Stirling Westrup wrote:
> Lately I've been noticing a large number of dictionary attacks against
> my ssh port. That port is DNAT'ed to an internal webserver that hosts a
> number of domains. The owners of those domains regularly login via ssh
> to work on their sites.
> 
> My LEAF box (an old 486 machine) sees the incoming ssh connection
> attempts and routes them to the webserver, which rejects them for having
> bad passwords.
> 
> So, what is the best recommended defense? Ideally, I would like to find
> something like portsentry that could sit on the LEAF box, see the
> excessive connections from one address and automatically drop it into my
> shorewall blacklist. However, I'm not sure how to go about doing this,
> or what LEAF tools are available. Any recommendations?

There are two parallel lines of defense:

a) Configure sshd to only accept shared rsa keys for authentication.
That way, dictionary attacks can *never* succeed.

b) Use the 'Limit' Shorewall action to shut off ssh connection requests
from persistent unsuccessful clients (see
http://www.shorewall.net/PortKnocking.html).

-Tom
-- 
Tom Eastep    \ Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool
Shoreline,     \ http://shorewall.net
Washington USA  \ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
PGP Public Key   \ https://lists.shorewall.net/teastep.pgp.key

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