Freebsd – running freebsd on linode

I'd recommend against options IPFIREWALL_DEFAULT_TO_ACCEPT. The default is to Default to Deny. The firewall comes up with just one rule deny ip from any to any and stays that way until a script configures exactly what traffic should get through.

Follow-Up Note: RSA (one of the world's leading security technology companies) was hacked recently when part of their firewall was disabled during a maintenance window. This really underscores how quickly a system can be compromised given the right conditions.

If you insist on disabling the firewall until you explicitly block unwanted traffic, please consider using the sysctl available by adding net.inet.ip.fw.default_to_accept=1 to loader.conf. This has the added benefit of being easily modified (no recompiling the kernel) if you change your mind at some point in the future.

The default is to log to the AUTH facility. You can change the facility that sshd logs to with the SyslogFacility configuration option.

SyslogFacility LOCAL7

Then configure your syslogd to write local7.* to it's own file by adding

local7.*     /var/log/local7.log

to the syslogd configuration file. Tell syslogd to reread it's config file by sending it a HUP signal do the same for sshd and you should have sshd messages being sent to it's own file.