Other Difference between Fail2ban "jails" and FreeBSD jails

[jordanch]

First off, I am not 100% sure if this question belongs in this forum, or in the general topics (base system) forum. So I'd be grateful if a more knowledgeable admin advised on it.

I am reasonably familiar with FreeBSD jails, and I use them often enough (via ezjail). While recently checking out firewall related apps - particularly fail2ban, I notice frequent use of the term "jails". Now I have a basic fail2ban configured, with a single (sshd) "jail", and unsurprisingly, doing a jls only shows the actual jails created via ezjail. So I would like to understand what, if anything, the "jails" terminology in fail2ban has to do with the jails in the base system (or if it is just an odd choice of name by fail2ban's creators)?

 

[usdmatt]

The jail term in Fail2ban is just used in relation to the fact that you put a remote host in "jail" (by blocking them, restricting them, etc) when a certain action is matched. It has nothing at all to do with FreeBSD jails or any kind of OS virtualisation.

 

[SirDice]

So I would like to understand what, if anything, the "jails" terminology in fail2ban has to do with the jails in the base system (or if it is just an odd choice of name by fail2ban's creators)?

It has nothing to do with jails as used by FreeBSD.