Fail2Ban and Modsecurity cannot be activated over Plesk Advisor: ERROR No file(s) found for glob /var/log/modsec_audit.log

Symptoms

Plesk Advisor, fails to activate Fail2Ban and ModSecurity:

f2bmng failed: 2019-04-03 18:07:16,122 fail2ban.jailreader [8260]: ERROR No file(s) found for glob /var/log/modsec_audit.log
 2019-04-03 18:07:16,123 fail2ban [8260]: ERROR Failed during configuration: Have not found any log file for plesk-modsecurity jail

Cause

This is a Plesk bug with ID EXTADVISOR-695, which is planned to be fixed in future updates.

Resolution

As a workaround, activate ModSecurity before activating the Fail2Ban plesk-modsecurity jail:

1. Log into Plesk

2. Go to Tools & Settings > IP Address Banning (Fail2Ban) and click Switch Off IP Address Banning.

3. Enable ModSecurity at Tools & Settings > Web Application Firewall (ModSecurity).

4. Enable Fail2Ban and the plesk-modsecurity jail at Tools & Settings > IP Address Banning (Fail2Ban) > Switch On IP Address Banning and in Jails tab.