I have a Linux web server running Rails and each time I check the Nginx logs I find attempts to access PHPMyAdmin, database and admin directories such as this:
190.196.161.110 - - [16/Oct/2011:23:37:31 +0100] "GET //PHPMyAdmin/ HTTP/1.1" 404 728 "-" "Made by ZmEu @ WhiteHat Team - www.whitehat.ro"
The attacks are coming from a variety of different IP addresses and they just increment version numbers and check each directory, e.g. GET //PHPMyAdmin 1.0/, GET //PHPMyAdmin 1.1/ etc.
Will this affect the performance of my web server much? Also, is there a way to automatically ban IP addresses that do such things e.g. like fail2ban for ssh log-in attempts.?