Question
Use Fail2ban for banning Bots ? Or Use Nginx for refusing Bots ?
- Posted on July 1, 2016
- Server OptimizationSecurityMonitoringNginxLEMPFirewallUbuntu
Asked by Lex Gabrees
Hi all,
First of all, does anyone know if F2B is only for other purposes than protecting authentication processes ? As far as I can know from reading, it can also ban some bots (see : BadBots filter). In that case, it would also be able to ban normal ‘bad’ traffic (from the bots) …
Question 1 : Is this the case ? So, F2B is not only used in context of authentication ?
Also, I read here : https://www.knthost.com/nginx/blocking-bots-nginx , that NGINX can be used to refuse bots.
Question 2 : which method would be preferable, in a sense of maintaining server speed and / or which method is better overall ?
Lex
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The primary difference here is that fail2ban in general will manage a list, using activity to add new sources to a method of blocking them (usually a firewall). The nginx method you listed utilizes a static list of things to block. If you have such a list, the nginx method may be easier on your resources but the bot traffic would still reach the nginx process. Using fail2ban may allow more flexibility and would prevent those requests from ever reaching nginx once they are recognized.