My server is getting hit pretty hard by (what appears to be) script kiddies in China. I'm just looking for some thoughts/ideas on how to potentially setup some type of Fail2ban proc?


Question: How should I take a potential PhD supervisor's age into account, when planning to follow PhD with habilitation?
Answer: As others have mentioned, planning the trajectory of your academic career past your PhD is very premature at this point. (After all, one of the jobs of your PhD advisor is precisely to help you with this.)

Something that -- surprisingly -- has not been mentioned so far: Talk to the professors. Taking on a PhD student is a serious commitment no advisor will make lightly, so if they have any doubts whether you can complete the thesis with them (either because they plan on retiring completely from academic life, or moving next year to a different continent), they will tell you so. We can only guess at the likelihood, but they will (hopefully) have a much clearer idea.