Why You Should Install CrowdSec on Your VPS

Have you ever been in a situation where you’re running a VPS and you’re not sure if it’s secure?

That’s when I discovered CrowdSec, and honestly, it’s been a game-changer for my peace of mind. Let me tell you why it might be for you too.

What is CrowdSec anyway?

CrowdSec is like having a security guard for your server that gets smarter every day. It watches your logs for suspicious behavior and blocks the bad guys before they can do damage. But here’s the cool part - it shares information about attackers with every other CrowdSec user out there.

Think of it like a neighborhood watch for the internet. When one person spots trouble, everyone gets warned.

What about Fail2Ban? Isn’t that enough?

If you’ve been in the server world for a while, you’ve probably heard of Fail2Ban. It’s been the go-to security tool for years, and it’s pretty straightforward - it watches your logs for failed login attempts and temporarily bans IPs that look suspicious.

Fail2Ban is great, don’t get me wrong. I used it for years. But CrowdSec takes things to a whole new level:

1. You’re not alone anymore: With Fail2Ban, your server is fighting the bad guys by itself. With CrowdSec, you’re part of a huge community sharing intel. Someone tries to hack a server in Tokyo? Your server in Dallas will be ready for them.

2. It’s way smarter: Fail2Ban basically counts login failures. CrowdSec actually analyzes behavior patterns using some pretty clever tech to spot attacks that Fail2Ban would miss.

3. Protect everything at once: Got multiple servers? CrowdSec can protect your whole setup from one place. Super convenient!

4. Built for today’s tech: CrowdSec plays nice with containers, cloud setups, and all the modern stuff we’re using now. It’s configured with YAML (so much easier to read) and has APIs for connecting to everything.

The real benefits I’ve seen using CrowdSec

1. It stops trouble before it starts

This blew my mind when I first saw it. Because CrowdSec users share data, my server started blocking IPs that had attacked other servers but hadn’t even tried anything with mine yet. Talk about proactive!

2. No more blocking the wrong people

The free community blocklist is huge. It blocks IPs that have been used in attacks on other servers.

CrowdSec allows you to have up to 3 blocklists on the free plan in addition to the community one. This means you can tailor your security posture to your specific needs while still benefiting from the crowd intelligence.

3. Set and forget

I’ve got CrowdSec watching over:

• My personal VPS where I host all my stuff

The best part? It’s totally hands-off. Once it’s running, I don’t need to baby it - the blocklist updates itself, and everything just works.

I should mention - I’m definitely not a security guru. Setting up those “bouncers” gave me a little trouble at first (went with the firewall-bouncer in the end), but after that hiccup, smooth sailing.

Right now I’m just using the free plan. Sure, the premium has some cool extras, but I can’t justify paying for it with my single server setup. The free tier does everything I need.

4. It catches all sorts of sneaky stuff

It’s not just brute force attacks. CrowdSec has caught people trying SQL injections, scanning my ports, and other sketchy business I wouldn’t have noticed until too late.

I actually reported somebody that had scanned my server using some python script using requests module I saw in my logs. So I ended up reporting them to digitalocean and they got banned from the platform.

No Fuzz

Look, I’m not trying to oversell this - I’m just sharing my honest experience. After trying both, I genuinely prefer CrowdSec over Fail2ban. The community aspect gives me way better protection with less effort, and I sleep better knowing it’s running on my server. It’s become one of those tools I automatically install on any new VPS now. Simple as that. The 3 blocklists limit is kinda a bummer but that’s about it.

Setting it up is actually pretty easy

I’m not a security expert, and I had CrowdSec running in some fair minutes. The official documentation provides excellent step-by-step tutorials for different operating systems and environments. Check out the CrowdSec installation guide to get started.

The results speak for themselves

The first week after installing CrowdSec, I was amazed looking at the dashboard. There were dozens of attempts to break into my server that were automatically blocked. Many of these IPs had already attacked other CrowdSec users, so they were blocked before they even made a single attempt on my server.

In case you were wondering what my terminal is it’s warp terminal.

Thoughts

Look, keeping your VPS secure doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. CrowdSec makes it pretty painless, and the community aspect means it gets better every day as more people use it.

If you’re running anything on a VPS - websites, apps, databases, whatever - do yourself a favor and spend 10 minutes installing CrowdSec. Your future self will thank you when you’re not dealing with a security breach at 3 AM!

Give it a try!