How To: Install mod_security

Comments

1. Jeremy (5 comments.) says:

   3/4/2007 at 10:58 pm

   Ubuntu (6.06.1) has mod_security 1.8.7. This doesn’t appear to support the ‘fun rules’ you linked to at gotroot.com.
2. Ajay (209 comments.) says:

   3/5/2007 at 1:49 am

   Hey, thanks for the tutorial Mark. I got my host to do the dirty work but it sure helps to know how to do it manually.
3. Ruslan Abuzant (1 comments.) says:

   3/5/2007 at 5:00 am

   Thank you for the nice reading, i remember the old days with FreeBSD and the huge time it required to fulfill all those dependency needs to get a new mod_something installed.. Now Fedora makes it much easier.. Whoora
   • badtz says:

     12/18/2008 at 3:04 pm

     2 things, for freebsd updating or adding something properly in ports is amazingly simple

     (cd to port directory, make install clean!)
     for example
     # cd /usr/ports/www/mod_security
     # make install clean

     And you are done. Stuff that isn’t included in ports can surely be a huge pain in the butt, (and i’ve been using freebsd since 3.x), but even given that I find *overall* freebsd much simpler to use than rpm’s. Debian is a whole different matter, its pretty well thought out.
4. Ryan Barnett (2 comments.) says:

   3/5/2007 at 10:15 am

   One comment – it is important to mention that ModSecurity 2.X has a different Rules Language. One specific example – SecFilter and SecFilterSelective are now replaced with just SecRule (which has the same syntax as SecFilterSelective). This, however, means that you can not just “plug-n-play” previous rules. Some of the rules that you are referencing are for the older 1.X branch.

   FYI – the 2.1.0 version now comes bundled with the Core Rules (http://www.modsecurity.org/pro.....index.html) which provide great protection for a wide variety of attacks.

   I hope this info helps.

   —
   Ryan C. Barnett
   ModSecurity Community Manager
   Web Application Security Consortium (WASC) Member
   CIS Apache Benchmark Project Lead
   SANS Instructor, GCIA, GCFA, GCIH, GSNA, GCUX, GSEC
   Author: Preventing Web Attacks with Apache
5. Jeremy (5 comments.) says:

   3/5/2007 at 6:38 pm

   Ah, cool, does that mean I can plug-and-play a newer rule set in an older version just by renaming all occurrences of ‘SecRule’ with ‘SecFilterSelective’?
6. Ryan Barnett (2 comments.) says:

   3/6/2007 at 5:00 pm

   How about this for an answer – maybe… You most likely could back port SecRule rules to SecFilterSelective, however there are other variables that may affect them. There are new processing phases (request headers, request body, response headers, response body and logging) where you need to specify which phase the rule will run.

   I will actually be creating a Migration from 1.X to 2.0 soon that will be posted on the ModSecurity website that will explain all of the differences between the two versions and provide tips for the migration process.

   In the mean time, if you are contemplating migrating and aren’t sure exactly “why” you should upgrade, check out some of the docs on the http://www.modsecurity.org site. This link is for an interview that Ivan did for SecurityFocus on ModSecurity 2.0 and the new features – http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/418. Also, I have some archived Webcast data under the training page that highlights Mod 2.0 – http://www.modsecurity.org/training/index.html.

   Finally, I am hosting a live Webcast tomorrow called “Cool Rules” which will highlight some really interesting Mod rules that tackle complex web security issues such as –

   – Inspecting Basic Auth Credentials
   – Monitoring Form-based Authentication Failures
   – Defending Web Services
   – Proxy Failover Assistance
   – Overview of Remo Tool (Rule Editor for ModSecurity)

   If you are interested, you can get the Webcast registration info on the Mod training page (link above).

   Cheers,
   –
   Ryan C. Barnett
   ModSecurity Community Manager
   Web Application Security Consortium (WASC) Member
   CIS Apache Benchmark Project Lead
   SANS Instructor, GCIA, GCFA, GCIH, GSNA, GCUX, GSEC
   Author: Preventing Web Attacks with Apache
7. Jeremy (5 comments.) says:

   3/6/2007 at 6:51 pm

   Yeah, I noticed REQUEST_BODY breaks when used in 1.8. I’m not interested in upgrading to ModSecurity 2.0 though, because 1.8 is supported by my distribution (Ubuntu) with security updates.

   Besides, I can’t seem to find ModSecurity 2.0 packaged for Ubuntu, anyway.

   It’s a shame the modsecurity.org site didn’t archive the 1.8 documentation. I’m feeling around blind here.
8. Apache (1 comments.) says:

   3/7/2007 at 10:59 am

   I strongly recommend that everyone puts mod_security in “detection only” mode for a week or two after installation, and for a day or so after any ruleset change — to work out all the false positives.
9. debianuser says:

   5/10/2007 at 12:23 pm

   Need a little help. I am having trouble installing modsecurity 2.1.1 on my Debian machine. I installed using /usr/local/modsecurity/modsecurity-apache_2.1.1/apache2 apxs2 -n modsecurity -cia modsecurity.c which placed the modsecurity.so module in /etc/apache2/httpd.conf I placed the core ruleset in /etc/apache2/modsecurity But, when I try to start apache2 I get two syntax errors, one in apache2.conf which indicates: syntax errror on line 126 of /etc/apache2/apache2.conf: syntax error on line 6 of /etc/apache2/httpd.conf: Cannnot load /usr/lib/apache2/modules/modsecurity.so into server. /usr/lib/apache2/modules/modsecurity.so: undefined symbol msre_format_metadata

   I had a previous install of modsecurity functioning but it became non-functional after I upgraded to etch and 2.6 kernel

   Would like to get modsecurity functional again, hope someone can help. Thanks in advance
10. debianuser says:

    5/10/2007 at 4:32 pm

    Got it.
11. Mark says:

    6/24/2007 at 1:41 pm

    I wish that debianuser would have explained what he did to get it working.

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