jailctl

Text UI for the fail2ban sshd jail. Works on Ubuntu and Arch Linux. Python 3.10+ standard library only (curses). No pip packages.

What it does

• STATUS — fail2ban-client status sshd
• CONFIG — edit maxretry / findtime / bantime / ignoreip / banaction, write /etc/fail2ban/jail.d/sshd-jailctl.local, reload sshd
• MONITOR — tail Found / Ban / Unban from fail2ban.log
• BANS — list banned IPs, unban selected, manual banip

Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y fail2ban python3
sudo systemctl enable --now fail2ban
chmod +x jailctl.py
sudo python3 jailctl.py

Arch Linux

sudo pacman -S fail2ban python
sudo systemctl enable --now fail2ban
chmod +x jailctl.py
sudo python3 jailctl.py

Keys

Key	Action
1–5	STATUS / CONFIG / MONITOR / BANS / HELP
a	Apply jail + reload (CONFIG)
Tab / j / k	Move fields or ban list
Enter	Edit field
p	Pause monitor
u	Unban selected
b	Ban an IP
r	Refresh status
q	Quit

Must run as root so fail2ban-client can talk to the server socket.

If MONITOR is empty, check ls /var/log/fail2ban.log or journalctl -u fail2ban -f.