Category Archives: Networking

IPTABLES – blocking IPs simplified

You can block an IP from IPTABLES by using iptables -I INPUT -s 192.168.0.88 -j DROP You can simplify things a little bit by using a shell script and a predefined text file containing the IPs we want to be blocked. Either create a new file or add the following at the end of the… Read More »

Apache – graceful restart

Apachectl restart is used in 98% of the cases that require a web server reboot. What not everyone knows is that we can use a command that doesn’t stop all the child processes and doesn’t lead to possible blocked user sessions. apachectl graceful will allow each child process to die peacefully. For an even more… Read More »

Measure web site latency with echoping

One excellent network monitoring piece of software is echoping. Syntax for a web server would be echoping -v -4 -h /code/ssl-cert-check tips4linux.com:80 For a mail server try this: echoping -v -4 -S mail.tips4linux.com Output data can later be viewed as an easy to read graphic by using smokeping.

Limit OpenSSH access in Linux

By using “Match” in the OpenSSH configuration file we can limit the right a certain user, group or host enjoys. Add the Match directive in your sshd_config followed by a criteria (User, Group, Address or Host). The following example limits TCP and X11 port forwarding for the jack user: AllowTcpForwarding no X11Forwarding no Match User… Read More »