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passive TLS / CDN / WAF / edge fingerprinting · v0.1.40
Release notes → CHANGELOG.md · Vendor signature reference → docs/vendor-signatures.md · Attribution model → docs/attribution-model.md
Passive TLS / CDN / WAF / edge fingerprinting for API endpoints. For any
host[:port] it walks the standard client path — DNS (A/AAAA/CNAME/PTR), one
SNI TLS handshake, one GET — and matches the collected signals (response
headers, cookies, certificate issuer/org, CNAME/PTR suffixes, IP netblocks)
against a vendor signature table to name the edge in front of the origin.
w4f --target-file hosts.txt
HOST EDGE CONF BASIS TLS CERT HTTP NOTES
www.example.com:443 cloudflare +2 HIGH 85 net+cert+cname+http+cookie 1.3 h2 Cloudflare 55d 200
shop.example.net:443 AMBIGUOUS MED 42 cname+ptr+http 1.3 h2 Amazon 60d 200
edge.example.io:443 unknown - - 1.3 h2 Let's Encrypt 40d 200
inspected.example.org:443 INTERCEPTED - - 1.3 h2 Fortinet -168d 403 INTERCEPTED
www.example.net:443 akamai LOW 20 cname - - - ERR connect failed: timed out
# www.example.com is cleanly attributed — its table row says it all, so it
# gets no block. Only the hosts that need a look do:
shop.example.net:443
EDGE AMBIGUOUS
aws-cloudfront MEDIUM 42
cloudflare MEDIUM 37
BASIS
aws-cloudfront cname + ptr + http
cloudflare net + http
edge.example.io:443
EDGE UNKNOWN
leads cname edge.provider.net · server: acme-edge · x-acme-pop: sin1
inspected.example.org:443 INTERCEPTED
EDGE NOT DETERMINED
PATH INTERCEPTED by fortinet
the identity below may belong to the interception device, not this host
OBSERVED
IP 198.51.100.40
Issuer Fortinet
SPKI 9701081eeeeeeeee…
www.example.net:443 ERR connect failed: timed out
akamai LOW 20
cname (cloud)
error connect failed: timed out
BASIS is the column that decides whether to believe the row: net+cert
is ownership evidence, a bare hdr is a string the origin can set. Default
mode is table-first: cleanly attributed hosts are just their table row,
and only hosts that need a look (unknown, ambiguous, intercepted, error,
block page, mTLS, a competing edge) get a detail block; the sweep ends with a
rollup. -v/--verbose prints the full block for every host — see
Example output.
No attack payloads. Nothing is chain-validated the way a client trusts it — this is fingerprinting, not trusting — so self-signed and privately-pinned endpoints are fingerprinted too, and the SPKI-SHA-256 pin value is reported per certificate, which is exactly the value an app's custom pinner compares against.
An optional --verify flag sends one benign <script> query to catch
silent WAFs (FortiWeb, F5 ASM) that answer normal requests with plain nginx
and only reveal themselves when they block something. Off by default.
Why this exists
Knowing what edge sits in front of a host decides which interception route can work at all:
- Cloudflare / anycast — a DNAT written against one resolved IP matches zero packets, because your resolver and the device's resolver return different IPs. The route is SNI-based, not IP-based.
- Imperva edge — the host may demand a client certificate at the TLS
layer (mutual TLS). A proxy that can't present one gets
stream reset by clientafter a perfectly correct app-side pinning bypass. - CloudFront / GFE / ELB — the origin is behind a managed edge; whether the origin itself is reachable by name tells you where the capture ceiling is.
- Silent WAFs (FortiWeb) — serve
nginxheaders to every passive request; only an attack-shaped query gets their block page back. Passive scanning alone would report them as a bare origin.
This tool makes that a 2-second decision instead of an hour of guessing.
Install
Requirements: Python 3.10–3.12, nothing mandatory. cryptography
adds full certificate details (issuer, SAN, SPKI pin, key/sig) and dnspython
adds proper CNAME/PTR resolution; without either the scanner degrades
gracefully (socket fallback for DNS, cert fields omitted) and the test suite
still passes.
