When I have checked my fail2ban server logs (by default the fail2ban log file is /var/log/fail2ban.log ), I have found the following error: fail2ban.action [10241]: ERROR /etc/fail2ban/filter.d/ignorecommands/apache-fakegooglebot 66.249.78.164 — returned 1 fail2ban.filter [10241]: INFO [apache-fakegooglebot] Found 66.249.78.164 fail2ban.action [10241]: ERROR