cdn-rate-limiting

CDN & Rate Limiting

Tool availability: some MCP tools named here live in the full toolset profile — if one is not advertised on this connection, tell the user to reconnect the MCP server with ?toolsets=full (or use the cpln CLI fallback). Reads and deletes work on every profile via the generic list_resources / get_resource / delete_resource tools.

Two edge concerns, both built from existing primitives — there is no CDN or rate-limit resource kind. A CDN is bring-your-own (Cloudflare / CloudFront) pointed at the workload's canonical endpoint; rate limiting is an Envoy ratelimit service you deploy, enabled per workload by cpln/rateLimit* tags. Assumes the workload primer (firewall deny-by-default, canonical URL rules, create-then-verify).

CDN

The pattern: the CDN proxies your domain and uses the workload's canonical endpoint as origin — read it from status.canonicalEndpoint or mcp__cpln__list_deployments, never construct it. A workload endpoint gives precise geo-routing and per-workload failover; a GVC endpoint serves one CDN route for many domains or wildcard subdomains, but keeps sending traffic to every location even when that location's workload is down.

Cloudflare

1. DNS at Cloudflare: proxied CNAME (orange cloud on) from your subdomain to the canonical endpoint; SSL/TLS mode Full (strict).
2. Origin certificate (SSL/TLS, then Origin Server; RSA 2048) becomes a Control Plane TLS secret — mcp__cpln__create_secret_tls with the cert and key, TLS chain left empty (the origin cert is self-signed).
3. Domain at Control Plane: mcp__cpln__create_domain (CNAME DNS mode), mcp__cpln__set_domain_tls with the secret as the custom server certificate, mcp__cpln__add_domain_route to the workload. The apex domain must be verified before configuring a subdomain.

Amazon CloudFront

1. ACM public certificate in us-east-1 (CloudFront requires that region), DNS validation, covering your subdomain or wildcard.
2. Distribution: origin = the workload's canonical endpoint (BYOK: the per-location endpoint from mcp__cpln__list_deployments); alternate domain name = your subdomain; attach the ACM cert.
3. DNS: CNAME your subdomain to the distribution's *.cloudfront.net name.

Lock out direct access

With a CDN in front, restrict the workload firewall so only CDN traffic reaches it: set inboundAllowCIDR to the provider's published ranges (CloudFront IP list) via mcp__cpln__update_workload, and keep the list current. BYOK locations must also admit the ranges in the cluster's ingress security group — the CloudFront list is large, so raise the VPC quota for rules per security group to at least 530. Details: firewall-networking.

Rate limiting

Tags on the target workload inject an Envoy rate-limit filter into its inbound sidecar: each request makes a gRPC check (1s timeout) against a ratelimit service you deploy (Envoy ratelimit + Redis); over-limit requests get HTTP 429.

1. Deploy the ratelimit stack

One multi-resource manifest (no bundled-apply MCP tool — use the CLI):

cpln gvc create --name ratelimit --location LOCATION --org ORG   # or mcp__cpln__create_gvc
cpln apply --file rate-limiting.yaml --org ORG --gvc ratelimit

The example manifest creates the ratelimit workload (envoyproxy/ratelimit), a redis workload, the ratelimit-config opaque secret (the rules), and the identity + policy for secret access. It assumes the GVC is named ratelimit (edit it if yours differs) and pins an older envoyproxy/ratelimit image tag — substitute a newer tag if desired.

As shipped, the manifest is a trial setup, not a production one: both workloads run minScale: 1 with spot: true. Because enforcement is fail-closed, the ratelimit stack is tier-1 infrastructure for every tagged workload — for production raise its minScale to 2+, set spot: false, and run the GVC in the same locations as the workloads it protects (every request pays the check's round trip). A Redis restart only resets counters; a ratelimit outage denies traffic.

2. Configure the rules

Edit the ratelimit-config opaque secret (mcp__cpln__update_secret_opaque), Envoy ratelimit format; unit: second / minute / hour / day:

domain: cpln
descriptors:
  - key: authorization
    rate_limit:
      unit: minute
      requests_per_unit: 10

After editing, reload the config: cpln workload force-redeployment ratelimit --gvc ratelimit.