Option 1 — pipx (recommended, isolated CLI install)
pipx install w4f
w4f --version
Option 2 — uv tool
uv tool install w4f
w4f --version
Option 3 — plain pip
Prefer a virtual environment so the w4f script lands on your PATH:
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate
pip install w4f
w4f --version
Install with the optional extras (certificate + DNS depth) in one step:
pip install "w4f[full]"
Option 4 — unreleased main, or a clone
pipx install git+https://github.com/hdyrawan/w4f.git # or uv tool / pip
Or from a clone:
git clone https://github.com/hdyrawan/w4f.git && cd w4f
pip install .
w4f --version
Option 5 — run without installing
From a clone you can run it directly, no install step at all:
git clone https://github.com/hdyrawan/w4f.git && cd w4f
python3 -m w4f --target api.example.com
For development
git clone https://github.com/hdyrawan/w4f.git && cd w4f
python3 -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e . # editable: code changes apply immediately
python3 -m pytest # run the test suite
Verify & uninstall
w4f --version # e.g. "w4f 0.1.36 — passive TLS / CDN / WAF / edge fingerprinting"
w4f --help # full usage
pipx uninstall w4f # or: uv tool uninstall w4f / pip uninstall w4f
Library use
The same engine the CLI drives is exposed as a plain Python function — useful for scheduling, scripting, or building your own sweep tooling:
from w4f import fingerprint_host
r = fingerprint_host("api.example.com", verify=True)
top = r["verdict"][0] # ranked by confidence
print(top["vendor"], top["confidence"]) # cloudflare 82
print(top["categories"]) # ['netblock', 'cert', 'cname', 'headers']
print(r["block"]["vendor"] if r["block"] else "no WAF block") # needs verify=True
verdict is ranked by confidence, so verdict[0] is the best-evidenced
vendor. categories (added 0.1.32) lists the signal kinds behind the score,
strongest first — a verdict whose categories are only headers/cookies
rests on strings the origin can set.
Returns the same per-host dict the CLI's --json output contains (host,
hostport, port, resolved, tls, verdict, block, error). Accepts
port, timeout, path, no_http, verify, ws_path, grpc — the CLI
flag equivalents. Errors are a field, never an exception: a host that fails
DNS comes back with error set and verdict == [].
Usage
# one host
w4f --target api.example.com
# several hosts, one pass
w4f --target mapi.example.com --target api.example.net --target api.example.org
# a non-443 port (API/data sockets often sit off 443)
w4f --target api.example.net:6552
# an IP literal (PTR is still resolved)
w4f --target 203.0.113.10
# scan every subdomain from a subdomain-enumeration export
w4f --target-json subdomains.json --json out.json --md out.md
# plain-text host list (one per line; # comments and blanks ignored)
w4f --target-file hosts.txt
# CSV target list (uses the host/subdomain column when present, else column 1)
w4f --target-csv targets.csv
# pipeline: subdomain enumeration straight into w4f (stdin is read when no
# explicit target source is given and stdin is not a TTY)
subfinder -d example.com -silent | w4f --csv sweep.csv
# flat CSV output for spreadsheets (primary verdict per host)
w4f --target-file hosts.txt --csv sweep.csv
# SARIF 2.1.0 for security dashboards / GitHub Code Scanning
w4f --target-file hosts.txt --sarif scan.sarif
# WebSocket upgrade probe (RFC 6455) against a path
w4f --target ws.example.com --ws /socket.io
# gRPC health-check probe (grpc.health.v1.Health/Check)
w4f --target grpc.example.com --grpc
# pace requests: --delay N seconds between per-host submissions
# (per-domain backoff: 429/503 doubles the delay up to 10s, success resets)
w4f --target-file hosts.txt --delay 0.5 --csv sweep.csv
# catch silent WAFs with the one-query active probe
w4f --target api.example.com --verify
# machine-readable + markdown sweep, quiet console
w4f --target api.example.com --quiet --json out.json --md out.md
# TLS/cert/DNS only — skip the HTTP request entirely
w4f --target api.example.com --no-http
Flags
| flag | meaning |
|---|---|
--target HOST[:PORT] |
DNS name or IP, optional :port (default 443). Repeatable. |
--target-json FILE |
