i have been researching for alternatives. it is latest centos 4 (4.7) and uses vsftpd 2.01 started (again) investigating possible PAM or PAM module way... Q: is there a PAM way to control repeated crack retires on vsftpd? possibly something that can be done in /etc/pam.d/vsftpd i have been looking for a solution other than fail2ban and/or similar methods using hosts.allow and hosts.deny or iptables specifically, i am trying to stop repeated access to vsftpd after more than x attempts from the same ip address.... thanks in advance for any pointers.. - rh