If you are a system admin or a webmaster, you will face this question at some point of time. How do I limit connections per user ip in Apache 2.2? Generally, you get good users visiting your site who use the site normally requesting one or two page at a time. But then there are a few malicious user who would want cause grief to you and your server by overloading the server with requests. To handle such malicious user, you need the mod_limitipconn module. This module keeps check on the number of connections a single ip can make simultaneously. There are configurable options that help you tune this module. So, now to the point.. How do I install this on my server?

I am outlining the steps for my server, ie. CentOs 5.2 with Apache 2.2

• wget http://dl.atrpms.net/all/mod_limitipconn-0.23-4.el5.x86_64.rpm
• rpm -i mod_limitipconn-0.23-4.el5.x86_64.rpm
• vi /etc/http/modules/ipconn.conf
  

  Add following to the content of ipconn.conf
  # LimitIPConn module limits the number of connection to apache
  # per IP address. This helps in limiting the simultaneous downloads and will help
  # prevent slow users from blocking your servers.
  #
  <IfModule prefork.c>
  LoadModule limitipconn_module modules/mod_limitipconn.so
  </IfModule>

• Make sure ‘ExtendedStatus‘ is ON in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf
• You will have to configure the module for each of your virtual host that you need to implement the limitip for.
  

  <IfModule mod_limitipconn.c>
  <Location /forums>
  MaxConnPerIP 3
  # exempting images from the connection limit is often a good
  # idea if your web page has lots of inline images, since these
  # pages often generate a flurry of concurrent image requests
  NoIPLimit image/*
  </Location>
  <Location /video>
  MaxConnPerIP 1
  # In this case, all MIME types other than audio/mpeg and video*
  # are exempt from the limit check
  OnlyIPLimit audio/mpeg video
  </Location>
  </IfModule>

• Save the config file and test the new configuration “/etc/init.d/httpd configtest”. If you get “Syntax OK”, then all you need to do is restart the server and you are good to go.

This is a brief guide on how I got mod_limitipconn working on my server. If you have any questions, please feel free to post in comment and I will try to answer your questions.