README: blocks misbehaving scrapers, not normal ones (closes #387 )

The opening now lists what bans a client with the default settings: the rate and byte limits, a probe for a secret path, a security scanner's user agent, and the refusal limit. A scraper that does none of these is left alone. Model: opus-5-5
waf: refuse request lines and header lines over 8 KiB first (closes #339 )
2026-11-14 17:10:54 +00:00 · 2026-11-13 21:56:09 +01:00
1 changed files with 14 additions and 1 deletions
@@ -2,7 +2,20 @@

 `smallwebwaf` is an MIT-licensed web application firewall, written in Go by
 [@sneak](https://sneak.berlin), for self-hosted web apps. It refuses the
-requests of scrapers, scanners and other abusers before they reach an app.
+requests of misbehaving scrapers, scanners and other abusers before they reach
+an app.
+
+With the default settings, a client is banned when it does any of these:
+
+- makes more than 120 requests in a minute, 1500 in an hour or 6000 in a day;
+- moves more than `50G` of request and response bodies in an hour, or `100G` in
+  a day;
+- asks for a secret or backup file, such as `/.env` or `/.git/config`;
+- sends a user agent that names a security scanner, such as `sqlmap` or `nikto`;
+- has more than 30 requests in a minute refused as probes or attacks.
+
+A scraper that does none of these is left alone. A scraper that waits 15 seconds
+between requests stays under the rate limits.

 ## What it does