12

I feel like this should be a really simple thing to do, but googling and checking SF I didn't see anything. I'm trying to make my Fedora server not respond to pings, how do I do that?

4
  • This article explains how to do this.
    – Sam Cogan
    Jul 28, 2009 at 21:58
  • Additionally, you can use "Blackhole" security: the server simply won't answer connection attemps to closed ports, so portscan becomes a difficult one ;)
    – kolypto
    Jul 28, 2009 at 22:46
  • 11
    I've never understood the advantages of disabling ICMP Echo Requests on servers. It makes monitoring and debugging network connectivity troublesome. Servers will usually have one or more low ports open for service anyway, so it's not like you can blackhole them. Could you let me know your reason, please? Sep 4, 2009 at 13:21
  • 3
    It's done only for a false sense of security. Mar 6, 2013 at 10:15

7 Answers 7

25

To disable the PING response, add the following line to your init script for the network:

echo 1 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_all

To reenable the PING response do this:

echo 0 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_all

Update:

To make the change permanent add the following line to /etc/sysctl.conf:

net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_all=1
1
  • how can i do it for windows server family??
    – AminM
    Mar 5, 2014 at 15:21
12

It is better to use firewall for these purposes, so that you can optionally enable ping from some systems, esp monitoring systems

iptables -t filter -I INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -s monitoring_system -j ACCEPT
iptables -t filter -I INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type echo-request -j DROP
1
  • 3
    Just in case it's not obvious to iptables newbies, replace "monitoring_system" with the IP/range of the server(s) which should be able to ping the server. All other ping requests will be silenty dropped.
    – Coops
    Jul 30, 2009 at 8:40
11

Add the following line to /etc/sysctl.conf:

net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_all=1

It has the same effect as the above echo lines.

3

You can also use this command to disable ping request

sysctl net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_all=1

To enable it again

sysctl net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_all=0

Finally save it sysctl -p

2
  • 1
    Weird, the opposite works on my system with Ubuntu 14.04. I am pinging localhost if it matters. Jul 1, 2015 at 3:04
  • 1
    Sorry! I recheked now and corrected. Tried in CentOS 7.
    – Sathish
    Jul 2, 2015 at 16:57
0

Just do this:

echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_all
0

open your /etc/sysctl.conf and append this line

net.ipv4.icmp_echo_ignore_all = 1

and execute this command

sysctl -p

it's still usable after reboot

-1

Firewall block ICMP connections.

especially icmp echo.

1
  • 7
    However, do not block all ICMP traffic because this will e.g. break Path MTU discovery.
    – knweiss
    Jul 28, 2009 at 22:08

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