ssh + fail2ban only asked password once

tennis_slacker · 04-14-2009, 11:03 AM

I've setup openssh and fail2ban to be pretty strict. Three failed logins with 2 hours and your ip is permanently blocked (obviously until a system restart or log rotation). Anyways on to my question.

When I try to access my ssh server from putty or a terminal I'm only asked for the password once. So, if I enter it wrong once ... my ip gets blocked by fail2ban. I expected that if I entered the wrong password it would tell me and allow me to try again, then try again, then block my ip. I just don't know why it doesn't ask to retry the password entry?

repo · 04-15-2009, 07:16 AM

A help would be if you posted the content of fail2ban.conf

You could use iptables to do this though

Code:

$IPT -N SSH_CHECK
$IPT -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW -j SSH_CHECK
$IPT -A SSH_CHECK -m recent --set --name SSH
$IPT -A SSH_CHECK -m recent --update --seconds 60 --hitcount 4 --name SSH -j DROP

tennis_slacker · 04-15-2009, 09:34 AM

Contents of fail2ban.conf & jail.conf:

Code:

# Fail2Ban configuration file
#
# Author: Cyril Jaquier
#
# $Revision: 629 $
#

[Definition]

# Option:  loglevel
# Notes.:  Set the log level output.
#          1 = ERROR
#          2 = WARN
#          3 = INFO
#          4 = DEBUG
# Values:  NUM  Default:  3
#
loglevel = 3

# Option:  logtarget
# Notes.:  Set the log target. This could be a file, SYSLOG, STDERR or STDOUT.
#          Only one log target can be specified.
# Values:  STDOUT STDERR SYSLOG file  Default:  /var/log/fail2ban.log
#
logtarget = /var/log/fail2ban.log

# Option: socket
# Notes.: Set the socket file. This is used to communicate with the daemon. Do
#         not remove this file when Fail2ban runs. It will not be possible to
#         communicate with the server afterwards.
# Values: FILE  Default:  /var/run/fail2ban/fail2ban.sock
#
socket = /var/run/fail2ban/fail2ban.sock

Code:

# Fail2Ban configuration file.
#
# This file was composed for Debian systems from the original one
#  provided now under /usr/share/doc/fail2ban/examples/jail.conf
#  for additional examples.
#
# To avoid merges during upgrades DO NOT MODIFY THIS FILE
# and rather provide your changes in /etc/fail2ban/jail.local
#
# Author: Yaroslav O. Halchenko <debian@onerussian.com>
#
# $Revision: 281 $
#

# The DEFAULT allows a global definition of the options. They can be override
# in each jail afterwards.

[DEFAULT]

# "ignoreip" can be an IP address, a CIDR mask or a DNS host
ignoreip = 127.0.0.1
bantime  = -1
findtime = 7200
maxretry = 3

# "backend" specifies the backend used to get files modification. Available
# options are "gamin", "polling" and "auto".
# yoh: For some reason Debian shipped python-gamin didn't work as expected
#      This issue left ToDo, so polling is default backend for now
backend = polling

#
# Destination email address used solely for the interpolations in
# jail.{conf,local} configuration files.
destemail = root@localhost

#
# ACTIONS
#

# Default banning action (e.g. iptables, iptables-new,
# iptables-multiport, shorewall, etc) It is used to define 
# action_* variables. Can be overriden globally or per 
# section within jail.local file
banaction = iptables-multiport

# email action. Since 0.8.1 upstream fail2ban uses sendmail
# MTA for the mailing. Change mta configuration parameter to mail
# if you want to revert to conventional 'mail'.
mta = sendmail

# Default protocol
protocol = tcp

#
# Action shortcuts. To be used to define action parameter

# The simplest action to take: ban only
action_ = %(banaction)s[name=%(__name__)s, port="%(port)s", protocol="%(protocol)s]

# ban & send an e-mail with whois report to the destemail.
action_mw = %(banaction)s[name=%(__name__)s, port="%(port)s", protocol="%(protocol)s]
              %(mta)s-whois[name=%(__name__)s, dest="%(destemail)s", protocol="%(protocol)s]

# ban & send an e-mail with whois report and relevant log lines
# to the destemail.
action_mwl = %(banaction)s[name=%(__name__)s, port="%(port)s", protocol="%(protocol)s]
               %(mta)s-whois-lines[name=%(__name__)s, dest="%(destemail)s", logpath=%(logpath)s]
 
# Choose default action.  To change, just override value of 'action' with the
# interpolation to the chosen action shortcut (e.g.  action_mw, action_mwl, etc) in jail.local
# globally (section [DEFAULT]) or per specific section 
action = %(action_)s

#
# JAILS
#

# Next jails corresponds to the standard configuration in Fail2ban 0.6 which
# was shipped in Debian. Enable any defined here jail by including
#
# [SECTION_NAME] 
# enabled = true

#
# in /etc/fail2ban/jail.local.
#
# Optionally you may override any other parameter (e.g. banaction,
# action, port, logpath, etc) in that section within jail.local

[ssh]

enabled = true
port	= ssh
filter	= sshd
logpath  = /var/log/auth.log
maxretry = 3