targets from a JSON file — subdomain-enumeration export (array of {"subdomain","ip","cloudflare"} objects, e.g. subdomainfinder.c99.nl), array of strings, or {subdomains:[...]}. Each is scanned like a --target. |
--target-file FILE |
plain-text host list, one host[:port] per line; # comments and blank lines ignored |
--target-csv FILE |
CSV target list — uses the column named host/subdomain when the first row is a header, else the first column |
--path PATH |
HTTP path to GET (default /) |
--timeout SECONDS |
connect/TLS/HTTP timeout per host (default 8) |
--workers N |
parallel host count (default 8) |
--delay SECONDS |
base pacing between per-host submissions (default 0 = as fast as possible). Per-domain adaptive backoff: a 429/503 doubles that domain's delay (cap 10s), a success resets it to the base. |
--json FILE |
write the full machine-readable result tree to FILE |
--md FILE |
write a markdown sweep (table + per-host blocks) to FILE |
--csv FILE |
write a flat CSV — one row per host, primary verdict: host, port, ips, cname, verdict, confidence, signals, mtls, tls_version, alpn, spki, http_status, block, error, basis, final_host |
--sarif FILE |
write a SARIF 2.1.0 report for security dashboards / GitHub Code Scanning — one result per host, rule ids w4f/<vendor>, w4f/block, w4f/mtls, w4f/probe-error, w4f/unknown-edge |
--sort risk|host|edge |
console ordering (default risk: errors, block pages, mTLS, unknown and header-only verdicts first). host = alphabetical, edge = grouped by vendor. File outputs are always host-sorted. |
-v, --verbose |
show the FULL per-host detail (cert, SPKI, response headers, verdict evidence) instead of the compact triage view — the summary table prints either way |
--no-banner |
suppress the ASCII banner + version tagline — output starts at the summary table (for piping the table into scripts) |
--no-http |
TLS/cert/DNS only, skip the HTTP request |
--ws PATH |
OPT-IN — send an RFC 6455 WebSocket upgrade request to this path and report whether the edge answers 101 (plus Sec-WebSocket-Accept) |
--grpc |
OPT-IN — send a grpc.health.v1.Health/Check request and report grpc-status / grpc-message, or the HTTP/2 binary-framing answer (real gRPC is h2; pairs with the ALPN observation) |
--verify |
OPT-IN active probe — one benign <script> query per host; reports the WAF block page (FortiWeb / F5 ASM / Cloudflare / Imperva) |
--version |
print version and exit |
--quiet |
suppress ALL console output (banner, summary table, per-host blocks, rollup) — use with --json/--md/--csv for automation |
Targets may come from --target, --target-json, --target-file,
--target-csv, or — when none of those is given and stdin is not a TTY —
from stdin (one host per line). All sources go through the same validation
(control chars / URI schemes / overlong names dropped with a warning) and
are deduplicated after validation. Targets scan in
parallel; the console orders them by risk (--sort) while file outputs stay
sorted by host for clean run-over-run diffs. Progress and file paths go to stderr,
the report to stdout — so w4f ... > report.txt and w4f ... --quiet --json out.json | jq ... keep the machine output clean.
The banner is the Rebel figlet "w4f" (patorjk taag style, x=none full-width)
with w in red and f in blue. It prints on every non-quiet run, on
stderr, so stdout stays parseable.
Example output
$ w4f --target api.example.com --target shop.example.net --timeout 6
█████ █████ ██████
░░███ ░░███ ███░░███
█████ ███ █████ ░███ ░███ █ ░███ ░░░
░░███ ░███░░███ ░███████████ ███████
░███ ░███ ░███ ░░░░░░░███░█░░░███░
░░███████████ ░███░ ░███
░░████░████ █████ █████
░░░░ ░░░░ ░░░░░ ░░░░░
passive TLS / CDN / WAF / edge fingerprinting v0.1.39
HOST EDGE CONF BASIS TLS CERT HTTP NOTES
dead.example.io:443 - - - - - ERR DNS did not resolve
api.example.com:443 imperva +1 MED 62 net+cert+hdr 1.3 h2 Imperva Inc 64d 403 mTLS BLOCK imperva!
edge.example.io:443 UNKNOWN - 1.3 h2 GlobalSign nv… 161d 200
origin.example.org:443 nginx LOW 7 hdr 1.3 h2 Let's Encrypt 21d 200
shop.example.net:443 cloudflare HIGH 82 net+cert+cname+hdr 1.3 h2 SSL Corporati… 73d 200 ->www.shop.example.net
dead.example.io:443 ERR DNS did not resolve
error DNS did not resolve
api.example.com:443 mTLS BLOCK imperva!
