L7 HTTP/S POST

HTTP/S POST flood

TLS-wrapped POST requests stress write paths, WAF body inspection, and backend validation — on top of SSL termination cost.

How it works

  1. Engarde preset: HTTP/S POST Flood (attack_type HTTP, flag POST).
  2. Each session: TCP → TLS → encrypted POST with body.
  3. Higher CPU than HTTP/S GET due to payload parsing and DB writes.
  4. Compare with cleartext POST Flood to isolate TLS overhead.

Packet flow (illustrative)

TLS session then encrypted POST with request body.

Illustrative flow — not a live capture.

Engarde preset HTTP/S POST Flood
Metric RPS, body latency, 413/429
Layer L7 + TLS

What to watch in Engarde

  • WAF body size limits triggering before origin.
  • DB connection pool under sustained POST RPS.
  • 502 when SSL frontends saturate before app tier.

Running this simulation

Select HTTP/S POST Flood; target authorized API write endpoint with disposable test data.

Mitigation perspective

Method-specific rate limits at API gateway; size caps and TLS offload sizing from HTTP/S POST simulation.