Iptables – How to Unban an IP properly with Fail2Ban

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I'm using Fail2Ban on a server and I'm wondering how to unban an IP properly.

I know I can work with IPTables directly: iptables -D fail2ban-ssh <number>

But is there not a way to do it with the fail2ban-client?

In the manuals it states something like: fail2ban-client get ssh actionunban <IP>. But that doesn't work.

Also, I don't want to /etc/init.d/fail2ban restart as that would lose all the bans in the list.

Best Answer

With Fail2Ban before v0.8.8:

fail2ban-client get YOURJAILNAMEHERE actionunban IPADDRESSHERE

With Fail2Ban v0.8.8 and later:

fail2ban-client set YOURJAILNAMEHERE unbanip IPADDRESSHERE

The hard part is finding the right jail:

  1. Use iptables -L -n to find the rule name...
  2. ...then use fail2ban-client status | grep "Jail list" | sed -E 's/^[^:]+:[ \t]+//' | sed 's/,//g' to get the actual jail names. The rule name and jail name may not be the same but it should be clear which one is related to which.
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