Fail2ban fails to send emails

Question

Good evening to everybody, guys!
I've setup my Arch installation on a brand new laptop...
Just to increase security I've decided to install Fail2ban to protect my system (and some well-known ports) from inappropriate login attempts.
Ok, everything works fine, the system sends me an email whenever someone makes a mistake in trying to log to my linux-box; the main problem I'm trying to resolve is another...
When fail2ban.service is initialized at boot, the email announcing that the service has been initialized is not being created because no Internet connection is available.
On the other hand, when my linux box is being shutdown no mail is generated because the network service is probably closed...
My question is: is there way to say to systemd to wait "n" seconds before initializing a service and to stop it before Internet is being arrested?
Thanks in advance for your help...
Andrea from Italy.

Answer 1

ewaller wrote:
I run this on a laptop with a wireless LAN.  The LAN usually does not come up for several seconds after the initial login prompt is shown.  I use postfix. 
What is your email server?  Perhaps you could post your jails.conf?
My email server is ssmtp; this is my jail.conf file:
# Fail2Ban jail specifications file
# Comments: use '#' for comment lines and ';' for inline comments
# Changes: in most of the cases you should not modify this
# file, but provide customizations in jail.local file, e.g.:
# [DEFAULT]
# bantime = 3600
# [ssh-iptables]
# enabled = true
# The DEFAULT allows a global definition of the options. They can be overridden
# in each jail afterwards.
[DEFAULT]
# "ignoreip" can be an IP address, a CIDR mask or a DNS host. Fail2ban will not
# ban a host which matches an address in this list. Several addresses can be
# defined using space separator.
ignoreip = 127.0.0.1/8
# "bantime" is the number of seconds that a host is banned.
bantime = 600
# A host is banned if it has generated "maxretry" during the last "findtime"
# seconds.
findtime = 600
# "maxretry" is the number of failures before a host get banned.
maxretry = 2
# "backend" specifies the backend used to get files modification.
# Available options are "pyinotify", "gamin", "polling" and "auto".
# This option can be overridden in each jail as well.
# pyinotify: requires pyinotify (a file alteration monitor) to be installed.
# If pyinotify is not installed, Fail2ban will use auto.
# gamin: requires Gamin (a file alteration monitor) to be installed.
# If Gamin is not installed, Fail2ban will use auto.
# polling: uses a polling algorithm which does not require external libraries.
# auto: will try to use the following backends, in order:
# pyinotify, gamin, polling.
backend = auto
# "usedns" specifies if jails should trust hostnames in logs,
# warn when reverse DNS lookups are performed, or ignore all hostnames in logs
# yes: if a hostname is encountered, a reverse DNS lookup will be performed.
# warn: if a hostname is encountered, a reverse DNS lookup will be performed,
# but it will be logged as a warning.
# no: if a hostname is encountered, will not be used for banning,
# but it will be logged as info.
usedns = warn
# This jail corresponds to the standard configuration in Fail2ban 0.6.
# The mail-whois action send a notification e-mail with a whois request
# in the body.
[ssh-iptables]
enabled = true
filter = sshd
action = iptables[name=SSH, port=ssh, protocol=tcp]
sendmail-whois[name=SSH, dest=my_email@my_email.com, [email protected]]
logpath = /var/log/auth.log
maxretry = 2
[proftpd-iptables]
enabled = false
filter = proftpd
action = iptables[name=ProFTPD, port=ftp, protocol=tcp]
sendmail-whois[name=ProFTPD, [email protected]]
logpath = /var/log/proftpd/proftpd.log
maxretry = 6
# This jail forces the backend to "polling".
[sasl-iptables]
enabled = false
filter = sasl
backend = polling
action = iptables[name=sasl, port=smtp, protocol=tcp]
sendmail-whois[name=sasl, [email protected]]
logpath = /var/log/mail.log
# Here we use TCP-Wrappers instead of Netfilter/Iptables. "ignoreregex" is
# used to avoid banning the user "myuser".
[ssh-tcpwrapper]
enabled = false
filter = sshd
action = hostsdeny
sendmail-whois[name=SSH, [email protected]]
ignoreregex = for myuser from
logpath = /var/log/sshd.log
# This jail demonstrates the use of wildcards in "logpath".
# Moreover, it is possible to give other files on a new line.
[apache-tcpwrapper]
enabled = false
filter = apache-auth
action = hostsdeny
logpath = /var/log/apache*/*error.log
/home/www/myhomepage/error.log
maxretry = 6
# The hosts.deny path can be defined with the "file" argument if it is
# not in /etc.
[postfix-tcpwrapper]
enabled = false
filter = postfix
action = hostsdeny[file=/not/a/standard/path/hosts.deny]
sendmail[name=Postfix, [email protected]]
logpath = /var/log/postfix.log
bantime = 300
# Do not ban anybody. Just report information about the remote host.
# A notification is sent at most every 600 seconds (bantime).
[vsftpd-notification]
