The computer 64.62.190.19 attempts to ping and connect to my non-existant web server on host 19 roughly once per minute. That host is neither my DNS server nor my gateway.

I'm guessing this is part of the 'official' linode network, but what does it do and why does it want to contact me? Will I cause any problems if I drop ICMP and port 80 traffic to my linode?

Thanks,
-Mike

Dropping all of ICMP is a bad thing. Where people get this crazy notion is beyond me. (There is some good ICMP out there!). However dropping just ping is another story.

(Some what related/unrelated note: The more you attempt to drop (aka "blackhole"), the more you look like you have something to hide, the more interesting your server becomes to the curious ... )

Bill Clinton

That's a left-over from an old networking issue, which was fixed earlier this year. I'll run through the hosts and remove it from the ones that no longer need it.

-Chris

(edit: incorrect explanation deleted)Wow, thanks for your fast reponse, Chris!(/edit)



As I understand it, I had the firewall set up to allow any ICMP related to an already existing connection or any ICMP I sent. Would this let through all the 'good' ICMP while blocking the 'bad' ICMP?

My understanding was that ICMP is bad b/c it can be used to determine the version of linux you're running...but maybe that is just heresay?



Do you think it would be better to set the default policy to reject instead of drop?

Thanks,
-Mike