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

Configure Fail2ban with Chain on Ubuntu

Category: VPS Setup

Set Fail2ban to use a specific iptables chain on Ubuntu—install with

apt install fail2ban

then edit /etc/fail2ban/action d/iptables conf with

nano /etc/fail2ban/action.d/iptables.conf

actionban = iptables -I fail2ban- 1 -s  -j DROP\nactionunban = iptables -D fail2ban- -s  -j DROP

Update /etc/fail2ban/jail local:

[sshd]\nenabled = true\nport = 22\nfilter = sshd\naction = iptables[name=SSH]\nlogpath = /var/log/auth.log\nmaxretry = 5

Restart with

systemctl restart fail2ban

open SSH with

ufw allow 22

On Hetzner check

iptables -L fail2ban-SSH

—this isolates SSH bans ensuring MySQL and phpMyAdmin uptime