Spent a full weekend figuring out why my home server kept locking me out

I set up a new firewall rule on Friday night to block a weird port scan I saw, but I must have messed up the syntax. It ended up blocking my own SSH access from my laptop. I spent all Saturday and most of Sunday (like 14 hours total) checking logs and trying to remember if I'd set up a local console password (I hadn't). Finally got back in by driving to my friend's place to use his computer and connect through a VPN tunnel I'd forgotten about. Has anyone else had a simple config change spiral like that?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_kim14d ago

That "simple config change spiral" is the worst. You start with one tiny fix and end up in a full blown lockout crisis. Makes you wonder why we never test from a backup connection first, right?

cooper.viola14d ago

My personal record is three hours locked out of my own server.