I had WAF enabled, initially, but my locations were not been added to the config file and there was no log file. So, I rebooted, and the locations and log files materialized. I have since seen (from another forum post) that what I assumed was the nginx reload button at the top was the wrong one, and that might have been why my locations were not generating.
I clicked the unlock button to get rid of the ban, and did 'cat /dev/null > permanentban.access.log' in case that file was consulted in banning. But it doesn't matter what I do, all my access attempts are being blocked.
I have even disabled WAF from the servers, but still the block remains in place ... and removing the WAF is not really being reflected in the config file.
* How do I remove a banned ip ?
* How do I ensure my changes (like disabling WAF) in the UI are reflected in the config file ?
So, an additional confusion I have is what firewall rules I need to make the plugin work. I assumed that having the reverse-proxy obviated the need for specific firewall or dnat settings to pass http traffic from the WAN to the LAN. Is this assumption wrong ?
Also, it seems that accessing the external URL from inside the protected LAN is being flagged as illegal activity, hence the permanent bans.
sorry for all the questions, but there is hardly any documentation to be sure how this plugin is to be used, even from a conceptual point of view. I would definitely like to add to the documentation, once I can figure things out.
I now have a good firewall rule passing traffic from my dmz, but now my dmz IP addresses get automatically banned, and nothing is reaching the http servers configured (ie, the logs for configured servers are all zero in size).
not sure what else to do ... maybe it's time to forget this and use an internal reverse proxy ... this is just way too much if a guessing game.
