Web Server DDoS Mitigation & Firewall Config — Melbourne

Stop DDoS and abuse traffic from taking Melbourne business sites offline—we configure server firewalls, rate limits, and edge protections so your storefront, booking API, or client portal stays up under load.

What You'll Get

• Attack surface review - Ports, panels, APIs, and origin IPs checked so floods cannot skip straight to your host.
• Host firewall rebuild - nftables or iptables policies that allow legit clients and drop junk SYN/UDP floods cleanly.
• Web-layer rate limiting - nginx/Apache limits, connection queues, and bot challenges tuned to your peak hour patterns.
• Fail2ban / banlist automation - Jails for ssh, wp-login, xmlrpc, and custom app paths with sane ban times.
• Optional CDN/WAF edge rules - Cloudflare or similar challenge/rate rules when origin alone is not enough.
• Post-change verification pack - Before/after metrics, open ports list, and a short runbook for your team.

Serving Melbourne & surrounds

Melbourne traffic is spiky: CBD SaaS demos, industrial inventory portals on freight days, and café-strip booking spikes on weekend markets all look different on the wire. We size rules for those rhythms instead of pasting a generic “block everything” template. Remote-first work covers metro and regional clients; if a rack-side check is needed we plan access around your window.

• CBD and Melbourne-style office stacks that take credential stuffing on admin panels overnight
• Warehouse and logistics sites near freight corridors that get scraped hard before peak dispatch
• Strata and high-street retail sites needing remote hardening with zero marketplace handoff friction

How We Work

1. Step 1: Reach Out - Share host OS, web stack, recent outage symptoms, and whether the origin IP is public. We listen first.
2. Step 2: Tailored Plan - Fixed-scope quote for firewall + rate-limit work; clear options if edge WAF is required.
3. Step 3: We Deliver - Remote session: baseline capture, rule rollout, live traffic watch, rollback path kept ready.
4. Step 4: Confirm & Follow-up - Plain-English handoff, optional monitoring tweaks, and a maintenance path if attacks return.

Common Issues & How to Fix Them

These are patterns we see on production boxes—symptoms first, then safe checks you can run before escalating.

nginx workers pegged at 100% while access.log shows one path hammered

Often a bot flood or inventory scraper, not a “slow code” problem—CPU climbs, TTFB explodes, and health checks start flapping.

1. Step 1: Run tail -n 500 /var/log/nginx/access.log | awk '{print $1,$7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head and note top IPs and URIs.
2. Step 2: Temporarily add a tight limit_req_zone on that URI (e.g. 5–10 r/s burst 20) and reload nginx with nginx -t && systemctl reload nginx.
3. Step 3: Confirm with top/htop and a fresh uniq count—legit status 200 traffic should continue while offender 503/429 counts rise.

SSH or panel login storms filling auth.log and raising load average

Credential stuffing burns CPU on fail2ban-less hosts and can exhaust connection tables before the website itself is the target.

1. Step 1: Check journalctl -u ssh -n 200 or grep 'Failed password' /var/log/auth.log | tail for volume and source ranges.
2. Step 2: Move SSH off 22 if policy allows, enforce key-only auth, and enable a fail2ban jail with a short findtime/long bantime; lock panel paths behind VPN or IP allowlists.
3. Step 3: Verify with ss -tnp | grep ':22' (or new port) and a controlled failed login—bans should appear in fail2ban-client status sshd.

UDP/ICMP noise or SYN floods exhausting conntrack before the app logs anything

Layer-3/4 floods never hit your PHP/Node logs; you only see packet loss, timeouts, and “site down” from outside Melbourne while the box looks idle on HTTP.

1. Step 1: On the host run cat /proc/net/nf_conntrack | wc -l (or conntrack -C) and ss -s; watch for maxed entries and SYN-RECV piles.
2. Step 2: Raise sensible conntrack only if needed, then drop obvious junk with nftables/iptables (invalid state, rate-limit new SYNs, drop unused UDP ports). Prefer provider/network scrubbing if pps is extreme.
3. Step 3: Re-check conntrack count and external curl from a second network; SYN-RECV should fall and origin TTFB stabilise under a light synthetic load.

When DIY is not enough (urgent, unsafe, recurring, or burning time), book Fixwebnode for direct professional support—no freelancers, bidding, or marketplace noise.

Why Choose Fixwebnode

We are the provider who does the work: Linux/web infrastructure hardening with calm, plain-English handoff. Melbourne operators get rules sized for real local traffic shapes—not a generic cloud checkbox—and a single contact path when something breaks at peak.

• ✓ Hands-on nftables/iptables, nginx/Apache, fail2ban, and edge WAF experience on live production hosts
• ✓ Fixed-scope packages with rollback thinking built in—no surprise “bid wars”
• ✓ Remote-first coverage for Melbourne metro and surrounds, with clear escalation if origin scrubbing is required

Expert Insights

On Melbourne CBD SaaS boxes we often see “DDoS” tickets that are really aggressive inventory scrapers on a single uncached JSON endpoint. A blunt Cloudflare “I'm Under Attack” mode stops the pain but also kills partner API clients. The durable fix is usually: (1) move the hot endpoint behind a short-TTL cache or signed token, (2) apply path-specific limit_req with a higher burst for known partner CIDRs, (3) ban at the firewall only after you confirm the source is not a payment webhook range. After five-plus years of these incidents, the tell is in the logs: legitimate browsers fan across many URIs; scrapers hammer one URI with near-identical RPS and sparse cookies. Tune for that pattern and you keep checkout green while the bots eat 429s.

Tools & Technologies

Linux (Ubuntu/Debian/RHEL), nginx, Apache, nftables, iptables, fail2ban, ufw (as a thin front where appropriate), Cloudflare WAF/rate rules, tcpdump, ss, conntrack, journalctl, ModSecurity where stack-appropriate, Let's Encrypt/TLS edge checks, basic Prometheus/node_exporter or host metrics for before/after proof.

Perfect For

Melbourne businesses running public web apps, Woo/Shopify headless origins, clinic booking portals, education sites, and small SaaS teams who cannot afford hour-long outages when bots or floods arrive. Ideal when you want one specialist to harden the host and explain what changed—not a multi-vendor auction.

Ready to lock things down? Call 0421498927 or start at fixwebnode.com.au/contact-support.