Keep Your Linux SSH Session From Disconnecting
I’m the type of geek that has an SSH client open at all times, connected to my most frequently used servers so that I have instant access for monitoring and anything else. As such, it irritates me greatly when I get disconnected, so I’m sharing a few methods for keeping your session alive.
You can configure the ssh client to automatically send a protocol no-op code code every number of seconds so that the server won’t disconnect you. This is setting is sometimes referred to as Keep-Alive or Stop-Disconnecting-So-Much in other clients.
Global Configuration
Add the following line to the /etc/ssh/ssh_config file:
ServerAliveInterval 60
The number is the amount of seconds before the server with send the no-op code.
Current User Configuration
Add the following lines to the ~/.ssh/config file (create if it doesn’t exist)
Host *
ServerAliveInterval 60
Make sure you indent the second line with a space.
Per-Host Configuration
If you only want to enable keep alive for a single server, you can add that into the ~/.ssh/config file with the following syntax:
Host *hostname.com
ServerAliveInterval 60
Works quite well, hope it helps somebody else out there.
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Thanks a lot!
That’ll save my life!
OK, I wouldn’t die if i didn’t know this, but it shuold make life easier. I hate being disconnected…
That’s a great tip. Another idea (one you can use in tandem with the above) is to use the “screen” program. Then, if you are somehow disconnected you can just re-atach the screen and all your stuff is there just as you left it.
Already knew this, but it popped up on my iGoogle page as I have your feed on there, great tip and excellent explination, K.I.S.S
(Keep it simple Stupid)
I’ll be pointing some of my customers to this blog entry
ty soooo much ^_^
Helped much, thanks mate!
thnx
So I have an account to a linux machine @ school that I do most of my programming projects through. I ssh into my account and work from there and many a times my session times out while reading a how-to article and I have to reconnect( annoying ). The thing is security on my schools system is really tight. /what I want to know is will I be able to run this command as joe user or do I need root permission to do it? I can edit some things like my bash profile but I cannot add programs with apt or change any system files….. It seems like the session time is something regulated by the systems admins but idk……… thanks for your help. I love this blog!
Thanks for this tips.
It help me much today, working on SSH connection.