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reCAPTCHA

As of LiteSpeed WebServer 5.4RC1, reCAPTCHA is available as a method of defense against DDoS attack.

Access the WebAdmin console via https://YOUR_SERVER_IP:7080

Navigate to Configuration → Server → Security → reCAPTCHA Protection

Set Enable reCAPTCHA to Yes. This is the master switch and it is required for both control panel environment and LSWS native environment.

For other options, hover over the ? symbol to view detailed information about that option.

For demonstration purposes, we will set Trigger Sensitivity to maximum (100), and reCAPTCHA Type to Checkbox. You  may adjust these values according to your needs. Save and restart LSWS.

When a visitor accesses the website , they will need to go though reCAPTCHA validation to protect against a DDoS attack such as HTTP Flood.

You can also enable reCAPTCHA on an individual virtual host that is under attack, while leaving other websites disabled.

Server-level reCAPTCHA must be enabled even control panel used.

LSWS native virtual-host-level sensitivity will override the sensitivity set at the server level.

You can enable virtual-host-level reCAPTCHA through rewrite rules for control panel virtual hosts or through the WebAdmin console for LSWS native virtual hosts.

Enable reCAPTCHA for Control Panel Virtual Hosts Through Rewrite Rules

Use one of the following rewrite rule directives in control panel virtual host document root .htaccess:

[E=verifycaptcha] or [E=verifycaptcha: ACTION]

[E=verifycaptcha] will always redirect to reCAPTCHA until verified. ACTION can be deny to return a 403 or drop to drop the connection when Max Tries is reached. Until Max Tries is reached, the client will be redirected to reCAPTCHA.

For example:

RewriteCond SOME-CONDITIONAL-CHECK

RewriteRule .* - [E=verifycaptcha]

(SOME-CONDITIONAL-CHECK would be a suspicious UA, IP address, etc.)

Enable reCAPTCHA for Control Panel Virtual Hosts Through "LsRecaptcha" directive

With latest build of 5.4RC4, you can configure vhost level recaptcha via virtual host include configurations through “LsREcaptcha” directive and it can not be used in .htaccess:

<IfModule LiteSpeed>
   LsRecaptcha (0-100)
</IfModule>

When LsRecaptcha is set to 0, it means the Recaptcha feature has been disabled for that virtual host.

Enable reCAPTCHA for LiteSpeed Native Virtual Hosts

You can also use LSWS WebAdmin console to enable reCAPTCHA in LSWS native mode.

Navigate to Configuration → Virtual Hosts → Security → reCAPTCHA Protection

Google bots are considered good bots because they help index your site. However, they cannot do their job properly without receiving the correct page. The Bot Whitelist configuration may be used to specify bots that you may need for your site.

Here, we have configured 'Edge' in the Bot Whitelist text area. Bot Whitelist is a 'contains' match, but regex may be used as well.

After restarting, browsers containing Edge in the user-agent header will bypass reCAPTCHA:

The browser on the left is Microsoft Edge, the browser on the right is Chrome.

The Allowed Bot Hits configuration may be used to limit how many times a good bot (including Googlebot) is allowed to hit a URL before it is redirected to reCAPTCHA as well. This may be useful to prevent bad actors from bypassing reCAPTCHA using a custom user agent.

The default reCAPTCHA page is generic. If you would like to customize the page, you may do so by creating a file at $SERVER_ROOT/lsrecaptcha/_recaptcha_custom.shtml.

There are two script tags that are required and it is strongly recommended to avoid changing the form and the recaptchadiv unless you know what you are doing. There are three echos within the page itself. Those are used by the web server to customize the reCAPTCHA type and keys and specify any query string used.

Beyond those required attributes, everything else is customizable. As noted before, please ensure that you have backups of the default page and your customized page. Note that the .shtml extension is required in order to use the LSWS configured type and keys.

You can apply your own reCAPTCHA key and adjust the configuration as you like. Client verification is completely determined by Google's reCAPTCHA service. The invisible type may display a difficult puzzle.

For server wide protection that needs to cover a lot of domains, make sure Verify the origin of reCAPTCHA solutions is unchecked. Otherwise, you may need to apply a key for each domain.

Trigger Sensitivity refers to the automatic reCAPTCHA sensitivity. The higher the value, the more likely reCAPTCHA Protection will be used. A value of 0 is equivalent to “Off” while a value of 100 is equivalent to “Always On”. Default values: Server level: 0. Virtual Host level: Inherit Server level setting. Syntax: Integer value between 0 and 100.

LiteSpeed calculates Trigger Sensitivity as the percentage of your server capacity used, based on the number of active connections. reCAPTCHA is activated when “in use connection” * 100 / max connections“ > (100 - sensitivity).

If reCAPTCHA fails a few times, it will return a 403 error and then drop the connection from that IP. It is the way it works in order to block attacks. If the invisible reCAPTCHA keeps auto-refreshing and then fails, just change the type to one-click.

There may be situations where you have reCAPTCHA enabled globally, but you want to disable it for certain vhosts. This is possible by adding the following directives to those vhosts' Apache configuration files:

<IfModule LiteSpeed>
LsRecaptcha 0
</IfModule>
  • Admin
  • Last modified: 2019/06/10 15:18
  • by Lisa Clarke