Setting up Amazon WAF Classic - Amazon WAF, Amazon Firewall Manager, and Amazon Shield Advanced
Sign up for an Amazon Web Services accountSecure IAM usersDownload tools
Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Setting up Amazon WAF Classic

Note

This is Amazon WAF Classic documentation. You should only use this version if you created Amazon WAF resources, like rules and web ACLs, in Amazon WAF prior to November 2019, and you have not migrated them over to the latest version yet. To migrate your resources, see Migrating your Amazon WAF Classic resources to Amazon WAF.

For the latest version of Amazon WAF, see Amazon WAF.

This topic describes preliminary steps, such as creating a user account, to prepare you to use Amazon WAF Classic. You aren't charged for these. You are charged only for Amazon services that you use.

Note

If you're a new user to Amazon WAF, don't follow these setup steps for Amazon WAF Classic. Instead, follow the steps for the latest version of Amazon WAF, at Setting up.

After you complete these steps, see Getting started with Amazon WAF Classic to continue getting started with Amazon WAF Classic.

Note

Amazon Shield Standard is included with Amazon WAF Classic and does not require additional setup. For more information, see How Amazon Shield and Shield Advanced work.

Before you use Amazon WAF Classic or Amazon Shield Advanced for the first time, complete the steps in this section.

Sign up for an Amazon Web Services account

If you do not have an Amazon Web Services account, use the following procedure to create one.

To sign up for Amazon Web Services

  1. Open http://www.amazonaws.cn/ and choose Sign Up.

  2. Follow the on-screen instructions.

Amazon sends you a confirmation email after the sign-up process is complete. At any time, you can view your current account activity and manage your account by going to http://www.amazonaws.cn/ and choosing My Account.

Secure IAM users

After you sign up for an Amazon Web Services account, safeguard your administrative user by turning on multi-factor authentication (MFA). For instructions, see Enable a virtual MFA device for an IAM user (console) in the IAM User Guide.

To give other users access to your Amazon Web Services account resources, create IAM users. To secure your IAM users, turn on MFA and only give the IAM users the permissions needed to perform their tasks.

For more information about creating and securing IAM users, see the following topics in the IAM User Guide:

Download tools

The Amazon Web Services Management Console includes a console for Amazon WAF Classic, but if you want to access Amazon WAF Classic programmatically, see the following:

  • If you want to call the Amazon WAF Classic API without having to handle low-level details like assembling raw HTTP requests, you can use an Amazon SDK. The Amazon SDKs provide functions and data types that encapsulate the functionality of Amazon WAF Classic and other Amazon services. To download an Amazon SDK, see the applicable page, which also includes prerequisites and installation instructions:

    For a complete list of Amazon SDKs, see Tools for Amazon Web Services.

  • If you're using a programming language for which Amazon doesn't provide an SDK, the Amazon WAF API Reference documents the operations that Amazon WAF Classic supports.

  • The Amazon Command Line Interface (Amazon CLI) supports Amazon WAF Classic. The Amazon CLI lets you control multiple Amazon services from the command line and automate them through scripts. For more information, see Amazon Command Line Interface.

  • Amazon Tools for Windows PowerShell supports Amazon WAF Classic. For more information, see Amazon Tools for PowerShell Cmdlet Reference.