Punkolink L7
A layer-7 router built to sit at the core of a network — the point every request passes through, and the control surface for how traffic is routed, secured, and observed. One binary, run yourself or operated for you.
What It Does
Load balancing
Traffic is distributed across multiple backend servers rather than concentrated on one. This keeps any single node from becoming a bottleneck under load, and lets capacity be added by attaching more backends behind the same route.
Redundancy
When a backend fails, traffic is redirected to the ones still healthy, so the loss of a single server does not take the service down. Failover is handled at the router, without the client noticing which node answered.
Availability monitoring
The router continuously checks the health of the resources it forwards to, so a failing backend is detected as it degrades rather than when a user reports it. Unhealthy nodes are taken out of rotation until they recover.
Status reporting
The state of routed resources is compiled into reports, giving a record of what was healthy, what failed, and when — the raw material for understanding an incident after it happens and for spotting patterns before one does.
Layer-7 access control
Access is defined per route, at the application layer, using role-based rules. Rather than an all-or-nothing gate, each route can require the specific role appropriate to it, so the right traffic reaches the right service with the right permission.
Layer-3 access control
Traffic is filtered by IP address through allow and deny lists, at the network layer. This is the coarse first line — admitting known-good sources or excluding known-bad ones before finer rules apply.
Rate limiting
The rate of requests is capped so that a burst — whether an abusive client or an unexpected spike — cannot overwhelm a backend. Limits are applied at the router, protecting services that have no rate control of their own.
Brute-force protection
Repeated credential-guessing attempts against a login or endpoint are detected and blocked, so an automated attack cannot grind against authentication indefinitely.
Bot protection
Automated bot traffic is identified and filtered away from services, separating real users from scripts, scrapers, and probing tools before they reach the backend.
Graphical challenge
A CAPTCHA-style visual challenge can be interposed to separate human users from automated traffic, used where a request pattern is suspicious enough to warrant proof that a person is behind it.
Static file storage
Static assets — for example a site's static markup — can be served directly from the router, without routing those requests to a separate backend at all.
Web GUI
The router is administered through a browser-based panel, so routes, access rules, and backends can be managed without working solely from the command line.
Run It Your Way
Punkolink L7 is a single binary. Run it yourself on your own infrastructure — the tool, with setup help and documentation — or have the team that built it operate it and step in when something breaks. The router is the same either way; what differs is who holds responsibility for it.