[Fail2ban-users] meaning of reinittime and maxreinits

[Andrew S. <an...@co...>]

I'm confused by the descriptions of reinnittime and maxreinits:

# Option:  reinittime
# Notes.:  minimal number of seconds between the re-initialization of
#          firewalls due to external changes in their rules (see fwcheck)
# Values:  NUM  Default:  100
#
reinittime = 10

# Option:  maxreinits
# Notes.:  maximal number of re-initialization of firewalls due to external
#          changes. -1 stays for infinite, so only reinittime is of 
importance
# Values:  NUM  Default:  -1
#
maxreinits = -1

What does "re-initialization" refer to?  Is this something that fail2ban 
does?  Different from just adding a firewall rule?  When does fail2ban do 
it?

What does "due to external changes" mean?  Does this refer to 
password-related entries appearing in a log file?  Or something else?

About the only way I can make sense of these two options is:

reinittime = minimum time between times when fail2ban will add a firewall 
rule.
maxreinits = maximum number of times that fail2ban will add a firewall 
rule.

If these aren't right, then I really don't know what these options do.  Can 
somone clarify?

Thanks,
Andrew.