Install and Set Up Fail2Ban on Ubuntu

Fail2Ban is mainly used to prevent DOS attacks.

You may ask how?

Well, it monitors the log files for authentication failure and can be used to create certain rules by which you can block the request IP after certain tries.

In this guide, I will walk you through the installation of Fail2Ban on Ubuntu. I will also share a quick example so that you can have a better idea of its usage.

Install Fail2Ban on Ubuntu

You will find Fail2Ban in the default repository of Ubuntu which means it can be installed through a single command:

sudo apt install fail2ban 

Next, start the fail2ban:

sudo systemctl start fail2ban

And you may also want to enable with your system boot so that it is automatically started:

sudo systemctl enable fail2ban

How to configure Fail2Ban on Ubuntu

The first step is to create a copy of fail2ban.conf and jail.conf files with .local extension.

To do so, first, change your directory to the fail2ban:

cd /etc/fail2ban/

Now, use the following command to create a copy of the required files:

sudo cp jail.conf jail.local
sudo cp fail2ban.conf fail2ban.local

The reason why I made copies of two files with the .local extension is quite simple.

When you update fail2ban, it may override the original configuration file, and when you have files with the .local extension, the change will only be applied to them, not to the original files.

To list services protected by fail2ban, you can use the given command:

sudo fail2ban-client status

And by default, you will find the SSH daemon in this list.

To enable other services apart from ssh, open the jail.local file, find the service, and add the following line to the service section:

enabled = true

But to make this guide more accessible, I will be using an ssh example here.

By default, the fail2ban is configured to ban the IP for 10 mins after  5 failed tries within the span of 10 mins.

For the sake of this guide, I changed the maximum number of tries to 2 and the ban of IP for 30 mins from the jail.local file:

Save changes and exit from the nano text editor.

To activate the changes, reload the configuration:

sudo fail2ban-client reload

Now, let's put this to the test.

In SSH, it considers 1 failed attempt when you enter the incorrect password 3 times.

So when I entered the wrong password 2 times, it blocked me and won't even let me enter the password 3rd time:

You can check the logs for fail2ban using the following command:

sudo nano /var/log/fail2ban.log

And as you can see, it blocked the IP after three unsuccessful tries.

Add it to your server defenses

Apart from keeping your server updated, you can use the UFW firewall and Fail2Ban to add extra layers of security to it. Not familiar with UFW? This guide will help you.

Using UFW Firewall Commands in Ubuntu

A detailed beginner’s guide to using UFW firewall in Ubuntu command line. There is also a cheat sheet you can download for free.

Learn UbuntuSagar Sharma

Let me know if you have questions and suggestions.