title: Fail2Ban: Service failed when log files symlink to another device
body: <p>I am using a Raspberry Pi. To reduce I/O on my SD-Card I symlink all important log files to an external USB-mounted Harddrive.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Example:</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>ln -s /media/usb-device/logs/auth.log /var/log/auth.log
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The logging works fine. But fail2ban seems not to like that. When I enable my ssh-monitoring in my <code>/etc/fail2ban/jail.local</code> file,</p>
  
  <pre><code># [sshd]
  enabled = true
  bantime = 3600
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>fail2ban crash during executing this command <code>systemctl restart fail2ban.service</code></p>
  
  <p>I have tried to hardcode the path:</p>
  
  <pre><code># logpath = %(sshd_log)s
  logpath = /media/usb-devive/logs/auth.log
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But fail2ban throws the same error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>fail2ban.service - Fail2Ban Service
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/fail2ban.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sat 2018-04-28 20:42:33 CEST; 45s ago
       Docs: man:fail2ban(1)
    Process: 3014 ExecStop=/usr/bin/fail2ban-client stop (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Process: 3045 ExecStart=/usr/bin/fail2ban-client -x start (code=exited, status=255)
   Main PID: 658 (code=killed, signal=TERM)
  
  Apr 28 20:42:33 raspberrypi systemd[1]: fail2ban.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
  Apr 28 20:42:33 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Stopped Fail2Ban Service.
  Apr 28 20:42:33 raspberrypi systemd[1]: fail2ban.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
  Apr 28 20:42:33 raspberrypi systemd[1]: Failed to start Fail2Ban Service.
  Apr 28 20:42:33 raspberrypi systemd[1]: fail2ban.service: Unit entered failed state.
  Apr 28 20:42:33 raspberrypi systemd[1]: fail2ban.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Any ideas?</p>