Updated: 2025/Nov/16
Please read Privacy Policy. It's for your privacy.
BLOCKLISTD.CONF(5) File Formats Manual BLOCKLISTD.CONF(5)
NAME
blocklistd.conf - configuration file format for blocklistd
DESCRIPTION
The blocklistd.conf file contains configuration entries for blocklistd(8)
in a fashion similar to inetd.conf(5). Only one entry per line is
permitted. Every entry must have all fields populated. Each field can
be separated by a tab or a space. Comments are denoted by a "#" at the
beginning of a line.
There are two kinds of configuration lines, [local] and [remote]. By
default, configuration lines are [local], i.e. the address specified
refers to the addresses on the local machine. To switch to between
[local] and [remote] configuration lines you can specify the stanzas:
"[local]" and "[remote]".
On [local] and [remote] lines "*" means use the default, or wildcard
match. In addition, for [remote] lines "=" means use the values from the
matched [local] configuration line.
The first four fields, location, type, proto, and owner are used to match
the [local] or [remote] addresses, whereas the last 3 fields name, nfail,
and disable are used to modify the filtering action.
The first field denotes the location as an address, mask, and port. The
syntax for the location is:
[<address>|<interface>][/<mask>][:<port>]
The address can be an IPv4 address in numeric format, an IPv6 address in
numeric format and enclosed by square brackets, or an interface name.
Mask modifiers are not allowed on interfaces because interfaces can have
multiple addresses in different protocols where the mask has a different
size.
The mask is always numeric, but the port can be either numeric or
symbolic.
The second field is the socket type: stream, dgram, or numeric. The
third field is the protocol: tcp, udp, tcp6, udp6, or numeric. The
fourth field is the effective user (owner) of the daemon process
reporting the event, either as a username or a userid.
The rest of the fields control the behavior of the filter.
The name field, is the name of the packet filter rule to be used. If the
name starts with a hyphen ("-"), then the default rulename is prepended
to the given name. If the name contains a "/", the remaining portion of
the name is interpreted as the mask to be applied to the address
specified in the rule, causing a single rule violation to block the
entire subnet for the configured prefix.
The nfail field contains the number of failed attempts before access is
blocked, defaulting to "*" meaning never, and the last field duration
specifies the amount of time since the last access that the blocking rule
should be active, defaulting to "*" meaning forever. The default unit
for duration is seconds, but one can specify suffixes for different
units, such as "m" for minutes "h" for hours and "d" for days.
Matching is done first by checking the [local] rules individually, in the
order of the most specific to the least specific. If a match is found,
then the matching [remote] rules are applied. The name, nfail, and
duration fields can be altered by the [remote] rule that matched.
The [remote] rules can be used for allowing specific addresses, changing
the mask size (via name), the rule that the packet filter uses (also via
name), the number of failed attempts (via nfail), or the duration to
block (via duration).
FILES
/etc/blocklistd.conf Configuration file.
EXAMPLES
# Block ssh, after 3 attempts for 6 hours on the bnx0 interface
[local]
# location type proto owner name nfail duration
bnx0:ssh * * * * 3 6h
[remote]
# Never block 1.2.3.4
1.2.3.4:ssh * * * * * *
# Never block the example IPv6 subnet either
[2001:db8::]/32:ssh * * * * * *
# For addresses coming from 8.8.0.0/16 block whole /24 networks instead
# individual hosts, but keep the rest of the blocking parameters the same.
8.8.0.0/16:ssh * * * /24 = =
SEE ALSO
blocklistctl(8), blocklistd(8)
HISTORY
blocklistd.conf first appeared in NetBSD 7. FreeBSD support for
blocklistd.conf was implemented in FreeBSD 11.
AUTHORS
Christos Zoulas
NetBSD 11.99 February 5, 2025 NetBSD 11.99