ConfigServer Security & Firewall (csf)

CSF : A Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall, Login/Intrusion Detection and Security application for #Linux servers. It easily replace APF and (Advanced policy firewall) and BFD (Brute Force Detection). It is also runing 28 basics but non obvious checks…

 CSF has a loot of functionnalities and has 2 nice features. It can block trafic from well known spammers network
using the DShield Block List and the Spamhaus DROP List.
It easily replace APF and (Advanced policy firewall) and BFD (Brute Force Detection).

• Straight-forward SPI iptables firewall script
• Daemon process that checks for login authentication failures for:
  • courier imap and pop3
  • ssh
  • non-ssl cpanel / whm / webmail (cPanel servers only)
  • pure-pftd
  • password protected web pages (htpasswd)
  • mod_security failures
• POP3/IMAP login tracking to enforce logins per hour
• SSH login notification
• SU login notification
• Excessive connection blocking
• WHM configuration interface (cPanel servers only) or through Webmin
• WHM iptables report log (cPanel servers only)
• Easy upgrade between versions from within WHM (cPanel servers only) or through Webmin
• Easy upgrade between versions from shell
• A standard Webmin Module to configure csf is included in the distribution ready to install into Webmin – csfwebmin.tgz
• Pre-configured to work on a cPanel server with all the standard cPanel ports open (cPanel servers only)
• Auto-configures the SSH port if it’s non-standard on installation
• Block traffic on unused server IP addresses – helps reduce the risk to your server
• Alert when end-user scripts sending excessive emails per hour – for identifying spamming scripts
• Suspicious process reporting – reports potential exploits running on the server
• Excessive user processes reporting
• Excessive user process usage reporting and optional termination
• Suspicious file reporting – reports potential exploit files in /tmp and similar directories
• Directory and file watching – reports if a watched directory or a file changes
• Block traffic on the DShield Block List and the Spamhaus DROP List
• Pre-configured settings for Low, Medium or High firewall security (cPanel servers only)
• Works with multiple ethernet devices
• Server Security Check – Performs a basic security and settings check on the server (cPanel servers only)
• Allow Dynamic DNS IP addresses – always allow your IP address even if it changes whenever you connect to the internet
• Alert sent if server load average remains high for a specified length of time
• mod_security log reporting (if installed)
• Email relay tracking – tracks all email sent through the server and issues alerts for excessive usage (cPanel servers only)
• IDS (Intrusion Detection System) – the last line of detection alerts you to changes to system and application binaries

Installation is straightforward:

# wget http://www.configserver.com/free/csf.tgz
# tar xvf csf.tgz
# cd csf
# ./install.sh

Note all ports that are displayed after the installation, these are port running already on your system (UDP, TCP in and out)
review the config file by editing:

# vi /etc/csf/csf.conf

and add at least the port written before (if you trsut your system before install ;-))
Do not allow incoming connection or outgoing connections to mysql port (use ssh localforwarding), ftp (use scp)
As default the rules are only working 5 minutes then get erased. This is the learnig mode, you cant break anything. Just continue reading the file csf.conf It contains a lot of interesting informations…