How to manage fail2ban
From http://www.rentpbx.com/support/knowledgebase/23/I-Cannot-access-my-PBX-Server-it-is-down.html
1. find out your public ip by going to www.whatismyip.com from your local pc browser
2. you can add your public IP to / etc/ fail2ban/ jail.conf file, next to ignoreip
Hint: you can use vi by typing below (no spaces after / space after vi )vi / etc/ fail2ban/ jail.conf
see http://www.washington.edu/computing/unix/vi.html for more info on using vi
3. Put in your public IP next to ignoreip and make sure to comment out the mark/# (delete # sign)
Hint: Type i to start modify the file in vi. You can put in as many public IPs as you want, separate by space.ignoreip = 127.0.0.1 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy
4. save and exit out. see http://www.washington.edu/computing/unix/vi.html for more info on using vi
Hint: You hit Esc key then type :wq5. do again vi / etc/ fail2ban/ jail.conf to make sure the changes you made is there and correct
Hint: To exit without saving, you hit Esc key then :q6. restart fail2ban service by typing
service fail2ban restart
service iptables restart7. Do NOT close your ssh, open another ssh session to test you can now access it
8. if test successful, you are done, if not, check the steps again