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MrCarrot
Asked: 2014-02-12 07:33:05 +0800 CST

Fail2ban won't start via /etc/init.d/fail2ban but will via /usr/bin/fail2ban-client

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I've been running fail2ban successfully for a long time on RHEL.

Now all of a sudden starting, stopping and restarting via /etc/init.d/fail2ban no longer works:

# /etc/init.d/fail2ban start
Starting fail2ban: [  OK  ]

# service fail2ban status
Fail2ban (pid 31808) is running...
ERROR  Unable to contact server. Is it running?

# /etc/init.d/fail2ban stop
Stopping fail2ban: [FAILED]

However if I do it this way it works:

# /usr/bin/fail2ban-client start
2014-02-11 15:46:13,863 fail2ban.server : INFO   Starting Fail2ban v0.8.4
2014-02-11 15:46:13,863 fail2ban.server : INFO   Starting in daemon mode

# /usr/bin/fail2ban-client status
Status
|- Number of jail:      10
`- Jail list: ...

#/usr/bin/fail2ban-client stop
Shutdown successful

The file /etc/init.d/fail2ban hasn't changed and I can't see anything wrong with it.

linux

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I figured it out.

    There was a rogue fail2ban process running. After I killed it, fail2ban now restarts in the usual manner.

    • 1

  2. edited: commands mentioned is now the standardized "systemctl" instead of the old deprecated "service" as per @Michael Hampton currect suggestion :)

    To kill any old processes of fail2ban you have a clean way and a dirty way as explained below.

    Clean: this will also make sure no old rules/bans are left in the firewall

    sudo systemctl stop fail2ban.service 
sudo systemctl restart fail2ban.service

    Dirty (1): Some rules might not be removed correctly

    # ps -au |grep fail2ban
# killall <pid>
# systemctl restart fail2ban.service

    Dirty (2): Some rules might not be removed correctly

    # killall fail2ban
# systemctl restart fail2ban.service
    • 0