imperva MEDIUM 62
net + cert + hdr
layer imperva → nginx
edge.example.io:443
EDGE UNKNOWN
leads server: acme-edge · x-acme-pop: sin1 · x-acme-request-id
── 5 hosts · 3.4s ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
edges cloudflare 1 · imperva 1 · nginx 1
unknown 1 (edge.example.io:443)
flags mTLS 1 · BLOCK 1 · errors 1
weak 1 verdict rests on headers only (spoofable) — confirm with --verify
Default mode is the triage view and is deliberately table-first: a
summary table of every host, then a sweep rollup, and a per-host block only
for the hosts that need a look — an error, a block page, mTLS, an unknown
edge, an ambiguous or intercepted result, or a genuinely competing edge. The
two cleanly-attributed hosts above (shop.example.net, origin.example.org)
are fully described by their table row, so they get no block — that is what
keeps a 50-host sweep scannable. Reach for -v/--verbose (below) when you
want the full analytical block for every host.
Each block is shaped by the result state, because "no vendor name" has several very different causes and collapsing them loses the decision:
| state | meaning |
|---|---|
ATTRIBUTED (named vendor) |
one candidate is best-evidenced; the vendor is named |
AMBIGUOUS |
edge candidates too close to separate — both are shown, rather than silently picking the higher |
UNKNOWN |
scanned, nothing matched. The observations/leads are the start of the next signature |
INTERCEPTED |
something on the scanner's path re-signed the connection; no vendor is attributed and the cert/pin may be the middlebox's |
ERROR |
the host could not be probed. A host that failed but resolved a vendor CNAME still reports that vendor — DNS resolves before the handshake |
layer is the stack, not a rival: an origin underneath the edge
(cloudflare → varnish) is reported as a layer, while alt lists only
competing edge candidates. Presenting an origin as an alternative edge was
the misreading this split removes.
CONF is the confidence band first (HIGH ≥ 70, MED ≥ 30, LOW
below) and the score second. The score is a sum of category weights, not a
probability, so HIGH means several independent kinds of evidence agreed —
more than the strongest single category can supply alone. BASIS names
those categories (net netblock, cert, cname, ptr, hdr header,
cookie); a bare hdr is a string the origin can set, and the block marks
it headers only — spoofable.
The full model is documented in
docs/attribution-model.md.
Add -v / --verbose for the analytical view — the same observations plus
why the attribution was reached: the evidence behind it grouped by
category, and the alternatives that were in play.
$ w4f -v --target www.example.com
www.example.com:443
ip 104.18.1.79
cname www.example.com.cdn.cloudflare.net
tls TLSv1.3 TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384 ALPN h2
cert Cloudflare, Inc. (chain verified)
san www.example.com, *.example.com
valid 2026-06-05 -> 2026-12-11 (55d left)
spki 343d1536f3666f92ea868d751d138dd8658d3020426b4de28801cb259f5bdde7
http HTTP/1.1 200 OK
hdr server=cloudflare
hdr x-varnish=1234567 7654321
EDGE
cloudflare HIGH 85
net + cert + cname + http + cookie (cloud)
EVIDENCE
Network
104.18.1.79 in 104.16.0.0/13
Certificate
Cloudflare, Inc.
CNAME
www.example.com.cdn.cloudflare.net
HTTP
server: cloudflare
Cookie
__cf_bm=xyz
LAYER
cloudflare
↓
varnish
ALTERNATIVES
cloudflare-waf LOW 3
cookie
EVIDENCE is one category per heading and one observation per line, so it
answers "what would have to be false for this to be wrong" — a verdict
resting on a netblock and a certificate is a different claim from one
resting on a header. LAYER draws the stack the edge fronts; ALTERNATIVES
holds only competing edges. Scores appear as one number per candidate; the
arithmetic behind them stays out of the output.
The chain/final rows matter more than they look: the apex is often a
bare redirector and the WAF only sits on www, so they say which host the
headers above actually describe.
(The hosts above are illustrative — run it against any real host to see your own output.)
