Rules Failing to Update

  • Hi, This has been going on for some time and I am finally dealing with it. It looks like this is a common problem but with specific solutions so I’m posting.

    When I login I am greeted by the error message: “The last rules update for the Wordfence Web Application Firewall was unsuccessful….”. When I attempt to manually refresh I get

    “Rule Update Failed

    Npo rules were updated. Please verify you have permissions to write to the /wp-content/wflogs directory.”

    The directory has read/write permissions. I’m not sure where to go from there. I just sent the diagnostics report.

    One other little thing… the Firewall protections is showing at 63%. When I hover the only clue I get is to re-enable two firewall rules. Which ones might those be?? I know I can only get to 64% but that 1% could make a difference ??

    Thank you

    The page I need help with: [log in to see the link]

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)

  • Hi @catwingz , let me guess, distro is Alma or Rocky 9?

    Thread Starter catwingz

    (@catwingz)

    @yorkki I am unfamiliar with distro. Those sound like themes. In this case it’s a child theme of Quark and predates this problem.

    Hi @catwingz , those are rhel (Red Hat) operating systems, Linux distros.

    Rocky Linux and AlmaLinux (mostly used successors for Centos), among other rhel9 distros, have security hardened, and rules for WF are not updating because of this.

    Now, the cause of rules not updating can be million things, but this is tricky one because it’s server-wide problem, not WP site/theme/plugin.

    BR, – Yorkki

    Thread Starter catwingz

    (@catwingz)

    @yorkki thanks for the explanation. I asked and received this response: “It is alma linux, but i have selinux disabled, which might be what those articles are referring to.”

    What next?

    Hi @catwingz ,

    sha1 is disabled as crypto-policy by default on Alma and Rocky (and other rhel9), so to get rules update again, need to enable it.

    update-crypto-policies --set DEFAULT:SHA1

    If you/they run that command and reboot the server, rules should update within next 30 minutes or so. But, they (if this a hosting company or something where your site is) might not wanna do that. This is a problem with WF signing, and def not ideal situation.

    p.s. Google the command first and make sure you/they understand what it does and if it effects anything else you/they might have on the server. Test this on a non-prod server first, if possible. Good resources are?here?and?here. So until WF updates their end… as far as I know, this is the only way to get rules updated again.

    I’d ask them, show this thread or something. GL.

    BR, – Yorkki

    Plugin Support wfpeter

    (@wfpeter)

    Hi all, thanks for your input on this issue.

    To reiterate the topic here, we do plan on updating the algorithm we use for verification, but server configurations where SHA-1 is completely removed rather than just deprecated are currently fairly rare, so the proposed workaround should be safe for now. This is certainly on our radar now that we’re seeing these distributions used in recent weeks, as adoption may further increase going forward.

    We can’t provide ongoing updates to the forums around development work, but it has been scheduled, so keep an eye on our changelog when new versions of the plugin are released.

    Thanks,
    Peter.

    Thread Starter catwingz

    (@catwingz)

    Since there doesn’t seem to be any solution in the works I have, at least temporarily, disabled Wordfence and am giving another plugin a try on the affected website. I hope this issue is resolved sooner than later.

Viewing 7 replies - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
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