first-steps.md

title	description	keywords
Getting Started with FastAPI Guard	First steps guide for implementing FastAPI Guard security features in your FastAPI application	fastapi security tutorial, fastapi guard setup, python security middleware

First Steps

Let's start with a simple example that shows how to add FastAPI Guard to your application.

Create a FastAPI application

First, create a new FastAPI application:

from fastapi import FastAPI
from guard.middleware import SecurityMiddleware
from guard.models import SecurityConfig
from guard.handlers.ipinfo_handler import IPInfoManager

app = FastAPI()

---

Configure Security Settings

Create a SecurityConfig instance with your desired settings:

config = SecurityConfig(
    geo_ip_handler=IPInfoManager("your_ipinfo_token_here"),  # NOTE: Required for geolocation
    db_path="data/ipinfo/country_asn.mmdb",  # Optional, default: ./data/ipinfo/country_asn.mmdb
    enable_redis=True,  # Enable Redis integration
    redis_url="redis://localhost:6379",  # Redis URL
    rate_limit=100,  # Max requests per minute
    auto_ban_threshold=5,  # Ban after 5 suspicious requests
    custom_log_file="security.log"  # Custom log file
)

Note: FastAPI Guard only loads resources as needed. The IPInfo database is only downloaded when country filtering is configured, and cloud IP ranges are only fetched when cloud provider blocking is enabled.

---

Add the Middleware

Add the security middleware to your application:

app.add_middleware(SecurityMiddleware, config=config)

---

Complete Example

Here's a complete example showing basic usage:

from fastapi import FastAPI
from guard.middleware import SecurityMiddleware
from guard.models import SecurityConfig
from guard.handlers.ipinfo_handler import IPInfoManager

app = FastAPI()

config = SecurityConfig(
    geo_ip_handler=IPInfoManager("your_ipinfo_token_here"),
    enable_redis=True,  # Redis enabled
    redis_url="redis://localhost:6379",
    whitelist=["192.168.1.1", "2001:db8::1"],
    blacklist=["10.0.0.1", "2001:db8::2"],
    blocked_countries=["AR", "IT"],
    rate_limit=100,
    custom_log_file="security.log"
)

app.add_middleware(SecurityMiddleware, config=config)

@app.get("/")
async def root():
    return {"message": "Hello World"}

---

Run the Application

Run your application using uvicorn:

uvicorn main:app --reload

Your API is now protected by FastAPI Guard! 🛡️

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What's Next

• Learn about IP Management
• Configure Rate Limiting
• Set up Penetration Detection
• Learn about Redis Integration