Colors are enabled automatically when stdout is a TTY (piped output is plain
text), and disabled with NO_COLOR. The host line is cyan, critical flags
(mTLS / BLOCK / ERR) are bold bright red, redirect markers and --verify
block findings yellow — and each vendor name has its own color so a glance names the
edge: Cloudflare bright-yellow, Akamai blue, Fastly red, AWS family cyan,
Azure family bright-blue, Tencent family bright-magenta, Google GFE
magenta, F5/netscaler bright-red, FortiWeb bright-yellow, Kong bright-cyan,
and plain origin stacks (nginx, Apache, IIS, Varnish, …) are dimmed so
the edge vs origin distinction is instantly visible. The color map is in
w4f/report.py (VENDOR_COLORS) — a new vendor gets a green default; add
an entry there if it deserves its own hue.
What it reports
| signal | source |
|---|---|
| resolved IPs (A+AAAA) + PTR | DNS |
| CNAME chain | DNS |
| TLS version / cipher / ALPN | TLS handshake |
| leaf cert: subject, issuer org, SAN, validity, SHA-256, SPKI-SHA-256, key/sig | TLS handshake |
| mTLS flag (server wants a client cert, incl. TLS 1.3 post-handshake) | TLS alert / first app data |
| HTTP status + interesting headers | one GET |
WebSocket upgrade support (--ws) |
RFC 6455 upgrade request |
gRPC health-check support (--grpc) |
grpc.health.v1.Health/Check |
| redirect chain + final host (apex → www) | one GET, up to 5 hops |
| CDN/WAF verdict + evidence + confidence + signal categories + cloud/on-prem | signature match |
interception — a TLS-inspection box on the scanner's own path |
cert issuer / its refusal page |
block — WAF block page (vendor, title, status) |
--verify active probe |
Reading a verdict
A host behind nginx directly gets nginx only; a host behind Imperva gets
imperva from headers and cert and netblock, every matching signal
listed as evidence:
imperva (62%, net+cert+hdr): header x-iinfo: 7-1234567-…; netblock: … ; cert: Imperva Inc
Every match carries a confidence (0–100) summed from weighted signal categories, each category counted once:
| category | weight | why |
|---|---|---|
net netblock |
30 | IP ownership is hard to spoof |
cert issuer |
25 | cert issuance is authoritative |
cname chain |
20 | DNS delegation is deliberate |
ptr record |
15 | real evidence, but often generic or missing |
hdr headers |
7 | weak alone — anyone can set a Server: header |
cookie cookies |
3 | weakest — trivially fabricated |
Because each category counts once, the percentage is not a probability and
signal count is not confidence: six matching headers still score 7, while
one netblock hit scores 30. That is why the category list (BASIS in the
table, categories in the JSON) is the part to read — it says whether a
verdict rests on evidence the origin cannot fabricate. A verdict built only
from hdr/cookie is marked headers only — spoofable.
Verdicts are ranked by confidence, so verdict[0] — the vendor the
table, --csv and SARIF call the edge — is the best-evidenced one. A second
entry is usually the origin behind that edge (imperva in front of
nginx), shown as +1 in the table and on a layer line in the block
(default mode prints that block only when the host also warrants a look; see
the triage-view note above).
Per-vendor weights overrides are allowed; see
docs/vendor-signatures.md for the full table
and the "why" behind each signal.
- A blank verdict means the edge is not in the signature table — treat it
as "unknown origin, no WAF/CDN signature", not "no WAF". The block
prints a
leadsline with the fingerprintable headers that matched nothing, which is where a new signature starts. - A passive "direct nginx" verdict is NOT proof of a bare origin. FortiWeb
and F5 ASM serve plain nginx to normal requests; run
--verifybefore concluding the origin is exposed. --verifyfindings are reported separately (block fortiweb — ...) so the passive and active layers never blur.
Security notes
- Input validation. Targets from
--target-jsonare validated at load: control characters, URI schemes (file://etc.), whitespace-in-hostname, and overlong names (>253 chars) are dropped with a warning. Private / internal IPs (10.x, 192.168.x, 127.x, 169.254.x) are warned but NOT dropped — scanning internal infrastructure is a legitimate use. Only run w4f against targets you are authorised to scan. - The reported SPKI-SHA-256 is a fingerprint, not a trust anchor. w4f reports the pin value the edge presents; it does not verify it against any expected set (this is a fingerprinting tool, not a certificate-verification tool). A reported pin implies nothing about whether the endpoint is legitimate — an attacker's certificate has a pin value too.
