Aegis

Self-hosted Envoy gateway with AI threat analysis, TLS automation, and a real-time security dashboard.

Aegis sits between the internet and your services. It controls Envoy Proxy via xDS, watches all traffic in real time, blocks malicious IPs automatically, manages TLS certificates, and lets you chat with your gateway through an AI assistant — all in a single Docker container.

Quick start

1. Download the starter files

Create a directory and download the required files:

mkdir aegis && cd aegis

# Download docker-compose config
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/axieyangb/aegis/main/docker-compose.yml

# Download Envoy static bootstrap config
mkdir envoy
curl -o envoy/envoy.yaml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/axieyangb/aegis/main/envoy/envoy.yaml

# Download baseline database configuration (for real production users)
mkdir configs
curl -o configs/starter.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/axieyangb/aegis/main/configs/starter.json

2. Start the gateway

docker compose up -d

• Open http://localhost:8765 — default login: admin / changeme (Change the ADMIN_PASSWORD in docker-compose.yml!).

3. Import the baseline configuration

• Go to the Gateway page in the dashboard.
• Click the Import button at the top right.
• Upload the configs/starter.json file you downloaded.
• You should see the http_listener and https_listener appear, and the xDS sync status turn green!

Simulating Traffic & Live Demo

If you are running Aegis locally without real traffic, you can use our built-in Traffic Demo Generator script. We provide a pre-configured configs/demo.json database baseline that has the PROXY Protocol enabled out-of-the-box so you can run the demo with zero manual setup!

1. Start the Gateway & Import Demo Configuration

1. Ensure your containers are running (docker compose up -d).
2. Open the Aegis Dashboard (http://localhost:8765).
3. Go to the Gateway page, click the Import button (top right), and upload configs/demo.json (instead of starter.json).
   • (Optional: If you downloaded the quick-start files via curl, you can download the demo config using: curl -o configs/demo.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/axieyangb/aegis/main/configs/demo.json)
   • This automatically configures Envoy's HTTP listener to accept spoofed client IPs via PROXY Protocol.

2. Run the Generator

From the repository root, run the self-contained Python script:

python3 scripts/demo_generator.py

3. Watch the Dashboard Live!

Open your dashboard and watch:

• World Traffic Map: populating with requests flowing in from USA, Japan, Germany, Brazil, and Australia.
• Charts: Device breakdowns, User-Agents, and HTTP Status codes filling up dynamically.
• Scanner Bot: A simulated bot crawler probing admin endpoints (like /wp-admin or /.env), raising the anomaly charts.
• AI Auto-Blocking in Action: An attacker (99.99.99.99) will launch a SQL injection attack. You will see Aegis's AI engine detect it, trigger an alert, and push a dynamic xDS block rule to Envoy. Instantly, all subsequent requests from 99.99.99.99 will start failing (dropped connections) on the dashboard!

👉 For a detailed breakdown of how the generator simulates traffic and auto-blocking under the hood, see the Traffic Generator Guide.

Features in Action

Live Traffic Dashboard

Real-time request feed, top-IP leaderboard, world traffic map, and live blocking activity — all in one view.

Owl AI Assistant

Ask your gateway anything in plain English. Owl analyses current traffic, surfaces threats, and recommends exactly what to tighten — no dashboards to dig through.

IP Intelligence

Every IP automatically profiled: geolocation, ASN, VPN/Tor detection, AbuseIPDB reputation score, and full request history. Click any IP to deep-dive, then ask Owl to triage it in context.

Gateway Control Plane

Full Envoy xDS control — live topology view, listeners, filter chains, clusters, and extensions. See exactly which clusters are in use and by how many chains. No YAML editing required.

TLS Certificate Automation

ACME auto-renewal via Let's Encrypt or ZeroSSL, delivered straight to Envoy SDS. Stuck on HTTP-01 prerequisites? Ask Owl to walk you through it step by step.

AI Patrol Sweeps

Scheduled AI sweeps monitor your traffic around the clock. Threats get triaged automatically and pushed to your notification channels — Telegram, Discord, Slack, or webhook.

Mobile: Owl on the Go

Open the dashboard on your phone, ask Owl what happened in the last two hours, and watch it triage the threats, block the bad IPs, and confirm the blocks — all from a single chat.

Features

Architecture

Internet ──▶ Envoy Proxy ──▶ Your services
                  │
          gRPC xDS (port 18000)
                  │
             ┌────▼─────┐
             │  Aegis   │  port 8765
             │          │
             │ xDS CP   │  controls Envoy live
             │ Analytics│  reads Envoy ALS logs
             │ AI Engine│  classifies IPs
             │ Cert Mgr │  ACME → Envoy SDS
             │ Dashboard│  web UI + REST API
             └──────────┘

Deployment Options (Exposing Envoy)

Depending on your network environment, Aegis supports three main deployment architectures to expose Envoy to the public internet:

1. Direct Exposure (Port Forwarding): Best for environments with a static public IP. WAN ports 80/443 are forwarded directly from your home router to the host.
2. VPS Relay Tunnel (PROXY Protocol): Recommended for home labs, CGNAT, or privacy. Hides your home IP by tunneling traffic from a public VPS to Envoy, using the PROXY Protocol to safely preserve client IPs.
3. Cloudflare Tunnel (HTTP Headers): Best for zero-port-forwarding setups behind Cloudflare. Preserves client IPs by extracting custom Cloudflare HTTP headers.

👉 See the full Deployment Architectures Guide for detailed diagrams, configuration, and setup instructions.

Configuration

Environment variables

Data volume

Mount a volume or directory to /data:

/data/
├── aegis.db        ← SQLite (traffic, certs, config, alerts)
└── skills/         ← Optional: override Owl AI knowledge files
    └── site.md     ← Custom context injected into Owl's system prompt

Docs

• Getting started
• Deployment Architectures (Exposing Envoy)
• Sequence Diagrams (Flow References)
• Envoy configuration

Multi-arch

linux/amd64 and linux/arm64 — runs on x86 servers, Raspberry Pi, Synology NAS, and Apple Silicon.

# Pin a specific version
docker pull axieyangb/aegis:v1.0.0

# Always latest
docker pull axieyangb/aegis:latest

License

Aegis is distributed as a compiled binary. Source code is proprietary. See LICENSE.

Community tier is free forever. A Pro license unlocks unlimited notification channels, longer log retention, and unlimited AI patrol sweeps.

About the Author

Aegis is designed and built by Jerry Xie — formerly a network security engineer at Palo Alto Networks, now a Senior Software Engineer specialising in identity, distributed cloud, Kubernetes, networking, and AI.

Outside of work: smart home automation, DIY racing drones, home lab tinkering, 3D printing, CNC machining, PCB design, and robotics. Aegis started as a home lab project and grew into a product.

Support & Enterprise

• Issues & feature requests: GitHub Issues
• Enterprise collaboration, custom integrations, or just want to know more: yyangxie@gmail.com