Webmaster Resources | Dedicated Server Guide | Installing and Configuring CSF Firewall

ConfigServer Firewall is a Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall, Login/Intrusion Detection and Security application for Linux servers. CSF is bundled with Login Failure Daemon (lfd) process that runs all the time and periodically (every X seconds) scans the latest log file entries for login attempts against your server that continually fail within a short period of time. Such attempts are called Brute-force attacks and LFD responds quickly to such patterns and blocks offending IP's.

This article demonstrates how to install and configure the CSF firewall. CSF can be used on a wide range of Linux systems, including those running cPanel.

Login to your server as root
rm -fv csf.tgz
wget http://www.configserver.com/free/csf.tgz
tar -xzf csf.tgz
cd csf
sh install.sh

If you have APF + BFD installed, you will need to disable it to avoid confliction with CSF
sh disable_apf_bfd.sh

Installation is complete, you can then configure CSF & LFD by editting the files directly in /etc/csf/*

If you are running WHM you can modify the CSF settings in there. By default, is preconfigured to work on a cPanel server with all the standard cPanel ports open. It also auto-configures your SSH port if it's non-standard on installation.