3. Tag the target workload

Set with mcp__cpln__update_workload (or at creation):

Tag	Required	Default	Meaning
cpln/rateLimitAddress	Yes	—	Canonical endpoint hostname of the ratelimit workload (no scheme prefix) — nothing happens without it
cpln/rateLimitDescriptors	Effectively yes	authority	Comma-separated: authorization, host, path — the default matches none of them, so no limiting is applied until you set this
cpln/rateLimitScheme	No	https	https dials the service over TLS with SNI
cpln/rateLimitPort	No	443	Port of the ratelimit service
cpln/rateLimitDomain	No	cpln	Must match domain in the config secret

Descriptor	Buckets per	HTTP header
authorization	API key / token	Authorization
host	domain	Host
path	endpoint	:path

There is no per-IP descriptor — these three are the only ones wired. For per-client-IP throttling use the CDN layer (e.g. Cloudflare rate-limiting rules); keep this stack for per-token and per-route limits. Don't invent a remote_address descriptor — it does nothing.

Combining descriptors

cpln/rateLimitDescriptors: authorization,path produces one compound key (an ordered tuple), not two independent limits. The config must nest in the same order as the tag's comma order:

domain: cpln
descriptors:
  - key: authorization      # first tag entry
    descriptors:
      - key: path           # second tag entry — nested, not a sibling
        rate_limit:
          unit: minute
          requests_per_unit: 60

This buckets per token-and-path pair (any values). Add value: under a key to pin one route or token (e.g. key: path, value: /api/search). Two genuinely independent limits are not expressible through the tags — the filter emits a single action tuple.

Anonymous-bypass warning: Envoy skips the rate-limit check entirely when a descriptor header is missing from the request (skip_if_absent defaults to false and the filter doesn't set it). With authorization in the list, requests without an Authorization header are never checked — including the sample 10/minute config above. Limit by path or host (always present) when anonymous traffic matters, or throttle it at the CDN.

Traps (from the filter's actual wiring)

• Fail-closed: the filter is configured with failure_mode_deny: true and a 1s check timeout — if the ratelimit service is down, unreachable, or the address is wrong, inbound requests are denied, not passed through. Verify the ratelimit workload is Ready (mcp__cpln__list_deployments) before tagging the target, and treat a typo in cpln/rateLimitAddress as an outage.
• Descriptors must be explicit: the built-in default authority produces an empty action list — the filter runs but limits nothing.
• Tags are not validated: these are plain tags interpreted by the platform; a misspelled tag name silently does nothing.
• The address is resolved by DNS from inside the mesh — use the ratelimit workload's exact canonical endpoint hostname.

Layering the full stack

Traffic passes, in order: the CDN (absorbs and caches), then the firewall (inboundAllowCIDR = CDN IPs only, so nobody bypasses the CDN), then rate limiting (catches abuse that passes the CDN), then the workload.

Verify the setup

• Limiting works: send requests past the limit and expect 429 — with the sample 10/minute rule, the 11th call returns it: for i in $(seq 1 11); do curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}\n" -H "Authorization: test" https://CANONICAL_ENDPOINT/; done. After any rules edit, force-redeployment the ratelimit workload first.
• CDN serves: curl -I https://SUBDOMAIN shows the CDN's header (cf-cache-status on Cloudflare, x-cache on CloudFront).
• Bypass is closed: curl the canonical endpoint directly — after the firewall lock-down it must no longer answer from outside the CDN ranges.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause
Every request denied	Ratelimit service down/unready, or cpln/rateLimitAddress wrong — enforcement is fail-closed
Requests never limited	cpln/rateLimitDescriptors unset (default matches nothing); domain mismatch between tag and config; rules edited without force-redeployment; misspelled tag (tags are unvalidated)
Cloudflare 526 / TLS errors	Domain TLS not using the origin-cert secret, or SSL mode not Full (strict)
Redirect loop behind Cloudflare	SSL mode is Flexible — switch to Full (strict)
Origin still reachable directly	inboundAllowCIDR not restricted to the CDN ranges

Quick reference

• mcp__cpln__update_workload — cpln/rateLimit* tags; inboundAllowCIDR lock-down
• mcp__cpln__update_secret_opaque — edit the ratelimit rules secret
• mcp__cpln__create_secret_tls / create_domain / set_domain_tls / add_domain_route — CDN domain wiring
• mcp__cpln__list_deployments — canonical endpoint + readiness checks
• CLI only: cpln apply --file rate-limiting.yaml (bundled manifest), cpln workload force-redeployment (config reload)

Related skills

Need	Skill
Workload types, defaults, canonical URL rules — start here	workload
Firewall rules, CIDR allow-lists	firewall-networking
TLS, probes, hardening	workload-security

Documentation

• Configure CDN Guide
• Rate Limiting Guide
• Secret Reference (TLS)