- Output can disclose infrastructure details.
--jsonincludes cert chains, SPKI pins, CNAME/PTR records and resolved IPs (including internal ones when you scan them). Treat the output as sensitive and do not share it inadvertently. - The unverified TLS context is deliberate. Certificate verification is
disabled (via the public
ssl.create_default_context()+CERT_NONE) so that self-signed / expired / wrong-hostname certs can still be read as evidence — which is the entire point of edge fingerprinting. This means an active MITM between w4f and the target is not detected; the tool reports what it was actually presented.
AWS WAF on CloudFront is silent to passive probes — a normal GET returns
200 and only --verify sees the 403 block page. Do not write "CloudFront,
no WAF" for a host without a --verify run — same trap as FortiWeb (which
serves plain nginx to normal requests). See
docs/vendor-signatures.md and the
CHANGELOG for the version-by-version detection additions
(AWS Global Accelerator, Kong, AWS WAF, Tencent EdgeOne, squarespace, ...).
Signature coverage
102 vendors across seven families — each one a file under
w4f/signatures/ (copy _template.py to add one; see
docs/vendor-signatures.md for the
contributor guide and
docs/regional-coverage-matrix.md for
the regional research decisions):
- CDN/edge (45): Cloudflare, Cloudflare WAF, Imperva, Akamai (incl.
Kona + Bot Manager
E3D=), AWS CloudFront / WAF / ELB / Global Accelerator / S3 / EC2, Fastly (+ WAF/Signal Sciences), Azure Front Door, Azure App Gateway, ArvanCloud, Tencent EdgeOne / CDN, Baidu Yunjiasu, Baidu BFE, Baidu CDN, Alibaba CDN, Wangsu, ChinaCache, Huawei Cloud CDN, Volcengine DCDN, ByteDance, 360 PanYun, Baishan, NetEase CDN, Qiniu, JD Cloud, Airee, Azion, Bunny, Gcore, WEDOS, Naver, Kakao, CDNetworks, Sakura, Edgecast, MaxCDN, KeyCDN, StackPath, Zenedge, DDoS-Guard. - WAF/protection (24): FortiWeb, F5 BIG-IP ASM, NetScaler, GTM/GSLB, Sucuri, ModSecurity, NAXSI, Wallarm, Wordfence, Zscaler, Google Cloud Armor, Radware, Reblaze, Barracuda, Huawei Cloud WAF, SafeDog, Jiasule, Wangsu WAF (wswaf), Knownsec Chuang Yu Shield, 360 WangZhanBao (WZWS), Qrator, Variti, UCloud WAF (uewaf), Myra.
- Bot management (5): DataDome, PerimeterX/HUMAN, Kasada, Shape Security, Arkose.
- API gateways / platform edges (15): Kong, Tyk, Apigee, Azure API Management, Tencent gateway (stgw/tRPC), Envoy, HAProxy, Tengine, OpenResty, Cloudflare Workers, Vercel, Google Cloud Run, AWS App Runner, SGW (Shopee/Sea), WSO2 (API Manager / Carbon gateway).
- Plain origins (6): nginx, Apache, IIS, Caddy, LiteSpeed, Varnish.
- Platforms (6): Google GFE, Wix Pepyaka, Squarespace, Azure App
Service, ByteDance TLB, WordPress VIP (
x-rqPOP header +go-vip.netCNAME). - Middleboxes (1): Fortinet WebFilter — an appliance on the
scanner's own path, not the target's edge. Reported as
INTERCEPTED(never as a verdict) because a re-signed chain means the SPKI pin belongs to the middlebox, not the host.
Plus --verify block-page signatures for FortiWeb (EN + localized ID),
F5 ASM, Cloudflare, Imperva and AWS WAF ("ERROR: The request could not
be satisfied"), Akamai Kona, Sucuri, Wordfence, Wallarm.
Signatures are a snapshot; a new edge version can change headers, so re-run sweeps before trusting a blank verdict for a host whose writeup is old.
