Country Block

ljbowdish · Aug 16, 2011, 12:57 PM

I am NEW to this. We installed pfsense, with no packages.
I really need to install country block, because SPAM is killing me.
I am running 2.0 - RC1 (i386).
It says there is an update available.
Should I install the update before I install country block?
How often does the cron job to start country block have to run?
I saw the cron job package, is it simple to use??
Thank you for your time.

tommyboy180 · Aug 16, 2011, 3:09 PM

@ljbowdish:

I am NEW to this. We installed pfsense, with no packages.
I really need to install country block, because SPAM is killing me.
I am running 2.0 - RC1 (i386).
It says there is an update available.
Should I install the update before I install country block?
How often does the cron job to start country block have to run?
I saw the cron job package, is it simple to use??
Thank you for your time.

Update your pfsense install. Yours is really outdated. Then install countryblock. No need for a cron job anymore. That was a long time ago.

marcelloc · Aug 16, 2011, 3:26 PM

@ljbowdish:

I really need to install country block, because SPAM is killing me.
\

try spamd.

i'm also porting postfix zombie blocker and spamassassin to pfsense too.

tommyboy180 · Aug 16, 2011, 6:16 PM

@marcelloc:

@ljbowdish:

I really need to install country block, because SPAM is killing me.
\

try spamd.

i'm also porting postfix zombie blocker and spamassassin to pfsense too.

With countryblock you can cut down on 90% or more of spam. Spam just isn't unsolicited emails, it's also bots on forums, blogs, etc. Countryblock stops all forms of spam at the source rather than a reactive solution. Using IP-Blocklist with countryblock gives pfsense users more spam blocking power as well since I-blocklist.com maintains a spammer list.

Bummer · Aug 16, 2011, 6:30 PM

Yes, our mail servers already do everything that spamd does, plus more. But after installing Country Block, our spam dropped a lot more, even with the few bugs I've encountered.

I'm waiting to update it until I update to the final release of pfSense 2.0, which should be soon. At that point, my spam should drop a lot more.

What you don't realise is that a lot of spam comes from good servers that have been hacked as well as computers. Thus spam is always coming from different servers with different bogus email addresses.

Believe me, Country Block does work.

ljbowdish · Aug 17, 2011, 1:53 AM

I updated to 2.0 RC3. I installed the country block package. I selected the countries to block.
Did save, update.

now it says

Current Status = NOT running

You are blocking 0 Networks

How do I get it to run?? Do I need to restart teh firewall??

tommyboy180 · Aug 17, 2011, 6:08 PM

@ljbowdish:

I updated to 2.0 RC3. I installed the country block package. I selected the countries to block.
Did save, update.

now it says

Current Status = NOT running

You are blocking 0 Networks

How do I get it to run?? Do I need to restart teh firewall??

I think you rushed to the forums without troubleshooting a little more. Ensure you select your countries and then commit. After you commit Check "Enable Countryblock" and the click Save. That should work for you.

ljbowdish · Aug 17, 2011, 2:44 PM

It was the little button that did the trick
I actually didn't see it, until I read your note.
Thank you,

tommyboy180 · Aug 17, 2011, 6:09 PM

No problem. Glad it's working.

darklogic · Aug 24, 2011, 12:47 PM

Well I am having the same issue with country block again where it hangs on CIDR.php after doing an firmware update. I am at least glad to see other have seen this issue as well.

Anyone still getting this error?

Thanks,

MDP

tommyboy180 · Aug 24, 2011, 1:01 PM

@darklogic:

Well I am having the same issue with country block again where it hangs on CIDR.php after doing an firmware update. I am at least glad to see other have seen this issue as well.

Anyone still getting this error?

Thanks,

MDP

CIDR.php is hosted on my personal web server right now. I am still looking into alternate storage solutions. It may end up getting hosted on pfsense.org here soon.

darklogic · Aug 24, 2011, 1:27 PM

Is there anything I could do at this moment to get country block up and running until that happens?

tommyboy180 · Aug 24, 2011, 3:05 PM

Working on it.

darklogic · Aug 24, 2011, 3:38 PM

Thanks Tommyboy…

callinectes · Aug 24, 2011, 6:17 PM

I have County Block installed on pfSense 1.2.3-RELEASE - installed yesterday. It is enabled and running with 84 of 252 selected. The problem I have is that under "Current Status = Running" it shows "You are blocking 0 Networks". Am I doing something wrong? I have uninstalled and reinstalled with no change in results.

EDIT: uninstalling and reinstalling after your most recent post has fixed the problem. I did notice that during install this time there was a progress indicator when downloading CIDR.php where before it hung on downloading that file for about 30 seconds - funny thing was that the installation indicated that it was successful even though it appears CIDR.php had not downloaded. Thanks!

theidol · Aug 24, 2011, 5:05 PM

Upgraded to 2.0 rc-3 today
attempted install of Country Block
Additional files… CIDR.php Hangs
uninstalled all other packages
still hangs
then
Additional files... CIDR.php failed
then
Installation of Country Block FAILED!

theidol

tommyboy180 · Aug 24, 2011, 5:15 PM

Okay, the webserver should be responding now.

If your install failed recently, try again.

darklogic · Aug 24, 2011, 5:26 PM

Ok that did the trick thanks, but now I am getting this message when I try a test e-mail send.

Mailer Error: SMTP Error: Could not connect to SMTP host.

I know my setting are correct.

Thanks Again

tommyboy180 · Aug 24, 2011, 5:42 PM

Make sure your username/pass are correct and your port is correct.

The email tab is going to be removed in the next version of countryblock. The package is stable therefore no email is needed.

darklogic · Aug 24, 2011, 5:53 PM

Good to hear it is stable enough to remove that feature.

Thanks

MDP