Fail2ban

Fail2ban is a security tool that helps protect your system from brute-force attacks. It monitors log files and, upon detecting a series of failed login attempts, blocks the offending IP addresses for a specified time using iptables.

Setup a Filter and a Jail for Planka

To protect Planka from brute-force attacks, you'll need to set up both a filter and a jail in Fail2ban.

1. Create the Filter

A filter defines regular expressions to identify failed authentication attempts in the log files.

Create a file named planka.conf in /etc/fail2ban/filter.d with the following contents:

[Definition]
failregex = ^(.*) Invalid (email or username:|password!) (\"(.*)\"!)? ?\(IP: <ADDR>\)$
ignoreregex =

2. Create the Jail

A jail controls how to handle the failed authentication attempts found by the filter.

Create a file named planka.local in /etc/fail2ban/jail.d with the following contents:

[planka]
enabled = true
port = http,https
filter = planka
logpath = /path/to/planka/logs/planka.log
maxretry = 5
bantime = 900

Note: Replace /path/to/planka/logs/planka.log with the actual location of your Planka log file (ensure you've enabled logging).

• maxretry defines the number of failed login attempts before banning an IP.
• bantime is the duration (in seconds) for which the offending IP will be blocked (900 seconds = 15 minutes).

3. Restart Fail2ban

After setting up the filter and jail, restart the Fail2ban service to apply the changes:

sudo systemctl restart fail2ban

4. Check the Status of Planka's Jail

To monitor the status of the Fail2ban jail for Planka, use the following command:

fail2ban-client status planka

Additional Considerations

Make sure you:

• Have logging enabled in your Planka setup.
• Adjust the logpath in the jail configuration if your log file is in a different location or has a different name.
• Update the port field if you're using non-standard ports for HTTP or HTTPS.

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By using Fail2ban, you can significantly reduce the risk of brute-force attacks on your Planka instance.