Fail2ban
Fail2ban
Plugin: python.d.plugin Module: fail2ban
Overview
Monitor Fail2ban performance for prime intrusion prevention operations. Monitor ban counts, jail statuses, and failed login attempts to ensure robust network security.
It collects metrics through reading the default log and configuration files of fail2ban.
This collector is supported on all platforms.
This collector supports collecting metrics from multiple instances of this integration, including remote instances.
The fail2ban.log file must be readable by the user netdata.
- change the file ownership and access permissions.
- update `/etc/logrotate.d/fail2ban`` to persist the changes after rotating the log file.
To change the file ownership and access permissions, execute the following:
sudo chown root:netdata /var/log/fail2ban.log
sudo chmod 640 /var/log/fail2ban.log
To persist the changes after rotating the log file, add create 640 root netdata to the /etc/logrotate.d/fail2ban:
/var/log/fail2ban.log {
weekly
rotate 4
compress
delaycompress
missingok
postrotate
fail2ban-client flushlogs 1>/dev/null
endscript
# If fail2ban runs as non-root it still needs to have write access
# to logfiles.
# create 640 fail2ban adm
create 640 root netdata
}
Default Behavior
Auto-Detection
By default the collector will attempt to read log file at /var/log/fail2ban.log and conf file at /etc/fail2ban/jail.local. If conf file is not found default jail is ssh.
Limits
The default configuration for this integration does not impose any limits on data collection.
Performance Impact
The default configuration for this integration is not expected to impose a significant performance impact on the system.
Setup
Prerequisites
No action required.
Configuration
File
The configuration file name for this integration is python.d/fail2ban.conf.
You can edit the configuration file using the edit-config script from the
Netdata config directory.
cd /etc/netdata 2>/dev/null || cd /opt/netdata/etc/netdata
sudo ./edit-config python.d/fail2ban.conf
Options
There are 2 sections:
- Global variables
- One or more JOBS that can define multiple different instances to monitor.
The following options can be defined globally: priority, penalty, autodetection_retry, update_every, but can also be defined per JOB to override the global values.
Additionally, the following collapsed table contains all the options that can be configured inside a JOB definition.
Every configuration JOB starts with a job_name value which will appear in the dashboard, unless a name parameter is specified.
| Name | Description | Default | Required |
|---|---|---|---|
| log_path | path to fail2ban.log. | /var/log/fail2ban.log | False |
| conf_path | path to jail.local/jail.conf. | /etc/fail2ban/jail.local | False |
| conf_dir | path to jail.d/. | /etc/fail2ban/jail.d/ | False |
| exclude | jails you want to exclude from autodetection. | False | |
| update_every | Sets the default data collection frequency. | 1 | False |
| priority | Controls the order of charts at the netdata dashboard. | 60000 | False |
| autodetection_retry | Sets the job re-check interval in seconds. | 0 | False |
| penalty | Indicates whether to apply penalty to update_every in case of failures. | yes | False |
| name | Job name. This value will overwrite the job_name value. JOBS with the same name are mutually exclusive. Only one of them will be allowed running at any time. This allows autodetection to try several alternatives and pick the one that works. |
False |
Examples
Basic
A basic example configuration.
local:
log_path: '/var/log/fail2ban.log'
conf_path: '/etc/fail2ban/jail.local'
Metrics
Metrics grouped by scope.
The scope defines the instance that the metric belongs to. An instance is uniquely identified by a set of labels.
Per Fail2ban instance
These metrics refer to the entire monitored application.
This scope has no labels.
Metrics:
| Metric | Dimensions | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| fail2ban.failed_attempts | a dimension per jail | attempts/s |
| fail2ban.bans | a dimension per jail | bans/s |
| fail2ban.banned_ips | a dimension per jail | ips |
Alerts
There are no alerts configured by default for this integration.
Troubleshooting
Debug Mode
To troubleshoot issues with the fail2ban collector, run the python.d.plugin with the debug option enabled. The output
should give you clues as to why the collector isn’t working.
-
Navigate to the
plugins.ddirectory, usually at/usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/. If that’s not the case on your system, opennetdata.confand look for thepluginssetting under[directories].cd /usr/libexec/netdata/plugins.d/ -
Switch to the
netdatauser.sudo -u netdata -s -
Run the
python.d.pluginto debug the collector:./python.d.plugin fail2ban debug trace