CSF CSF Firewall closing down August 31, 2025 discussion thread

Dedicated thread for folks to discuss and ask questions regarding CSF Firewall closing down and Centmin Mod impact https://community.centminmod.com/threads/csf-firewall-closing-down-august-31-2025.28985/.

So CSF Firewall existing installs continue to work, just no more updates or fresh installs after August 31, 2025!

Other discussions around this:

• WHT https://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1945110. Chirpy CSF owner/maintainer did mention considering publishing CSF and LFD under a GPLv3 license so it can be forked https://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1945110&p=10488780#post10488780.
• Lowendtalk https://lowendtalk.com/discussion/2...mail-scanner-exploit-scanner-etc-closing-down
• DirectAdmin ConfigServer shutting down as of 31st of August 202
• cPanel https://support.cpanel.net/hc/en-us...135831-ConfigServer-closing-down-and-now-what

August 25, 2025 AEST Update

There are ~7 days until CSF Firewall's developer and site configserver.com shut down forever. While they have mentioned they are looking at open sourcing CSF Firewall under GPLv3 licensing before shutdown, for Centmin Mod and its users, it's cutting it pretty close. I was hoping they would have done this much sooner.

So, for this CSF Firewall shutdown change, I am updating Centmin Mod's latest stable and beta version branches to prepare for this change to minimise impact on Centmin Mod users. Centmin Mod will have its own hosted mirror for CSF Firewall download, which doesn't just mirror a copy of csf.tgz download file but also updates and changes the hardcoded download.configserver.com CSF Firewall download URL so that it doesn't call home or check the soon to be shutdown download.configserver.com site.

For Existing Centmin Mod Users

For existing Centmin Mod users on the following version branches, you can run SSH command cmupdate to get the updates for this:

Centmin Mod versions (updated with CSF Firewall download mirror switch since August 25, 2025 AEST)

• 131.00stable
• 132.00stable
• 140.00beta01

Centmin Mod versions (updated with CSF Firewall download mirror switch since August 28, 2025 AEST). Decided to update older versions too:

• 123.09beta01
• 124.00stable

For existing Centmin Mod users who are on older Centmin Mod versions, you will need to update to one of the 3 above mentioned versions - ideally 140.00beta01, to get the update. You can update following one the posts guides in this thread https://community.centminmod.com/th...ase-with-almalinux-rocky-linux-support.25572/

For New Centmin Mod Installations

New Centmin Mod installations will install CSF Firewall via the self-hosted Centmin Mod download mirror copy starting from today.

If you have issues, questions or feedback, report them in the installs and upgrades forums at https://community.centminmod.com/forums/install-upgrades-or-pre-install-questions.8/.

August 29, 2025 AEST Update

Free scripts were released under GPLv3 open source licensing https://github.com/waytotheweb/scripts. I compared the CSF Firewall GPLv3 open source code (v15.00) to the last configserver.com released code (v14.24) and wrote a summary at https://github.com/centminmod/configserver-scripts/blob/main/README-gpl-csf.md.

For Centmin Mod users CSF Firewall mirror, I bumped version to v14.25. Function wise as CSF Firewall, no difference in v14.24 vs v14.25 vs v15.00 GPLv3 release other than where and if it checks for updates.

• v14.24 checks download.configserver.com
• v14.25 Centmin Mod mirror checks download.centminmod.com which means when I update Centmin Mod mirror CSF Firewall version to v15.00 GPLv3, Centmin Mod CSF Firewall users automatically will get that update via CSF Firewall's native auto update routines or via manual command = csf -u. Centmin Mod mirror version allows me to later on update and direct CSF Firewall downloads to any other developers who want to take over CSF Firewall development as well edit: just updated Centmin Mod CSF Firewall edition to v15.01 which retains the auto update check routines.
• v15.00 has all checks disabled

Centmin Mod CSF Firewall mirror check only for v14.25 to v15.01 update

Code (Text):

csf -c
A newer version of csf is available - Current:v14.25 New:v15.01

Code (Text):

# update
csf -u

# version check
csf -v
csf: v15.01 (generic)

Code (Text):

head -30 changelog.txt
ChangeLog:

15.01 - Changed license to GPLv3. Updated Centminmod.com Edition that retains the
        auto update routine to update via Centmin Mod mirror.  

