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Accepted
Neel
Asked: 2014-10-28 12:17:05 +0800 CST

Fail2ban MTA=Postfix Setting in Jail Config giving Error

  • 772

In /etc/fail2ban/jail.local, when I have the MTA setting to Postfix, Fail2Ban is showing an error and is unable to start.

[DEFAULT]

ignoreip = 127.0.0.1/8
bantime  = 1800                         
maxretry =  4                           
destemail = [email protected]   
mta = postfix                           
action = %(action_mwl)s

Error:

WARNING 'findtime' not defined in 'ssh'. Using default value
ERROR  /etc/fail2ban/action.d/postfix-whois-lines.conf and /etc/fail2ban/action.d/postfix-whois-lines.local do not exist
ERROR  Error in action definition postfix-whois-lines[name=ssh, dest="[email protected]", logpath=/var/log/auth.log, chain="INPUT"]
ERROR  Errors in jail 'ssh'. Skipping...
['set', 'loglevel', 3]
['set', 'logtarget', '/var/log/fail2ban.log']

The error is pointing somewhere else, but when I comment out mta=postfix it works.

I have Postfix installed as my MTA (in Debian 7) and I thought I am supposed to change default sendmail to postfix for this setting. Am I wrong?

iptables

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Looking at my /etc/fail2ban/jail.local there is this comment:

    Since 0.8.1 upstream fail2ban uses sendmail MTA for the mailing. 
Change mta configuration parameter to mail if you want to revert to conventional 'mail'

    Based on this and the error you posted, it seems you can only specify sendmail or mail.

    Do you receive emails from fail2ban when mta is set to sendmail?

    • 5

  2. Ok, digging up an old thread but this is how I got postfix to work with Fail2ban:

    in /etc/fail2ban/action.d/ I copied and renamed this files by changing all the sendmail to postfix Works fine for me now:

    e.g cp sendmail-buffered.conf postfix-buffered.conf

    same for all the rest of the sendmail conf files within this folder....

    Then restart the fail2ban service -

    • 2