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This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org:
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Title : Stopping fail2ban.server : ERROR Unexpected communication error and other errors in fail2ban on ubuntu 9.04
Author : Remy van Elst
Date : 23-06-2011
URL : https://raymii.org/s/tutorials/Stopping-fail2ban.server-ERROR-Unexpected-communication-error-and-other-errors-in-fail2ban-on-ubuntu-9.04.html
Format : Markdown/HTML
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While running my ssh server with Fail2ban, I decided to take a look in the log
files to see if everything was working. It was not.

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Here is the solution to stop errors like: fail2ban.server : ERROR Unexpected
communication error on ubuntu 9.04 with Fail2ban from the repo's.

First we need to install python2.5 because Ubuntu 9.04 has 2.6:

sudo apt-get install python2.5

Confirm with Y where needed.

Now, we need to edit the fail2ban binary so that it makes use of python2.5:

sudo gedit /usr/bin/fail2ban-server

Change the first line ( _#!/usr/bin/python_ ) to the following:

#!/usr/bin/python2.5

Save and close the file.

Now restart the fail2ban service. Note: sudo /etc/init.d/fail2ban restart did
not work for me, so I did the following:

sudo /etc/init.d/fail2ban stop
sudo /etc/init.d/fail2ban start

And If you check the log files now ( **vim /var/log/fail2ban.log** ) you will
not see the error anymore.

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