Install ConfigServer Firewall on a Server

<p>This guide will walk you through installing CSF on a VPS or Dedicated server.</p>

<h2>Prepare the Server</h2>

<p>After logging in via SSH (as root!), we need to download the CSF firewall itself; let's make a temporary directory called 'tmp'. Then move into it and download the latest version of CSF:</p>

<p>mkdir tmp<br />
cd tmp<br />
wget http://configserver.com/free/csf.tgz</p>

<p>Once CSF is downloaded, we will need to extract the archive containing it and move it into the directory it creates:</p>

<p>tar xf csf.tgz<br />
cd csf</p>

<p>We are now ready to install CSF.</p>

<h2>Install CSF on a Server with cPanel</h2>

<p>CSF includes integration with control panels such as cPanel. To install it for a cPanel based server, execute the install script that is meant for cPanel:</p>

<p>./install.cpanel.sh</p>

<h2>Install CSF on a Server without cPanel</h2>

<p>If you do not have cPanel on your server and would still like to install CSF, you can certainly do so. Execute the following command:</p>

<p>./install.sh</p>

<h2>Configure CSF</h2>

<p>Configuring your firewall is required for it to function correctly. Let's open the CSF configuration file:</p>

<p>nano /etc/csf/csf.conf</p>

<p>To turn the firewall on, inside the editor, navigate down until you see TESTING="1" and change it to TESTING="0".</p>

<p>All blocks are commented inside (a comment is a line that starts with a #) for you to understand what each section does. To add an incoming TCP port to the allow list, we would edit this variable:</p>

<p>TCP_IN = "20,21,22,25,53,80,110,143,443,465,587,993,995,2077,2078,2082,2083,2086,2087,2095,2096"</p>

<p>To allow incoming MySQL connections, we would add 3306 to the list:</p>

<p>TCP_IN = "20,21,22,25,53,80,110,143,443,465,587,993,995,2077,2078,2082,2083,2086,2087,2095,2096,3306"</p>

<p>Press the keys CTRL + X to exit the editor when you make the changes. Press Y when it asks you if you want to overwrite the file.</p>

<h2>Additional Documentation</h2>

<p>You can find more info on the subject on the official website here:&nbsp;<a data-mce-href="http://configserver.com/cp/csf.html" href="http://configserver.com/cp/csf.html" target="_blank">http://configserver.com/cp/csf.html</a>.</p>