How To Install endlessh on CentOS 8

endlessh is SSH tarpit that slowly sends an endless banner

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install endlessh on CentOS 8.

What is endlessh

Endlessh is an SSH tarpit that very slowly sends an endless, random SSH banner. It keeps SSH clients locked up for hours or even days at a time. The purpose is to put your real SSH server on another port and then let the script kiddies get stuck in this tarpit instead of bothering a real server.

We can use yum or dnf to install endlessh on CentOS 8. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install endlessh.

Install endlessh on CentOS 8 Using dnf

Update yum database with dnf using the following command.

sudo dnf makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install endlessh using dnf by running the following command:

sudo dnf -y install endlessh

Install endlessh on CentOS 8 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install endlessh using yum by running the following command:

sudo yum -y install endlessh

How To Uninstall endlessh on CentOS 8

To uninstall only the endlessh package we can use the following command:

sudo dnf remove endlessh

endlessh Package Contents on CentOS 8

/etc/endlessh
/etc/endlessh/config
/usr/bin/endlessh
/usr/lib/.build-id
/usr/lib/.build-id/ae
/usr/lib/.build-id/ae/2ee5282ae66c25cedd82e987089801247a1a81
/usr/lib/systemd/system/endlessh.service
/usr/share/doc/endlessh
/usr/share/doc/endlessh/README.md
/usr/share/licenses/endlessh
/usr/share/licenses/endlessh/UNLICENSE
/usr/share/man/man1/endlessh.1.gz

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install endlessh on CentOS 8 using yum and dnf.