net-analyzer/fail2ban ships with a default configuration file for SSH /etc/fail2ban/jail.d/sshd.conf file contents [sshd] enabled = true # Note that it is by default disabled filter = sshd action = iptables[name=SSH, port=ssh, protocol=tcp] maxretry = 5 # Override the default of 3 Problem is, fail2ban doesn't like inline comments in it's config files. Upon starting fail2ban, the following error happens Dec 02 09:50:10 tony-gentoo fail2ban-client[28442]: WARNING Wrong value for 'enabled' in 'sshd'. Using default one: 'False' Removing the inline comments from the config file solves issue Possibly alter the default shipped config file to not include inline comments?
"By default" in this context is meaningless. You are _required_ to configure fail2ban to begin with as it cannot magically tell where your syslog service dumps its files. Complaining upstream is your only option here.
