Fail2ban: Update website / online documentation

[superpuffin]

Environment:

Not applicable

The issue:

the fail2ban website is very outdated. Some pages even contain spam (https://www.fail2ban.org/wiki/index.php?title=README&redirect=no, case in point) Last documentaion on there is for the 0.8 release. The website also lists 0.10 as experimental, while 0.10.x is included in, for example, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. This makes it appear as if the project is dead, whilst this is not the case. I stumbled upon this problem when looking for documentation regarding ipv6 support in 0.10 and finding almost nothing. Good documentation is crucial for users to adopt a piece of software and minimize time debugging. Perhaps a new github pages site for the project would be an option?

Steps to reproduce

Opening a webbrowser and visiting https://fail2ban.org

Expected behavior

Finding info about the project and up-to-date documentation

Observed behavior

Stumble upon a very outdated wiki, with little useful information.

Any additional information

The website runs on PHP 5.3.10 which also should probably be updated, if the website is maintained in it's current form

[sebres]

@lostcontrol can we port it to github pages ("http://fail2ban.github.io/") and set domains IP to github host?
@fail2ban/administrators any ideas?

[Magnifikator]

The website https://fail2ban.org/ is down for some days. Forever?

[sebres]

@lostcontrol, @yarikoptic any idea?

[lostcontrol]

The website https://fail2ban.org/ is down for some days. Forever?

No no, it's up (and was never down as far as I know). Check https://www.fail2ban.org

fail2ban.org has no record in the name server (it never had since the beginning). I can change that of course if it is required.

I migrated my dedicated server to a new one in January and upgraded the distro which was very outdated. Clearly, the current wiki looks and is very outdated for sure. As @sebres mentioned, it is probably better to do something new with Github Pages. It's probably easier for people to edit/contribute if it's on Github. I can setup a CNAME to point to Github host then.

Or maybe it could be an "umbrella" Wordpress site with a modern look&feel that gives some very basic information and redirect the user to the different sources of documentation.

[sebres]

I can setup a CNAME to point to Github host then.

Ok, I'll try to find time for migration of current state to github pages and update it a bit.
I'll notify you, Cyril, if I get it ready. Thx!

[yarikoptic]

I would vote for github pages since it would allow for easier (consistent with the code) maintenance/updates/contributions. Could be directly html or various static builders could be used (jekyll, sphinx, mkdocs,...) to produce it out of a set of markdown or rst files, depending on what content is intended to be there. FWIW: Last changes on wiki where in Nov 2017

[yarikoptic]

And having redirect from fail2ban.org to www.fail2ban.org IMHO would be good to have.

[lostcontrol]

And having redirect from fail2ban.org to www.fail2ban.org IMHO would be good to have.

www.fail2ban.org is now a CNAME of fail2ban.org which just got an A and AAAA record in the NS. I also recreated the SSL certificate to allow for fail2ban.org.

https://fail2ban.org brings you now to the Wiki.

[Magnifikator]

Dig www.fail2ban.org or fail2ban.org gives serverfail:

; <<>> DiG 9.11.5-P1-1ubuntu2.6-Ubuntu <<>> www.fail2ban.org
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 21419
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
; COOKIE: 8846dd77de82737c73b144b85e5a5e04251c30db7c22dbdc (good)
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.fail2ban.org.      IN  A

;; Query time: 79 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.50.33#53(192.168.50.33)
;; WHEN: Sa Feb 29 13:50:12 CET 2020
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 73

And here half of the nameservers also doesn't work properly:
https://dnschecker.org/#A/www.fail2ban.org

[lostcontrol]

@Magnifikator

Weird... I tried with another domain I own and it works fine on all but one server on dnschecker.org. Here is the config for fail2ban.org maybe you can spot something wrong there!?

TTL 600
fail2ban.org.   IN      SOA     dns1.jaqpot.net. hostmaster (
                        2020022604      ; serial
                        12h             ; refresh
                        1h              ; retry
                        2w              ; expire
                        1h )            ; minimum
;
                IN      NS      dns1.jaqpot.net.
                IN      NS      nssec.online.net.
;
                IN      MX      10 mail.fail2ban.org.
                IN      TXT     "v=spf1 mx a:perrin.jaqpot.net ~all"
;
                IN      A       51.159.55.100
                IN      AAAA    2001:bc8:1200:6:208:a2ff:fe0c:61f8
mail            IN      A       51.159.55.100
                IN      AAAA    2001:bc8:1200:6:208:a2ff:fe0c:61f8
www             IN      CNAME   fail2ban.org.

Mmmhhh... It seems nssec.online.net (secondary dns) is not up to date!? I'll have a look at this later today, I have to leave now. Thank you for the hint.

[Magnifikator]

The zonefile is fine. Atm, the only problem is really that nssec.online.net is down.
https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=dns%3afail2ban.org&run=toolpage

[lostcontrol]

The zonefile is fine. Atm, the only problem is really that nssec.online.net is down.
https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx?action=dns%3afail2ban.org&run=toolpage

Arf... I forgot to configure some of my domains at my new provider when I migrated my server some weeks ago :disappointed: Should be fixed now, just wait for the secondary DNS to update itself (should be done in less than 12 hours). Thanks again for pointing out this issue :+1:

[DevinSysAdmin]

@sebres @lostcontrol @yarikoptic

I've created a Subreddit for fail2ban

Please see https://www.reddit.com/r/fail2ban

Reply back with your Reddit usernames and I'll mod you all over there.

[hoergen]

Will there be a documentation for current versions of fail2ban, or will it be abandoned?
It seems that there was no update since two years for a current version.

[sebres]

Which documentation exactly do you mean? If it is a website fail2ban.org, then yes, it must be updated yet (persistent shortage of time).

Just for the records - there are man pages (for instance jail.conf.5) or even wiki on github.

[hoergen]

Ok maybe that should be written before every other documentation on the webpage, that a ittle documentation is on the manpages. The wiki on github isnt very talkative about which version this is about and sadly not really a good replacement for the documentation on the webpage.

That's sad because I liked fail2ban in the beginning, but now it feels like blindly configuring on trial and error basis and searching on stackoverflow for some configuration help isnt really helpful on a software that tries to improve the security of the services you are using.

[alexpovel]

Is this issue still active?

I am having a very hard time finding documentation, like @hoergen . There are countless tidbits scattered across the web, but I have yet to find a consolidated resource. This is especially important for lesser used options like journalmatch with backend = systemd. It works, but it is very heavy on the trial-end-error/copy-and-pasting-from-around-the-web side.

Just a list of all allowed entries for filters, actions and jails would go a long way!

The man pages are currently the best resource. That is okay, but this could be improved. Thanks!

[sebres]

Is this issue still active?

Unfortunately yes. Basically it is as often lack of time and precedence question. What causing that documentation going down in to-do list.