System Setup & Initialization
Initialize CheeseWAF via the browser Web wizard or the cheesewaf setup terminal command with hardware probing, profiling, and credential configuration.
Quick Start Guide
Three steps to complete initial system setup, onboard your first reverse proxy site, and configure asynchronous LLM threat review.
Start with the one-line Linux installer. It asks for a language, downloads and verifies the latest stable release, creates a public HTTPS management entry, and prints a short-lived setup URL. Then follow these three steps:
BASH
The installer asks for an application root after the language prompt. Enter /opt/cheesewaf to keep the binary, Web assets, configuration, data, and logs together, or press Enter to use the standard FHS layout. It prints public and detected private setup addresses; use CHEESEWAF_RELEASE=vX.Y.Z[-beta] when you need a specific release. See the Linux installation guide for automation variables, upgrades, and security-entry handling.
Keep the complete HTTPS setup URL private. Its URL fragment contains a one-time token that the browser converts to the X-CheeseWAF-Setup-Token header; it is revoked after setup. If the server cannot reach GitHub, use the signed archive and checksum files from the release page and follow the offline installation section.
CheeseWAF’s Data Plane provides deterministic AST semantic protection immediately after startup, even without an LLM connected. Before configuring the ai block, the ALAP review queue simply remains idle.
Onboard Your First Site
Configure public domain names, backend upstream origin servers, and baseline paranoia protection in CheeseWAF.
Connect Large Language Models
Configure OpenAI- or Anthropic-compatible API endpoints for ALAP asynchronous threat reasoning and self-learning rules.