Security
fail2ban CLI
fail2ban commands for intrusion prevention and ban management.
32 commands
Windows
MacOS
Linux
#intrusion-prevention
#security
Service Control
Start the fail2ban service
sudo systemctl start fail2ban
Stop the fail2ban service
sudo systemctl stop fail2ban
Restart fail2ban to apply changes
sudo systemctl restart fail2ban
Check fail2ban service status
sudo systemctl status fail2ban
Test if fail2ban server is alive
sudo fail2ban-client ping
Reload configuration without restart
sudo fail2ban-client reload
Jail Management
List all active jails
sudo fail2ban-client status
Start a specific jail
sudo fail2ban-client start sshd
Stop a specific jail
sudo fail2ban-client stop sshd
Reload configuration for a jail
sudo fail2ban-client reload sshd
Add a new jail at runtime
sudo fail2ban-client add sshd
Get max retry value for a jail
sudo fail2ban-client get sshd maxretry
Set ban time to 1 hour for a jail
sudo fail2ban-client set sshd bantime 3600
Ban Management
Manually ban an IP address
sudo fail2ban-client set sshd banip 192.168.1.100
Unban a specific IP address
sudo fail2ban-client set sshd unbanip 192.168.1.100
List all currently banned IPs
sudo fail2ban-client get sshd banned
Unban all IPs across all jails
sudo fail2ban-client unban --all
Unban an IP from all jails
sudo fail2ban-client unban 192.168.1.100
Status
Show detailed status of a jail
sudo fail2ban-client status sshd
Get the current ban duration
sudo fail2ban-client get sshd bantime
Get the failure counting window
sudo fail2ban-client get sshd findtime
Get the max failures before ban
sudo fail2ban-client get sshd maxretry
List actions configured for a jail
sudo fail2ban-client get sshd actions
Show the failure regex patterns
sudo fail2ban-client get sshd failregex
Configuration
Show the database file location
sudo fail2ban-client get dbfile
Show the current log level
sudo fail2ban-client get loglevel
Set the log level to INFO
sudo fail2ban-client set loglevel INFO
Show the log target path
sudo fail2ban-client get logtarget
Test a regex against a log file
sudo fail2ban-regex /var/log/auth.log /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/sshd.conf
Quick Commands
Show detailed status of the sshd jail including banned IPs
sudo fail2ban-client status sshd
Unban a specific IP address from the sshd jail
sudo fail2ban-client set sshd unbanip 192.168.1.100
Reload all fail2ban configuration without restarting the service
sudo fail2ban-client reload