        29th August 2025

15.00 - Changed license to GPLv3.

        29th August 2025

14.25 - Centminmod.com Edition. Prepared for ConfigServer shutdown (August 31, 2025)
        https://community.centminmod.com/threads/28985/

        Migrated from configserver.com to centminmod.com mirrors

        Updated all download server references

        2nd August 2025

August 30, 2025

CSF version check

Centmin Mod versions below have been updated with an initial CSF Firewall version check notice when you first SSH login to your servers that will inform users of CSF Firewall changes and also report your CSF Firewall version. Run cmupdate command, to pull in this update feature.

• 140.00beta01
• 132.00stable
• 131.00stable
• 130.00beta01
• 124.00stable
• 123.09beta01

Examples

Example when CSF Firewall is v14.24 which is last original version that has download URL shutting down on August 31, 2025. If existing tools/csfcf.sh cronjob is detected, the notice will instruct you to let cronjob auto update and switch your CSF Firewall to Centmin Mod mirror. If you manually removed the /usr/local/src/centminmod/tools/csfcf.sh cronjob, the notice will inform you to manually run the /usr/local/src/centminmod/tools/csfcf.sh cronjob with auto argument flag to switch to Centmin Mod mirrored CSF Firewall version.

Existing /usr/local/src/centminmod/tools/csfcf.sh cronjob.

Code (Text):

crontab -l | grep 'csfcf.sh'
22 */12 * * * /usr/local/src/centminmod/tools/csfcf.sh auto >/dev/null 2>&1

---

Code (Text):

===============================================================================
* Nginx Update May Be Available via centmin.sh menu option 4
* see https://centminmod.com/nginx.html#nginxupgrade
===============================================================================
* Current Nginx Version:           1.27.5
* Latest Nginx Mainline Available: 1.29.0 (centminmod.com/nginxnews)
===============================================================================

===============================================================================
 Centmin Mod code updates available for /usr/local/src/centminmod
 to update, run cmupdate command in SSH & re-run centmin.sh once & exit
===============================================================================
 Current local server Centmin Mod branch installed: 140.00beta01
===============================================================================

===============================================================================
* Centmin Mod now hosts its own CSF Firewall mirror for continued support
* Details at https://community.centminmod.com/threads/28985/
===============================================================================
* Current CSF Version: 14.24
* Mirror CSF Version:  15.01
* Update available: Run cmupdate && let cronjob tools/csfcf.sh auto update CSF
===============================================================================

Example when CSF Firewall is already v15.01 which is latest Centmin Mod mirror download URL version.

Code (Text):

===============================================================================
 Centmin Mod local code is up to date at /usr/local/src/centminmod
 no available updates at this time...
===============================================================================
 Current local server Centmin Mod branch installed: 141.00beta01
===============================================================================

===============================================================================
* Centmin Mod now hosts its own CSF Firewall mirror for continued support
* Details at https://community.centminmod.com/threads/28985/
===============================================================================
* Current CSF Version: 15.01
* Mirror CSF Version:  15.01
* Your CSF version matches the mirror version
===============================================================================

 

Interesting note from zEitEr from DirectAdmin discussions ConfigServer shutting down as of 31st of August 2025

 

Yeah, can't imagine how many folks will be impacted by this for both their paid and free products. CSF Firewall would probably be their most popular.

The good news is I already modified the CSF v14.24 codebase to remove their hardcoded download and update URLs, etc, and created a Centmin Mod version that I will be testing. This is a temporary measure until we see how the CSF open source release goes. Though the problem will be how to get existing Centmin Mod user installations to update to Centmin Mod CSF version

 

Yeah possible. Though CSF has been pretty good with 20+ year history given my investigation of security related releases

CSF has had <60 versions containing security-related updates throughout its development history. Some







Successfully tested my Centmin Mod CSF Firewall edition v14.25 on a test server - going to let that run for a while and see

Code (Text):

csf -u
csf is already at the latest version: v14.25

Code (Text):

ChangeLog:

14.25 - Centminmod.com Edition. Prepared for ConfigServer shutdown (August 31, 2025)
        https://community.centminmod.com/threads/28985/

        Migrated from configserver.com to centminmod.com mirrors

        Updated all download server references

        Added security enhancement module (stub)

