[Hosting] Apache Ban IPs

[TechMonkey]

An interesting one. Our Moodle implementation seems to have a fan in the Ukraine. Well when I say fan I mean they are constantly trying to log in as admin. It is getting atad tiresome so I am thinking of banning the IP from the webserver. I can't think of any pitfalls & I can leave it a month & then remove as hopefully they will have moved on. Only problem is my Apache mojo is weak.

I know there is a deny command that can be given to IPs but there seems to be confusion between whether it is best to do this in the .htaccess or in an over all config file. If it is the over all file I can't find which one.

Any guidance?

Ta

[kmount]

I'd personally not do it in apache, I'd do it either on the box itself with iptables/ipfirewall or upstream preferably to take the onus off of your box completely.

But if you want to do it, you could use

deny from 1.2.3.4

in .htaccess

[powdarrmonkey]

I'd do this on your firewall (either iptables on the server or further upstream) to prevent other attacks like ssh.


Edit: oh, kmount types faster

[p858snake]

If you want to do it at the apache level I believe the mod_security module can handle this.

and a quick google reveals this Access Control - Apache HTTP Server

[pete]

I'm glad we're not the only moodle installation to be targetted by those bots.

Bet you they're coming in on 91.212.*.* and 91.213.*.* right? 17-19 attempts, skip a couple of days and try again? I noticed it back in October.

Bizarrely, they've also started trying "eminem" as a username since December.

[AndySimmo]

block the IP's/range(s) or even the ukraine CCld *.ua depending whether the hostmask are using .ua; through iptables...

I wouldn't do it through apache because they can still attempt to access your machine!

[TechMonkey]

Yep, seems to be a constant IP of 91.213.121.24. Starting to get tempted to break out the old black Stetson & go on a rampage!

Iptables seem the way to go as I don't think I can IP ban on our core switch. Second stupid question, IPtables on Server 2003?

[powdarrmonkey]

Iptables seem the way to go as I don't think I can IP ban on our core switch. Second stupid question, IPtables on Server 2003?

Windows Firewall then.

[m0nty]

Yep, seems to be a constant IP of 91.213.121.24. Starting to get tempted to break out the old black Stetson & go on a rampage!

I've had encouraging results in the past by doing a whois lookup on offending IP addresses, then sending details of the attempted break-in to the "abuse" address which should be listed. Remember, there's often a techie not unlike yourself at the other end. They will share your concerns