Still fighting the server

I am still fighting server problems. I am learning more about Linix servers than anyone should have to! The server has been laboring under search engine crawls (when search engines search your sites for content), and port scans (when hackers run software to try and find an open service on your server they can hack into). I am amazed by some of the search engines hitting our server, including some from Russia and Iran! I installed some enhanced  monitoring software which proceeded to add to the load problems. The system has been very stable since the last changes I made to the firewalls (been about 4 hours as I type this – please pray that the system will stabilize (again – this is NOT the server the church websites are hosted on, this is the VPS for our web portals (like this one)../ Last year we rescued a website “boliviaforchrist.org” The missionary's daughter and worked on the site (she did the work, I simply helped her across the speed bumps). She has a fantastic website up and running.