When you buy a web hosting firewall for your VPS, you add a server protection layer that manages your web server’s incoming and outgoing traffic. As your web server is always connected to the Internet, it creates a wall against potential threats.
Further, if you run SaaS on a budget-friendly VPS, though it might save money, chances are you may leave your front door wide open to a risky neighbourhood. Most budget-friendly VPS plans come with default configurations, which often lack essential security measures. Therefore, let us understand how you secure your VPS hosting by setting up a firewall.
Securing Your Virtual Private Server: Setting Up a Firewall
1. Download CSF (ConfigServer Security and Firewall)
- The first step in securing Linux VPS hosting by setting up a firewall is to download ConfigServer Security and Firewall, also known as CSF. To do so, go to the /usr/src directory on your VPS server and start downloading all CSF files.
- Steps to Download CSF Files.
- By using common cd/usr/src, navigate to /src/src directly and find the correct folder.
- Then download the latest period of ConfigServer Security and Firewall by running the command wget.
- Once you do that, you can download all the compressed ConfigServer Security and Firewall files from the official website.
- Save all these files in your VPS SERVER /usr/src/directory.
How to Extract The Compressed CSF Files?
To get access to your compressed CSF file for download, you need to run the command tar xzf csf.tgz.
With this command, you will unpack all the content of your downloaded CSF file in your currently used directory.
2. Install CSF
Now that you have extracted all the CSF files by following the steps above, it’s time to install CSF files.
- First, move to the folder where all CSF files were extracted; you can use the command cd csf to do this.
- Now, give common sh install.sh to start the installation process. The installer will start checking whether you have all the required components for installation. If everything is downloaded correctly, then CSF will be installed.
- If some prerequisites are missing, you can download some dependencies. For RHEL-based systems, you can use the command yum install perl – libwww – perl. For a Debian-based system, you can use common apps like apt install lobwww-perl.
- Note that when you buy a VPS, all necessary packages like Perl and libwww are already preinstalled by default. Therefore, in many cases, you don’t need to manually conduct the third step. But if it is missing on your VPS hosting server, you can install it manually by using the above commands.
3. Configure CSF
If another preinstalled firewall is already in your Linux VPS hosting server, you need to make sure it’s turned off. You can use the command systemctl to ensure there is no conflict with your newly downloaded CSF.
- To set up CSF, you need to locate csg.conf, which is located in /etc/csf/. Further, if you are using any control panel, then you can easily manage the CSF directory with the help of it controlling all the functions of your firewall.
- Note that CSF comes with detailed instructions, so it’s not that hard to figure it out. However, if you choose a different sort of firewall instead of CSF, then the command and process may differ.
Conclusion
A web hosting firewall is a powerful defence you add to protect your Windows or Linux VPS hosting against unauthorized access. By following these three simple steps, you can set up a firewall in no time.
A carefully set firewall ensures network security and keeps your data safe, ensuring confidentiality, reliability, and integrity. So, make sure you follow the above steps carefully to get a web hosting firewall that safeguards your VPS hosting. In addition to these steps, make sure to buy VPS from a reliable provider to ensure highest security and efficiency.
