From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Nov 13 06:05:30 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D0B3C16A407 for ; Mon, 13 Nov 2006 06:05:30 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from ewhac@best.com) Received: from ewhac.best.vwh.net (ewhac.best.vwh.net [192.220.66.121]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 92E7C43D5A for ; Mon, 13 Nov 2006 06:05:30 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from ewhac@best.com) Received: (qmail 62855 invoked by uid 17017); 13 Nov 2006 06:05:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO walkies.ewhac.org) ([127.0.0.1]) (envelope-sender ) by 127.0.0.1 (qmail-ldap-1.03) with SMTP for ; 13 Nov 2006 06:05:30 -0000 Received: from ewhac by walkies.ewhac.org with local (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 1GjUwi-00025F-00 for ; Sun, 12 Nov 2006 22:05:28 -0800 Date: Sun, 12 Nov 2006 22:05:28 -0800 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20061113060528.GA7646@best.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) From: "Leo L. Schwab" Subject: Blocking SSH Brute-Force Attacks: What Am I Doing Wrong? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 06:05:30 -0000 I recently installed FreeBSD 6.1 on my gateway. It replaced an installation of FreeBSD 4.6.8 (fresh install, not an upgrade) on which I had disabled the SSH server. Since all the bugs in SSH are fixed now ( :-) ), I thought I'd leave the server on, and am somewhat dismayed to discover that I now get occasional brute-force/dictionary attacks on the port. A little Googling revealed a couple of potentially useful tools: 'sshit' and 'bruteblock', both of which notice repeated login attempts from a given IP address and blackhole it in the firewall. I first tried 'sshit', but after a couple days, I noticed in my daily reports that I was still getting lengthy bruteforce attempts, suggesting the 'sshit' was not working. So I uninstalled 'sshit' and installed 'bruteblock'. But again a couple days later, the logs showed lengthy bruteforce attempts going unblocked. The relevant lines from my /etc/syslog.conf file are: ---- auth.info;authpriv.info /var/log/auth.log auth.info;authpriv.info | exec /usr/local/sbin/bruteblock -f /usr/local/etc/bruteblock/ssh.conf ---- Any hints as to what I might be doing wrong? Thanks, Schwab