# Generic filter for pam. Has to be used with action which bans all ports
# such as iptables-allports, shorewall
[pam-generic]

enabled = false
# pam-generic filter can be customized to monitor specific subset of 'tty's
filter	= pam-generic
# port actually must be irrelevant but lets leave it all for some possible uses
port = all
banaction = iptables-allports
port     = anyport
logpath  = /var/log/auth.log
maxretry = 6

[xinetd-fail]

enabled   = false
filter    = xinetd-fail
port      = all
banaction = iptables-multiport-log
logpath   = /var/log/daemon.log
maxretry  = 2


[ssh-ddos]

enabled = false
port    = ssh
filter  = sshd-ddos
logpath  = /var/log/auth.log
maxretry = 6

#
# HTTP servers
#

[apache]

enabled = false
port	= http,https
filter	= apache-auth
logpath = /var/log/apache*/*error.log
maxretry = 6

# default action is now multiport, so apache-multiport jail was left
# for compatibility with previous (<0.7.6-2) releases
[apache-multiport]

enabled   = false
port	  = http,https
filter	  = apache-auth
logpath   = /var/log/apache*/*error.log
maxretry  = 6

[apache-noscript]

enabled = false
port    = http,https
filter  = apache-noscript
logpath = /var/log/apache*/*error.log
maxretry = 6

[apache-overflows]

enabled = false
port    = http,https
filter  = apache-overflows
logpath = /var/log/apache*/*error.log
maxretry = 2

#
# FTP servers
#

[vsftpd]

enabled  = false
port	 = ftp,ftp-data,ftps,ftps-data
filter   = vsftpd
logpath  = /var/log/vsftpd.log
# or overwrite it in jails.local to be
# logpath = /var/log/auth.log
# if you want to rely on PAM failed login attempts
# vsftpd's failregex should match both of those formats
maxretry = 3


[proftpd]

enabled  = true
port	 = ftp,ftp-data,ftps,ftps-data
filter   = proftpd
logpath  = /var/log/proftpd/proftpd.log
maxretry = 3


[wuftpd]

enabled  = false
port	 = ftp,ftp-data,ftps,ftps-data
filter   = wuftpd
logpath  = /var/log/auth.log
maxretry = 6


#
# Mail servers
#

[postfix]

enabled  = false
port	 = smtp,ssmtp
filter   = postfix
logpath  = /var/log/mail.log


[couriersmtp]

enabled  = false
port	 = smtp,ssmtp
filter   = couriersmtp
logpath  = /var/log/mail.log


#
# Mail servers authenticators: might be used for smtp,ftp,imap servers, so
# all relevant ports get banned
#

[courierauth]

enabled  = false
port	 = smtp,ssmtp,imap2,imap3,imaps,pop3,pop3s
filter   = courierlogin
logpath  = /var/log/mail.log


[sasl]

enabled  = false
port	 = smtp,ssmtp,imap2,imap3,imaps,pop3,pop3s
filter   = sasl
logpath  = /var/log/mail.log


# DNS Servers


# These jails block attacks against named (bind9). By default, logging is off
# with bind9 installation. You will need something like this:
#
# logging {
#     channel security_file {
#         file "/var/log/named/security.log" versions 3 size 30m;
#         severity dynamic;
#         print-time yes;
#     };
#     category security {
#         security_file;
#     };
# }
#
# in your named.conf to provide proper logging

# Word of Caution:
# Given filter can lead to DoS attack against your DNS server
# since there is no way to assure that UDP packets come from the
# real source IP
[named-refused-udp]

enabled  = false
port     = domain,953
protocol = udp
filter   = named-refused
logpath  = /var/log/named/security.log

[named-refused-tcp]

enabled  = false
port     = domain,953
protocol = tcp
filter   = named-refused
logpath  = /var/log/named/security.log

tennis_slacker · 04-22-2009, 01:02 PM

The log level in my sshd_config was set to VERBOSE, which was logging to much when I tried to login and hence banned my ip the first time I failed the password because the additional info was counted by fail2ban as failed logins. I've since changed the log level to INFO, and now I can reenter my password a couple times if it is wrong.

When I logged into the ssh server with log level set to VERBOSE I got messages like this:

Code:

Apr 22 11:13:00 server sshd[4977]: Connection from xx.xx.xx.xx port 3177
Apr 22 11:13:03 server sshd[4977]: Failed none for bob from xx.xx.xx.xx port 3177 ssh2
Apr 22 11:13:09 server sshd[4977]: pam_smbpass(sshd:auth): unrecognized option [missingok]
Apr 22 11:13:09 server sshd[4977]: Accepted password for bob from xx.xx.xx.xx port 3177 ssh2
Apr 22 11:13:09 server sshd[4979]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user bob by (uid=0)

But with log level set to INFO I get:

Code:

Apr 22 11:51:19 server sshd[5213]: Failed password for bob from xx.xx.xx.xx port 3294 ssh2
Apr 22 11:51:25 server sshd[5213]: pam_smbpass(sshd:auth): unrecognized option [missingok]
Apr 22 11:51:25 server sshd[5213]: Accepted password for bob from xx.xx.xx.xx port 3294 ssh2
Apr 22 11:51:25 server sshd[5215]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session opened for user bob by (uid=0)

So, I think what happened is that fail2ban counted the Failed none for bob, pam_smbpass, or something as three failed attempts if I didn't enter the password correctly the first time and then it blocked my ip.