Hi

I am using a Redhat Linux box and recently configured the /etc/hosts.deny and /etc/hosts.allow to deny access to all machines except the few on our network.
The /etc/hosts.deny reads ALL: ALL
The /etc/hosts.allow has the list of machines which can access the machine.
I have successfully used the same files in the past on other machines.

I find that I am able to access the machine from hosts which are not on the hosts.allow list. I cant seem to figure out why this is happening.

I would appreciate it if somebody tells me what I could be doing wrong or if there is something that I have configured wrong.

Thanks
Brinda

Please post the config files you are talking about so we can help, good luck!

Could you post the full contents of your hosts.allow file? The Redhat 9 ssh daemon should have support for libwrap by default, so using hosts.allow/deny should work as long as the syntax is correct.

Also, check /var/log/secure and /var/log/messages for any errors like "missing newline or line too long"

It seems to have been some problem with an address in my hosts.allow file. I rebuilt it and it worked ... no idea what the syntax problem was

Thanks for the help
Brinda

One thing to check is that ssh is built with tcwrappers support.
example:
# strings -f /usr/sbin/sshd | grep access
/usr/sbin/sshd: hosts_access
/usr/sbin/sshd: @(#)$OpenBSD: groupaccess.c,v 1.6 2003/04/08 20:21:28 itojun Exp $
/usr/sbin/sshd: userauth_hostbased: access allowed by auth_rhosts2
/usr/sbin/sshd: It is recommended that your private key files are NOT accessible by other

Also, make sure that you restart the services that use the configuration file changes.