VPS Guide: Your Go-To for VPS, Ubuntu & Command Line Success

Configure Fail2ban for FTP on Ubuntu

Category: VPS Setup

Secure FTP with Fail2ban on Ubuntu—install with

apt install fail2ban -y

then set up vsftpd via

apt install vsftpd

Create /etc/fail2ban/jail d/vsftpd conf with

nano /etc/fail2ban/jail.d/vsftpd.conf

adding:

[vsftpd]\nenabled = true\nport = 21\nfilter = vsftpd\nlogpath = /var/log/vsftpd.log\nmaxretry = 3\nbantime = 7200

Enable vsftpd logging in /etc/vsftpd conf with log_ftp_protocol=YES restart both with

systemctl restart vsftpd && systemctl restart fail2ban

Open port with

ufw allow 21

On Linode this bans IPs for 2 hours (7200s)—check with

fail2ban-client status vsftpd

to ensure FTP uptime and security