DDoS Protection for AI APIs with Cloudflare

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are a common threat to online services, including AI APIs. To protect your AI APIs against such attacks, you can use Cloudflare's services. Cloudflare provides a range of security features, including DDoS protection, which can be configured to protect your application's entry points.

In the Pulumi program below, I'm going to walk you through setting up a Cloudflare configuration for DDoS protection that includes creating a DNS record for your AI API and applying security settings such as rate limiting and a Web Application Firewall (WAF). Please note that you would need your Cloudflare API token and have your domain added to your Cloudflare account before using this Pulumi program.

The Cloudflare resources we'll be using include:

- `cloudflare.Zone`: Represents your domain on Cloudflare. We will use this if you have not already set up your domain on Cloudflare.
- `cloudflare.Record`: This resource defines a DNS record for your domain. In the context of an AI API, this could be the API's endpoint.
- `cloudflare.RateLimit`: Helps mitigate DDoS attacks by limiting the number of requests that a visitor can make to your API in a given time period.
- `cloudflare.WAF`: The Web Application Firewall that provides additional protection against various attacks.

Here's how you would create a Pulumi program with Cloudflare for DDoS protection:

```python
import pulumi
import pulumi_cloudflare as cloudflare

# Configuration: Replace these variables with your own information
domain_name = "example.com"  # The domain you want to protect with Cloudflare
dns_record_name = "api"      # Subdomain for the AI API
api_endpoint_ip = "1.2.3.4"  # The IP address where the AI API is hosted

# You may optionally create or reference an existing Cloudflare Zone for your domain
# If you're creating a Zone, it will take control of your DNS. Make sure you understand this step.
# If you've already set up your domain, skip creating the zone and directly create DNS records.

zone = cloudflare.Zone("example-zone",
    zone=domain_name,
    plan="free"  # Change to an appropriate plan for your needs
)

# Creating a DNS A record for api.example.com pointing to your API server IP
dns_record = cloudflare.Record("api-dns-record",
    zone_id=zone.id,
    name=dns_record_name,
    value=api_endpoint_ip,
    type="A")

# Applying a rate limit to the DNS record to protect against DDoS by limiting requests
rate_limit = cloudflare.RateLimit("api-rate-limit",
    zone_id=zone.id,
    match=cloudflare.RateLimitMatchArgs(
        request=cloudflare.RateLimitMatchRequestArgs(
            methods=["GET", "POST"],  # Assuming these are the methods your API uses
            schemes=["HTTP", "HTTPS"],
            url=f"{dns_record_name}.{domain_name}/*"),
        response=cloudflare.RateLimitMatchResponseArgs(
            statuses=["200", "401", "403"]),
    ),
    threshold=1000,  # Number of requests allowed per period
    period=60,  # Period in seconds
    action=cloudflare.RateLimitActionArgs(
        mode="simulate", # Start with "simulate" to test, switch to "ban" after verifying it's configured correctly
        timeout=60  # The timeout period in seconds to block the user. Be careful with the values
    )
)

# Exporting the DNS record to show the FQDN in Pulumi's output
pulumi.export("api_dns_record", dns_record.fqdn)

```

This program sets up a basic DDoS protection mechanism for your AI API hosted at `api.example.com`. The rate limiter is configured to count only `GET` and `POST` requests over `HTTP` and `HTTPS`, which are typical methods used by APIs. If the request number exceeds 1000 in a minute, it triggers the specified action, initially set to "simulate" for testing purposes. When you're sure it's working correctly, you can change it to "ban" to block offending IP addresses.

Remember to replace the `api_endpoint_ip` with the actual IP address of your API, and `example.com` should be your domain. Before running this Pulumi program, make sure that you have your Cloudflare token configured in your Pulumi environment.

In a real-world scenario, you might want to use additional features from Cloudflare, such as the WAF with custom rules to protect your API from more complex attacks. However, these would require more advanced configuration and are beyond the scope of this introduction.