enabled = false
filter = vsftpd
action = sendmail-whois[name=VSFTPD, [email protected]]
logpath = /var/log/vsftpd.log
maxretry = 5
bantime = 1800
# Same as above but with banning the IP address.
[vsftpd-iptables]
enabled = false
filter = vsftpd
action = iptables[name=VSFTPD, port=ftp, protocol=tcp]
sendmail-whois[name=VSFTPD, [email protected]]
logpath = /var/log/vsftpd.log
maxretry = 5
bantime = 1800
# Ban hosts which agent identifies spammer robots crawling the web
# for email addresses. The mail outputs are buffered.
[apache-badbots]
enabled = false
filter = apache-badbots
action = iptables-multiport[name=BadBots, port="http,https"]
sendmail-buffered[name=BadBots, lines=5, [email protected]]
logpath = /var/www/*/logs/access_log
bantime = 172800
maxretry = 1
# Use shorewall instead of iptables.
[apache-shorewall]
enabled = false
filter = apache-noscript
action = shorewall
sendmail[name=Postfix, [email protected]]
logpath = /var/log/apache2/error_log
# Ban attackers that try to use PHP's URL-fopen() functionality
# through GET/POST variables. - Experimental, with more than a year
# of usage in production environments.
[php-url-fopen]
enabled = false
port = http,https
filter = php-url-fopen
logpath = /var/www/*/logs/access_log
maxretry = 1
# A simple PHP-fastcgi jail which works with lighttpd.
# If you run a lighttpd server, then you probably will
# find these kinds of messages in your error_log:
# ALERT – tried to register forbidden variable ‘GLOBALS’
# through GET variables (attacker '1.2.3.4', file '/var/www/default/htdocs/index.php')
# This jail would block the IP 1.2.3.4.
[lighttpd-fastcgi]
enabled = false
port = http,https
filter = lighttpd-fastcgi
# adapt the following two items as needed
logpath = /var/log/lighttpd/error.log
maxretry = 2
# Same as above for mod_auth
# It catches wrong authentifications
[lighttpd-auth]
enabled = false
port = http,https
filter = lighttpd-auth
# adapt the following two items as needed
logpath = /var/log/lighttpd/error.log
maxretry = 2
# This jail uses ipfw, the standard firewall on FreeBSD. The "ignoreip"
# option is overridden in this jail. Moreover, the action "mail-whois" defines
# the variable "name" which contains a comma using "". The characters '' are
# valid too.
[ssh-ipfw]
enabled = false
filter = sshd
action = ipfw[localhost=192.168.0.1]
sendmail-whois[name="SSH,IPFW", [email protected]]
logpath = /var/log/auth.log
ignoreip = 168.192.0.1
# These jails block attacks against named (bind9). By default, logging is off
# with bind9 installation. You will need something like this:
# logging {
# channel security_file {
# file "/var/log/named/security.log" versions 3 size 30m;
# severity dynamic;
# print-time yes;
# category security {
# security_file;
# in your named.conf to provide proper logging.
# This jail blocks UDP traffic for DNS requests.
# !!! WARNING !!!
# Since UDP is connection-less protocol, spoofing of IP and imitation
# of illegal actions is way too simple. Thus enabling of this filter
# might provide an easy way for implementing a DoS against a chosen
# victim. See
# http://nion.modprobe.de/blog/archives/690-fail2ban-+-dns-fail.html
# Please DO NOT USE this jail unless you know what you are doing.
# [named-refused-udp]
# enabled = false
# filter = named-refused
# action = iptables-multiport[name=Named, port="domain,953", protocol=udp]
# sendmail-whois[name=Named, [email protected]]
# logpath = /var/log/named/security.log
# ignoreip = 168.192.0.1
# This jail blocks TCP traffic for DNS requests.
[named-refused-tcp]
enabled = false
filter = named-refused
action = iptables-multiport[name=Named, port="domain,953", protocol=tcp]
sendmail-whois[name=Named, [email protected]]
logpath = /var/log/named/security.log
ignoreip = 168.192.0.1
# Multiple jails, 1 per protocol, are necessary ATM:
# see https://github.com/fail2ban/fail2ban/issues/37
[asterisk-tcp]
enabled = false
filter = asterisk
action = iptables-multiport[name=asterisk-tcp, port="5060,5061", protocol=tcp]
sendmail-whois[name=Asterisk, [email protected], [email protected]]
logpath = /var/log/asterisk/messages
maxretry = 10
[asterisk-udp]
enabled = false
filter = asterisk
action = iptables-multiport[name=asterisk-udp, port="5060,5061", protocol=udp]
sendmail-whois[name=Asterisk, [email protected], [email protected]]
logpath = /var/log/asterisk/messages
maxretry = 10
# Jail for more extended banning of persistent abusers
# !!! WARNING !!!
# Make sure that your loglevel specified in fail2ban.conf/.local
# is not at DEBUG level -- which might then cause fail2ban to fall into
# an infinite loop constantly feeding itself with non-informative lines
[recidive]
enabled = false
filter = recidive
logpath = /var/log/fail2ban.log
action = iptables-allports[name=recidive]
sendmail-whois-lines[name=recidive, logpath=/var/log/fail2ban.log]
bantime = 604800 ; 1 week
findtime = 86400 ; 1 day
maxretry = 5
Burroughs.