Onboard Your First Site
Log in to the Web console and navigate to Sites → New Site to configure your first reverse proxy service:
1. Configure Public Domains
Enter the public hostnames used by your clients (e.g., app.example.com). CheeseWAF matches incoming HTTP Host headers against the configured sites[].domains list.
2. Configure Backend Upstream Origins
Specify the origin server address and port (e.g., 10.0.0.10:8000). When multiple upstreams are defined, the system distributes traffic according to the configured load balancing policy (round_robin by default).
3. Set Baseline Paranoia Level
New sites default to paranoia level 3 (Smart Standard Mode); if the current wizard exposes this option, leave it at 3. In this mode, the system blocks high-confidence standalone payloads while allowing embedded features through to asynchronous ALAP review, ensuring business continuity while collecting threat data.
4. Save & Hot-Reload
Click Save Site. CheeseWAF dynamically reloads site definitions in memory without terminating the main daemon or interrupting active connections.
After saving, update your DNS records or local hosts file to point the domain to the CheeseWAF Data Plane listener (http://127.0.0.1:8080 by default) to verify end-to-end reverse proxy forwarding.
For health checks, automatic SSL issuance, and path rewrite configurations, see Sites & Reverse Proxy.