Fix Lack of Resources & Rate Limiting in AdonisJS

Unthrottled endpoints are a direct invitation for DoS and brute-force exploitation. In AdonisJS, failing to implement strict rate limiting allows attackers to exhaust worker threads and database connections. We're going to harden this using the official limiter package to kill automated abuse at the middleware layer before it hits your business logic.

The Vulnerable Pattern

// start/routes.ts
import Route from '@ioc:Adonis/Core/Route'
// VULNERABLE: No rate limiting. An attacker can hammer this endpoint
// with thousands of requests per second to exhaust BCrypt cycles or DB connections.
Route.post(‘/api/v1/login’, ‘AuthController.login’)

The Secure Implementation

The fix transitions the application from an open-door policy to a strict token-bucket strategy. By installing and configuring '@adonisjs/limiter', we offload request counting to Redis (essential for distributed environments). The secure implementation applies a 'throttle' middleware that tracks the requester's IP. If the threshold of 10 requests per minute is exceeded, the middleware short-circuits the request with a 429 Too Many Requests status, preventing expensive operations like password hashing or database lookups from consuming system resources.

// 1. Define the limiter in config/limiter.ts
import { limiterConfig } from '@adonisjs/limiter/build/config'
export default limiterConfig({
default: ‘redis’,
stores: {
redis: {
client: ‘redis’,
limit: 10,
duration: ‘1 min’,
blockDuration: ‘30 mins’
}
}
})
// 2. Apply to routes in start/routes.ts
import Route from ‘@ioc:Adonis/Core/Route’
Route.post(‘/api/v1/login’, ‘AuthController.login’)
.middleware(‘throttle:login’)