When a web site is attacked, so far by unsuccessful hackers, my error routine adds the attackers IP address, prefixed by 'deny', to that web site's .htaccess file. It works and the attacker, on second and subsequent attacks, gets a 403 error response.
I want to extend the exclusion ability to every web site hosted on a server. My preferred method is iptables. However, when breaking-out of a PHP script on a web page and running a normal iptables command, for example:
iptables -A 3temp -s 1.2.3.4 -j DROP
iptables responds with:
iptables v1.3.5: can't initialize iptables table `filter': Permission denied (you must be root)
Executing 'whoami' confirms Apache is the user. Giving Apache group rw on the /etc/sysconfig/iptables and ensuring the /sbin/iptables is executable by all, fails to resolve the problem.
Is there any method of running iptables from an Apache originated process ?
Thank you.