Articles

Support Forum Changes

2025/11/11: Bureaucracy, News

I’m moving the support forums to new hosting and blocking access from UK IPs. This will be done as soon as possible - weeks, not months. This keeps the forum open globally without forcing surveillance‑style age checks on everyone. If Ofcom insist geoblocking isn’t enough, I’ll close the forums. Life is too short for bureaucracy.

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Upgrading to Version 6.0

2025/09/16: Feature Change, New Feature, Premium, v6.0, WPf2b

A summary of steps to take and things you should be aware of before upgrading to v6.

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PM0001: syslog Tag Issue

2025/01/31: Free, postmortem, v5.4, WPf2b

In WP fail2ban 5.4.0, an issue arose where the syslog tag changed to WordPress (capital W, capital P), causing existing fail2ban filters to stop working.

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Version 5.4.0 Changes

2024/11/08: Canonical, Free, GitHub, News, Premium, v5.4, WPf2b

Background

In September I had no intention of creating v5.4 at all; v6.0 was nearly ready for public Beta testing and I was 100% focused on that.

Then in October and seemingly out of nowhere, the WP vs. WPE drama started. For a while it looked like anything with "WP" in the name was at risk, so I paused work on v6.0 and started building v5.4 - just in case.

Although it turned out that an emergency release wasn't needed, the WordPress environment is now fundamentally and permanently different.

The changes in v5.4 directly address the new reality. <Read more>

Upgrading to Version 5

2023/01/16: Feature Change, Free, New Feature, Premium, v5.0, WPf2b

A summary of steps to take and things you should be aware of before upgrading to v5.

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Release Notes

Release 5.4.1

2025/04/21: Canonical, Free, LTS, Premium, v5.4, WPf2b

  • Fix compatibility for WordPress 6.8.
  • Fix incorrect dependency requiring PHP>=8.1. Premium only
  • Add license for Packagist.

Release 5.4.0

2025/01/27: Canonical, Free, LTS, Premium, v5.4, WPf2b

  • Add support for Composer. Canonical only
  • Add support for AspirePress Update. Canonical only
  • Add support for GitHub Updater. Canonical only
  • Improve i18n.
  • Fix harmless warning in Site Health filters check (h/t Rodolphe).
  • Update Freemius library.

Release 5.4.0-beta.1

2025/01/08: Beta, Free, v5.4, WPf2b

  • Add support for AspirePress Update. Canonical only
  • Add support for GitHub Updater. Canonical only
  • Improve i18n.
  • Fix harmless warning in Site Health filters check h/t @Rodolphe.
  • Update Freemius library.

wp-fail2ban-free-5.4.0-beta.1

Release 5.3.4

2024/11/11: Free, Premium, v5.3, WPf2b

  • Improve Site Health filter messages h/t @yardstudio.
  • Update Freemius library.

Release 5.3.3

2024/10/17: Free, Premium, v5.3, WPf2b

  • Fix activation bug when $wp_scripts is uninitialised. Premium only
  • Fix world map dashboard widget. Premium only
  • Update Freemius library.

Archive

Cyber Week 2022

2022/11/28: Archive

50% discount this week only - use code CyberWeek2022 at checkout.

See here for more details.

v5b1: Event hooks

2022/10/10: Archive, Beta, New Feature, Premium, v5.0, WPf2b

Premium users can now run whatever code they’d like when an event occurs.

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v5b1: Site Health Check

2022/10/10: Archive, Beta, Free, New Feature, Premium, v5.0, WPf2b

Probably the most common reason WP fail2ban doesn't work “properly” is out-of-date fail2ban filters. <Read more>

v5b1: Updated fail2ban Filters

2022/10/09: Archive, Beta, Feature Change, Free, Premium, v5.0, WPf2b

Moved "Authentication attempt for unknown user" to wordpress-soft.conf
Moved "extra" Comment messages to wordpress-soft.conf

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Release v5.0.0-beta.1

2022/10/04: Archive, Beta, v5.0, WPf2b

This is a major feature BETA release. You MUST update your filters; several features have changed and will not work with older filters.
Premium Users: The v5 database schema is NOT compatible with v4; to revert to v4 you will need to restore your database from backup.

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