JSON output
--json writes the full per-host result tree. Every host is one object;
errors are a field, not an exception — a bad host never aborts the run:
[
{
"host": "api.example.com",
"hostport": "api.example.com:443",
"port": 443,
"resolved": { "cname": ["api.example.com.cdn.cloudflare.net"], "ips": ["104.18.1.79"], "ptr": [] },
"tls": {
"tls_version": "TLSv1.3",
"cipher": "TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384",
"alpn": "h2",
"mtls": false,
"chain_verified": true,
"cert": { "subject": "CN=api.example.com", "issuer": "O=Cloudflare, Inc.", "issuer_org": "Cloudflare, Inc.", "spki_sha256": "343d1536...", "key_type": "RSA", "key_size": 2048, "days_remaining": 118 },
"http": { "status": "HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found", "headers": { "server": "cloudflare", "cf-ray": "a2af..." }, "set-cookie-list": [], "redirects": [], "final_host": "api.example.com" }
},
"verdict": [
{ "vendor": "cloudflare", "signals": 7, "confidence": 82, "categories": ["netblock", "cert", "cname", "headers"], "evidence": ["header server: cloudflare", "cname: api.example.com.cdn.cloudflare.net", ...] }
],
"block": null
}
]
verdict is ordered by confidence (best-evidenced first). categories is
strongest-first and is what the console renders as BASIS.
Scripting
# the verdict for every host
w4f --target-json subdomains.json --quiet --json out.json
jq -r '.[] | "\(.hostport)\t\(.verdict[0].vendor // "unknown")"' out.json
# only hosts behind a specific edge
jq -r '.[] | select(.verdict[].vendor == "cloudflare") | .hostport' out.json
# every host whose --verify probe found a WAF block page
jq -r '.[] | select(.block) | "\(.hostport)\t\(.block.vendor)"' out.json
# fail if any host errored (exit code already does this, but jq can too)
jq -e '[.[] | select(.error)] | length == 0' out.json > /dev/null
# verdicts resting only on spoofable headers/cookies — re-check these
jq -r '.[] | select((.verdict | length) > 0 and (.verdict[0].categories | inside(["headers","cookies"])))
| "\(.hostport)\t\(.verdict[0].vendor)"' out.json
# unknown edges: the queue for the next signature file
jq -r '.[] | select(.error == null and (.verdict | length) == 0) | .hostport' out.json
# SPKI-SHA-256 pin values for every host
jq -r '.[] | "\(.hostport)\t\(.tls.cert.spki_sha256)"' out.json
Exit codes
| code | meaning |
|---|---|
0 |
everything scanned cleanly |
1 |
at least one host errored (DNS failure, connect refused, probe exception) — results still written |
2 |
usage error — no target source at all, unreadable --target-json |
Testing
pip install .[dev]
python -m pytest
287 tests, offline — a local TLS server with a self-signed cert exercises the
real socket path without touching the internet. Coverage: fingerprint
matching against real-world cases from live sweep corpora + false-positive
guards (requires-gate positives/negatives, Cloudflare-WAF low-confidence,
fastly cache-node vs marketing-site, regional CloudFront
netblocks); confidence-first verdict ranking; the --verify block-page
matcher (FortiWeb EN/ID, F5 ASM,
Cloudflare, Imperva, AWS WAF, Akamai Kona, the title-at-end-of-39KB-body
trap); the modular signature loader (package discovery, nested subpackages,
duplicate-name / bad-regex / missing-name / unknown-key / bad-netblock
rejection, W4F_SIGNATURES env override); rate limiting; WS/gRPC probes;
SARIF schema shape; CSV/JSON/MD writers; CLI/report/banner (summary-table
columns and alignment under color, triage-block facts, unknown-edge leads,
sweep rollup, display ordering, per-vendor verdict colors); and end-to-end
probe_one against the local server.
CI (GitHub Actions) runs the suite on Python 3.10/3.11/3.12 with full extras, a no-optional-deps job proving graceful degradation, and a CLI smoke check.
Known limits
- Passive layer cannot see silent WAFs. FortiWeb and F5 ASM serve plain
nginx to normal requests; only the opt-in
--verifyprobe (one benign<script>query) makes them answer with a block page.--verifyis still not a full exploit-style sweep. - The signature table is a snapshot. New edge versions can change headers/cookies; re-run before trusting a blank verdict for an old writeup.
--verifyreads the block page title — a WAF that localizes its block page beyond the EN + ID fragments matched here would need a new signature.- Bare IP targets resolve PTR but not CNAME (there is no CNAME for an IP).
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
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