[Sshguard-users] Newbie questions about SSHGUARD install

[Michael S. <mi...@hi...>]

I'm a relative n00b to linux having recently ported a wordpress blog over to a cloud server running CentOS 5.4. I installed Webmin (to make my life a bit easier hopefully). I wanted to prevent unauthorized brute force ssh logins so I found sshguard. I read through all of the documentation and did the install (or so I thought). It ran fine it seemed but after rebooting, I cannot tell if it is performing as expected. I see lots of login attempts from my LogWatch file, and many from the same IP address so I now think that my install is not working. My sshguard.fifo file seems to be "updated" regularly though...

I have a few questions that hopefully someone can help me answer (and please provide "entry level" responses as I may be documenting on a blog post later):
1) How can I tell if sshguard is running?
2) It seems that my IP tables is not updated with the proper configuration (at least when I look at it via webmin or the actual IP tables file). What is the proper way to check the IPtables functionality and install it properly (especially via Webmin)?
3) Is there a way to set up a unique "sshguard" log file that only shows actions done by sshguard
4) How stable is the beta release (1.5b)?
5) What is the upgrade process for 1.5 from 1.4?

Thanks for the help!

-Michael