Steps

Install Fail2ban.

After updating the package index, install Git.
```
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install fail2ban
```
Configure the jail.

Make a 'local' copy of the jail.conf file.
```
cd /etc/fail2ban
sudo cp jail.conf jail.local 
```
To avoid locking yourself out, add your ip address to the set you want fail2ban to ignore. You can also customize the bantime (in seconds) and the maximum number of user attempts before banning.
```
ignoreip = [your ip address]
bantime = 1200
maxretry = 3
```
Restart fail2ban to put the new settings into effect.
```
sudo /etc/init.d/fail2ban restart
```

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