One of the greatest tools I have found to secure the server from brute force attacks and keep your server out of the reach of hackers is DenyHosts.
What DenyHosts does is very simple , but very effective , it processes auth.log ( in Debian based distros ) or secure.log ( in Redhat based distros ) and finds unsuccessful login attempts through ssh and blocks the attacker through /etc/hosts.deny file.
also it has a central server which can synchronize all DenyHosts instances around the world , so if there is an attacker detected in US , it will be blocked in all of the world very fast ! but this option needs to be enabled in config file.
DenyHosts is an open source project and is available to download at sourceforge : http://denyhosts.sourceforge.net
As my favorite distro is Debian , I guide you how to install and use it on Debian. but steps are almost the same on CentOs.
DenyHosts is available through Debian repos so you can simply install it by :
apt-get install denyhosts
then you need to configure it , configuration file is located at /etc/denyhosts.conf
I suggest you to read the whole file and understand it , it worth’s the time. but in case you need a good working configuration, you can use mine :
SECURE_LOG = /var/log/auth.log
HOSTS_DENY = /etc/hosts.deny
PURGE_DENY = 1w
PURGE_THRESHOLD = 2
BLOCK_SERVICE = sshd
DENY_THRESHOLD_INVALID = 5
DENY_THRESHOLD_VALID = 10
DENY_THRESHOLD_ROOT = 1
DENY_THRESHOLD_RESTRICTED = 1
WORK_DIR = /var/lib/denyhosts
SUSPICIOUS_LOGIN_REPORT_ALLOWED_HOSTS=YES
HOSTNAME_LOOKUP=YES
LOCK_FILE = /var/run/denyhosts.pid
ADMIN_EMAIL = youremail@domain.com
SMTP_HOST = localhost
SMTP_PORT = 25
SMTP_FROM = DenyHosts <nobody@domain.com>
SMTP_SUBJECT = DenyHosts Report
AGE_RESET_VALID=5d
AGE_RESET_ROOT=25d
AGE_RESET_RESTRICTED=25d
AGE_RESET_INVALID=10d
DAEMON_LOG = /var/log/denyhosts
DAEMON_SLEEP = 30s
DAEMON_PURGE = 1h
SYNC_SERVER = http://xmlrpc.denyhosts.net:9911
SYNC_INTERVAL = 1h
SYNC_UPLOAD = yes
SYNC_DOWNLOAD = yes
SYNC_DOWNLOAD_THRESHOLD = 3
SYNC_DOWNLOAD_RESILIENCY = 5h
Don’t Forget to set ADMIN_EMAIL and SMTP_FROM to your own emails.
One of the important steps that you should do is to add your own IP address to white list so it doesn’t get blocked.
to do this , open /var/lib/denyhosts/allowed-hosts file and enter your own IP in it.
if you have forgotten to do this and now you are blocked from server , you need to connect to server from another IP address and do the following steps :
1.Stop DenyHosts :
/etc/init.d/denyhosts stop
2.Remove the IP address from /etc/hosts.deny
3.Also you need to remove your IP address from any file located in /var/lib/denyhosts , first look which files contain your IP :
grep Your_IP *
The remove the IP from files using your favorite editor or method 😉
Edit : I have found a great solution to delete your IP from all files all at once.
sed -i '/Your IP/d' *
4.Consider adding the IP address to /var/lib/allowed-hosts
5.Start DenyHosts