBodies and AssociationConfig.RequestBody use Merge.

The Append, AppendAndSort, and Merge strategies remove duplicate entries. When two policies contribute identical configuration, AWS Network Security Manager keeps the entry from the higher-priority policy. The effective configuration therefore contains one copy of that entry, not one copy per contributing policy.

Existing web ACL resolution

Use the existingCustomerWebACLResolution setting on an AWS WAF policy to specify how AWS Network Security Manager handles resources that already have a customer-managed web ACL:

  • RETROFIT – Update your existing web ACL to align with the effective configuration.

  • OVERRIDE_ASSOCIATION – Associate a web ACL managed by AWS Network Security Manager with the resource instead.

  • NO_REMEDIATION – Do not remediate if your web ACL exists.

Logging web ACL traffic

You control web ACL logging with the LoggingConfiguration setting on a policy. AWS Network Security Manager applies this setting using the AWS WAF PutLoggingConfiguration operation. You can define one logging destination per web ACL. For more information, see PutLoggingConfiguration in the AWS WAF API Reference.

Every in-scope web ACL that the policy manages sends its logs to the destination that the policy specifies. This gives you centralized logging across the accounts in your organization. Use it to get detailed information about the traffic that your web ACLs analyze organization-wide.

For centralized logging across multiple accounts, you can send logs to an Amazon S3 bucket or an Amazon Data Firehose delivery stream. Each destination type requires additional configuration, which you must complete before AWS Network Security Manager can manage AWS WAF logging across your in-scope resources and accounts. The destination name must begin with aws-waf-logs-.

Amazon Data Firehose

Create the delivery stream with the following characteristics:

  • Created using your AWS Network Security Manager administrator account

  • A name that starts with aws-waf-logs-, for example aws-waf-logs-network-security-manager-central

  • A PUT source

  • Created in the Region where you operate, or in the US East (N. Virginia) Region if you capture logs for Amazon CloudFront

Before you use the delivery stream, test it to confirm that it has enough throughput for your organization's logs. For more information, see Creating an Amazon Data Firehose delivery stream in the Amazon Data Firehose Developer Guide.

Amazon S3

Create the bucket following the Amazon S3 guidance in the AWS WAF Developer Guide. You must also configure the bucket with the permissions that allow log delivery to write to it. The following bucket policy grants those permissions.

{
    "Version":"2012-10-17",
    "Id": "AWSLogDeliveryForNetworkSecurityManager",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "AWSLogDeliveryAclCheckNetworkSecurityManager",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Principal": {
                "Service": "delivery.logs.amazonaws.com"
            },
            "Action": "s3:GetBucketAcl",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::aws-waf-logs-bucket-suffix"
        },
        {
            "Sid": "AWSLogDeliveryWriteNetworkSecurityManager",
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Principal": {
                "Service": "delivery.logs.amazonaws.com"
            },
            "Action": "s3:PutObject",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::aws-waf-logs-bucket-suffix/policy-id/AWSLogs/*",
            "Condition": {
                "StringEquals": {
                    "s3:x-amz-acl": "bucket-owner-full-control"
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

Replace bucket-suffix with your own bucket name suffix, and replace policy-id with the ID of your policy.

CloudWatch Logs supports single-account use only

If you use AWS Network Security Manager across multiple accounts, you cannot use an Amazon CloudWatch Logs log group as the logging destination. The log group must be in the same AWS account and the same Region as the web ACL. For multi-account deployments, use an Amazon S3 bucket or an Amazon Data Firehose delivery stream instead.