# Rate Limiting

**Rate Limiting** helps you maintain stable application performance by controlling how many requests a client can make in a given time frame.\
It protects against excessive API calls, brute-force attempts, and high-frequency requests that can degrade origin performance or service quality.

With **Medianova’s edge-level implementation**, rate limits are applied directly at the CDN layer — before the traffic reaches your origin servers — ensuring both reliability and efficiency.

Rate Limiting is available for **Dynamic CDN Resources** and can be configured per domain, path, or file extension through the [**Medianova Control Panel**](https://cloud.medianova.com).

#### Why Use Rate Limiting?

Rate Limiting ensures a secure, predictable, and efficient experience for all users by:

* Preventing **abuse or overload** from bots or aggressive clients.
* Protecting **login endpoints** and **API gateways** from brute-force attacks.
* Ensuring **fair bandwidth distribution** among users.
* Preserving **origin stability** and avoiding unnecessary compute or database load.
* Allowing flexible control through **customized thresholds and actions**.

#### Key Features

* **Customizable Limits** – Define request thresholds per second or minute to suit your application.
* **Edge-Level Enforcement** – Limit requests at the CDN edge, preventing overload before it reaches your origin.
* **Burst Control Options** – Configure how short bursts of requests are handled:
  * *Burst* – Allows short spikes within the limit window.
  * *Burst + No Delay* – Permits short bursts without delay enforcement.
  * *None* – Strict limit; requests beyond the threshold are immediately blocked.
* **IP Whitelisting** – Exclude trusted IPs, monitoring tools, or partners from rate enforcement.
* **Flexible Actions** – Choose to **Block** or **Challenge** clients that exceed limits.
* **Configurable HTTP Response Codes** – Return 429 or 529 errors when limits are exceeded.
* **Path & Extension Support** – Apply rate limits to specific endpoints (e.g., `/login`, `/api/`) or file types (e.g., `.pdf`, `.mp4`).

#### Use Cases

* **API Protection** – Prevent abuse of public APIs and ensure consistent response times.
* **Authentication Endpoints** – Limit login attempts to protect user accounts.
* **Download or Media Control** – Restrict large file or video download frequency to optimize CDN performance.
* **E-commerce Traffic Shaping** – Manage checkout or cart requests during high-traffic campaigns.
* **Bot Mitigation** – Reduce load from automated crawlers or scrapers.

#### Built for Performance

Medianova’s Rate Limiting operates at the edge, ensuring minimal latency and zero impact on normal user experience.\
By combining **adaptive enforcement**, **path-based rules**, and **real-time analytics**, it enables granular control over how traffic interacts with your CDN — keeping your applications fast, fair, and secure.

{% hint style="warning" %}
You can configure and monitor Rate Limiting directly through the **Medianova Control Panel** under the **Security** section.
{% endhint %}


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://clients.medianova.com/products/security/rate-limiting.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.