I have a CentOS web server that has recently been brought to a halt on two separate occasions. Checking the access.log, it appears that it was a Denial of Service (DOS) attack (hundreds of HTTP requests in a very short time, all from a single IP address).
I want to prevent these types of attacks from bringing the server to its knees. We have a hardware firewall (SonicWall) in place, but it isn't quite new enough to run the firmware that allows rate-limiting.
I have found a number of tutorials that show how to do this type of thing with IPTABLES. Is there a better solution?
Supposing I go with IPTABLES, do I need to include rules to allow FTP and SSH (the only other services on the server)?
Would any of you be willing to assist me with this?
Thanks, ~ j. [email protected]