fail2ban runs as root by default. This is unnecessary for its functionality, other than to alter firewall rules. The firewall rules can be safely done, using sudo to enable the required calls. The Debian/Ubuntu init.d file has provisions to start fail2ban as a non-root user, but newer releases use systemd to start and stop the process. This requires a different procedure. This procedure is for my servers which use Shorewall to maintain the firewall.
Tag archives: ubuntu
WordPress SSH2 configuration
Instead of the packaged WordPress I run the version provided by WordPress. It is installed using a different userid from the userid the webserver runs as. To enable updates from the Admin Dashboard, I enabled sftp (ssh). This is how I did it.
init.d for Non-root Processes
When installing third-party applications, they often default to running as root. The server applications for TeamSite/LiveSite are among those. I have applied a simple modification to the init.d scripts that start them as a non-root user. It also allows the scripts to be run by members of an administration group via sudo. This approach applies […]
Geo blocking with tcpwrappers
I recently had an issue with frequent login attempts against one of my services. These were almost all from countries that should not be accessing my service. To resolve the issue I implemented geo-blocking with TCP Wrappers. This is how I went about geo-blocking connections.
WordPress Tuning
I’ve done a little tuning to my WordPress setup. To keep up to date, I’ve switched from the Ubuntu installation to a downloaded installation under /opt/wordpress. This is owned by my user and served by Apache running as www-data. Updates are done using the SFTP method.
Hostnames for eximstats Rejections
I use eximstats to report my daily email traffic. I have a fairly high rate of rejections and wanted hostnames listed in the rejection reports. To resolve this I developed a patch to capture the hostname related to the IP address, and add this data to the rejection reports. The enhanced list saves me the […]
Providing IPv6 DNS resolver data with radvd
How to provide DNS server addresses to IPv6 clients using Router Announcements.
Setting Up BackupPC on Windows
Back up Windows PCs and Laptops using BackuPC. Includes installing rsycnd on Windows.
Setting Up BackupPC on Ubuntu
Set up a BackupPC Server on Ubuntu. Includes configuration of Linux and OpenWrt clients using rsyncd.
Email Logins for Dovecot and Exim
Configuring a common login for Dovecot IMAP(s) and Exim SMTP. Also Exim Submission port and TLS (SSL) configuration.