Blocked Out Of Server

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Posted by NateN34, 02-17-2011, 03:32 PM
Hi, Well for security reasons, I thought it would be a good idea to turn on the CSF firewall. I did that........but it went bad. I clicked enable........and it listed everything it had to do in the log, but then I saw UDP OUT, UDP IN, TCP OUT, TCP IN BLOCKED, and that is when my heart dropped. I never set it to do that, and it worked fine before! It ended up blocking everything, and now I am locked out of the server, with no way to access it. It was a dumb idea, to even try this, as I have had this happen on other VPS's before, but typed "csf -x" in the local console access. But since this is a dedicated server, I don't have that ability. Also I do not think testing mode was enabled, as I had the firewall working great before. I will never use this stupid firewall again. My question what should I do? UPDATE: Thank god. I changed IP's and was able to login via root and shut off the firewall! I am uninstalling this firewall now. Safe to use on a VPS, but on a dedicated server........it is too unreliable. Last edited by NateN34; 02-17-2011 at 03:38 PM.
Posted by servermanaged, 02-17-2011, 06:39 PM
CSF is a great piece of software.In this case is too unreliable bad abits of who deal with firewall that CSF itself.
Posted by Kevin K, 02-17-2011, 07:00 PM
This is far from the truth. CSF firewall is probably the best software based firewall available, be it for VPS or dedicated servers. It seems to be that you did not take the proper precautions when working with it. The first thing you should ALWAYS do is whitelist your own ip. Just because you did not take the proper steps in setting it up and configuring the firewall does not make the firewall itself bad. It did the blocking as it should right? Well then it did it's job.
Posted by Squidix - SamBarrow, 02-17-2011, 07:01 PM
If you changed IPs and then were able to log in this indicates that CSF locked you out for repeated login attempts. Clear the IP block files and this won't be a problem.
Posted by GGWH-James, 02-17-2011, 07:36 PM
Test mode; use it, it's your friend.
Posted by Hsunami, 02-17-2011, 08:19 PM
I have CSF running on all my servers. I would strongly recommend it. Take another look at it, learn it some more and take necessary precautions to prevent yourself from getting locked out again.
Posted by NateN34, 02-17-2011, 09:02 PM
Yeh, I am looking into it now again. Just going to test it for a long time before I turn testing off.
Posted by GGWH-James, 02-17-2011, 09:06 PM
What you can do too, is get yourself a dynamic hostname for free from somewhere like DynDNS and put that hostname in the dynamic whitelist for CSF. That way, even if you get locked out, it should only be for a brief period.
Posted by NateN34, 02-17-2011, 10:03 PM
Ok, it is working great. Although it detects DOS attacks as port scans...
Posted by Squidix - SamBarrow, 02-17-2011, 10:11 PM
CSF detects alot of ftp connections and search engine bots as port scans as well. I disable the port scan tracking on my servers.
Posted by neverknowhk, 02-18-2011, 05:41 AM
its just depending how you configure your csf check your apache log. u will be surprised how many people trying to root scan ur site

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