        1st August 2025

14.24 - Fixed regression bug in v14.23 "Modified UI HTTP header checks to be
        case agnostic"

        27th February 2025

14.23 - Modified Apache regexes to detect "remote" or "client" as the IP trigger
        Mdified UI HTTP header checks to be case agnostic
      
        Sanitise CC list strings

        25th February 2025

14.22 - Removed session IP match check from DA login

        Added example spamassassin temp file regex to csf.fignore for
        new installations

        20th September 2024

14.21 - Modified IP lookup to strip some missed quotes

        Added exe:/usr/bin/dbus-broker-launch and exe:/usr/bin/dbus-broker to
        csf.pignore for new installations
      
        Added check to ensure that only PUBLIC IP addresses are used when
        loading IPv4 CC zone files
      
        Fixed issue when converting embedded IPv4 addresses in IPv6 connections

        29th August 2024

14.20 - Modified MaxMind URLs to use https

        Fixed DOCTYPE print order for integrated UI login

        Added "Require all granted" to Messenger v3 .htaccess generation

        Normalise source IP during connection tracking for IPv6 comparisons

        Fixed regression for some IMAP logon failure detections

        2nd October 2023

 

Cloudflare errors on my site/forums or your sites?

Update like normal, nothing has changed right now.

 

August 25, 2025 AEST Update

There are ~7 days until CSF Firewall's developer and site configserver.com shut down forever. While they have mentioned they are looking at open sourcing CSF Firewall under GPLv3 licensing before shutdown, for Centmin Mod and its users, it's cutting it pretty close. I was hoping they would have done this much sooner.

So, for this CSF Firewall shutdown change, I am updating Centmin Mod's latest stable and beta version branches to prepare for this change to minimise impact on Centmin Mod users. Centmin Mod will have its own hosted mirror for CSF Firewall download, which doesn't just mirror a copy of csf.tgz download file but also updates and changes the hardcoded download.configserver.com CSF Firewall download URL so that it doesn't call home or check the soon to be shutdown download.configserver.com site.

For Existing Centmin Mod Users

For existing Centmin Mod users on the following version branches, you can run SSH command cmupdate to get the updates for this:

Centmin Mod versions

• 131.00stable
• 132.00stable
• 140.00beta01

For existing Centmin Mod users who are on older Centmin Mod versions, you will need to update to one of the 3 above mentioned versions - ideally 140.00beta01, to get the update. You can update following one the posts guides in this thread https://community.centminmod.com/th...ase-with-almalinux-rocky-linux-support.25572/

For New Centmin Mod Installations

New Centmin Mod installations will install CSF Firewall via the self-hosted Centmin Mod download mirror copy starting from today.

If you have issues, questions or feedback, report them in the installs and upgrades forums at https://community.centminmod.com/forums/install-upgrades-or-pre-install-questions.8/.

 

You mean PHP 7.4 and AlmaLinux 9? Never got php debug info from https://community.centminmod.com/threads/php-fpm-bad-gateway-errors-php-7-4.27831/#post-104157

 

Are you saying 124.00stable can recompile PHP 7.4 on AlmaLinux 9 without issue but 132.00stable can not recompile PHP 7.4 on AlmaLinux 9? Or both 124.00stable and 132.00stable can not recompile PHP 7.4 on AlmaLinux 9?

 

You can try manually switching to Centmin Mod CSF Firewall mirror version using below 5 commands. But you won't have the automated cronjob updates like 132.00stable or 140.00beta01 updated versions which allow me to redirect CSF Firewall update routine to different domains i.e. if in future CSF Firewall has an open source version.

Code (Text):

mkdir -p /svr-setup
wget -O /svr-setup/csf_final_update.sh https://download.centminmod.com/scripts/csf_final_update.sh
chmod +x /svr-setup/csf_final_update.sh
/svr-setup/csf_final_update.sh --skip-security
csf -ra

 

FYI, decided to update older versions too

Centmin Mod versions (updated with CSF Firewall download mirror switch since August 25, 2025 AEST)

• 131.00stable
• 132.00stable
• 140.00beta01

Centmin Mod versions (updated with CSF Firewall download mirror switch since August 28, 2025 AEST).

• 123.09beta01
• 124.00stable