hosts.allow

[Lazywolf]

I have a Linux (Red Hat) web server. I've noticed some questionable activity in the access_log. I just need to block a few IP addresses (and later on maybe a few IP ranges).

The tutorials online are pretty straightforward; to block an IP from all services on the server, add the following line to hosts.allow:

ALL : x.x.x.x : deny

However, when I try to test this with another server with a known IP, I can still successfully connect to my server. I just test by opening a telnet session on port 80 (I know, there's probably better ways, but this should work, right?).

Another thing I noticed was that I have both a hosts.allow and hosts.deny, but I heard hosts.deny is deprecated (correct me if I'm wrong).

Is there something I'm doing wrong? Does anyone have better testing methods to try, or better syntax to use?

[GroundZero3]

Do you have iptables configured and running on the box by chance?

[Lazywolf]

Looks like I do; I ran the following to make sure it was up and running:

service iptables status

Then, I found that the following can be run to block all packets from an IP:

iptables -I INPUT -s x.x.x.x -j DROP

Looks like I'm good to go! Thanks

[GroundZero3]

Good to hear!