Enabling a SSH Host and managing Iptable the Ubuntu semi-GUI way

Iptables is installed by default on Ubuntu 10.04 - this is a new ubuntu build - so last night when I tried to SSH into my new box - I received an port 22: Connection refused -

When I remembered that I do not have an SSH Server and default iptables configured  -  I needed to complete a couple steps prior to connecting to my server from my laptop.

Step 1.

Install a SSH Server - This is pretty simple using apt-get

sudo apt-get install openssh-server

After all unpacking and RSA key generation is completed - I moved on to the next step of the process .

Step 2

I am pretty lazy and usually do not remember all of the commands to configure my Iptables through the command line, I decided to use firestarter -

sudo apt-get install firestarter

It is probably good to remember how to configure manually -  so here it is.


sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport ssh -j ACCEPT

sudo iptables-save