NetBSD-Bugs archive
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index][Old Index]
bin/60506: default syslog.conf spams console with ssh/http attacks
>Number: 60506
>Category: bin
>Synopsis: default syslog.conf spams console with ssh/http attacks
>Confidential: no
>Severity: serious
>Priority: medium
>Responsible: bin-bug-people
>State: open
>Class: sw-bug
>Submitter-Id: net
>Arrival-Date: Sun Jul 26 02:55:00 +0000 2026
>Originator: Taylor R Campbell
>Release: current, 11, 10, 9, ...
>Organization:
The NetBSD Spamdation, Inconsolate
>Environment:
>Description:
The default /etc/syslog.conf has the following line:
*.err;kern.*;auth.notice;authpriv.none;mail.crit /dev/console
The `auth.notice' and `*.err' parts mean that:
- ssh login failures get logged to the console
- bogus requests to bozohttpd get logged to the console
For a host on the internet with ssh access and an http server,
that's a lot of spam on the console.
I think these are bad defaults. They lead to warning fatigue
and, under load like a network denial of service attack that
prevents ssh access, make the console unusable for diagnostics
and remediation of the load.
I have run into this repeatedly lately with TNF's own
infrastructure for the repository migration, so for the new
infrastructure I've already set it up to deploy a quieter
console.
>How-To-Repeat:
1. run sshd and bozohttpd (or apache2/nginx with syslog)
2. connect to the internet
>Fix:
Change it to:
*.err;kern.*;auth.none;ftp.none;authpriv.none;mail.crit /dev/console
I.e., replace auth.notice by auth.none, and add ftp.none. This
way, the *.err pattern won't match ssh login faliures or bad
http requests.
Home |
Main Index |
Thread Index |
Old Index