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When I connect via ssh to certain servers, it timeouts and "freezes" the terminal (doesn't accept input, doesn't disconnect, can't Ctrl-C to kill the ssh process or anything).

This is in Ubuntu's gnome-terminal though it seems to be pausing the terminal input/output, and doesn't affect the operation of the GNOME Terminal software itself. So less a bug with gnome-terminal than an annoying inconsistency with ssh.

So, is there a way to prevent/regain the terminal from ssh connections that have timed out?

Randall
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Kzqai
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  • Possible duplicate of [How to reliably keep an SSH tunnel open?](https://superuser.com/questions/37738/how-to-reliably-keep-an-ssh-tunnel-open) – Murmel Jan 15 '18 at 22:33

8 Answers8

271

sshd (the server) closes the connection if it doesn't hear anything from the client for a while. You can tell your client to send a sign-of-life signal to the server once in a while.

The configuration for this is in the file ~/.ssh/config. To send the signal every four minutes to remotehost, put the following in your ~/.ssh/config.

Host remotehost
  HostName remotehost.com
  ServerAliveInterval 240

This is what I have in my ~/.ssh/config.

To enable it for all hosts use:

Host *
  ServerAliveInterval 240

Also make sure to run chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config, because the config file must not be world-readable.

Chris Shain
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Ludwig Weinzierl
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    Thanks sblair for helping me with the wording, it's much appreciated. I changed "should not" back to "must not" because ssh checks the permissions of the file and if it is world or group readable it fails. – Ludwig Weinzierl Oct 01 '11 at 20:26
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    This is not what the OP asked. He's not getting kicked off due to inactivity. He's attempting to connect and his terminal is freezing. – Cerin Jul 02 '14 at 16:43
  • Where is this `~/.ssh/config`? – User Sep 26 '14 at 21:48
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    @User '~/' represents your home folder. '.ssh' is a folder within your home folder. – wkm Jan 28 '15 at 12:44
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    this is useless if your connection is actually being lost... – so12311 Feb 04 '15 at 19:25
269

Press Enter, ~, . one after the other to disconnect from a frozen session.

The section "ESCAPE CHARACTERS" in the ssh man page explains the underlying details.

slhck
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Peter Eisentraut
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    This answer appears to me to more accurately answer the question, and in any case, was the answer I was looking for. – CoatedMoose Dec 02 '12 at 05:06
  • Note that you need to uncomment the line `EscapeChar ~` in `/etc/ssh/ssh_config` (or `~/.ssh/ssh_config` if you prefer). – Aditya M P Aug 03 '13 at 06:19
  • @adityamenon No, `EscapeChar ~` is already the built-in default. – Peter Eisentraut Aug 04 '13 at 20:48
  • Hmm, it did not work for me in Ubuntu 12.04 till I found that line and uncommented it... – Aditya M P Aug 04 '13 at 20:55
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    @CoatedMoose The question title asks for ways to avoid ssh connection timeout; this is a way to terminate the connection after it has frozen. It's a very useful trick, but not a more accurate answer to the question. – Mark Apr 05 '15 at 12:57
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    @Mark the question asks "is there a way to prevent regain the terminal from ssh connections __that have timed out__?" Emphasis mine. – CoatedMoose Apr 07 '15 at 18:55
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    Eventhough it was incorrect in the context of the question, this is exactly what I wanted. – C-- Apr 28 '16 at 12:37
  • This is one of the most useful commands for anyone accessing remote machines from a laptop/wifi! – James McCormac Apr 04 '17 at 21:14
  • Is there a way to make this sequence into a short-cut, so I just press something like `ctrl-alt-c` or something? – gone Aug 03 '17 at 23:59
  • You are my best friend from now on – timuçin Nov 12 '20 at 22:54
39

Even tho this is not a direct answer to your question, it is highly related to the problem you have. Instead of trying to keep the connection alive (all connections eventually die) you can use terminal multiplexors, like screen and tmux that keep the session alive in the background even if your terminal gets disconnected.

Essentially when you login in to the SSH server you immediately run screen which will create and attach a new session:

$ screen

Then you go ahead and do your work with the shell as you would normally do. Now if the connection gets dropped, when you can get back online and reconnect to the server over SSH, you get a list the current sessions with:

$ screen -ls

To reattach to a session:

$ screen -r <session>

where <session> is the PID or a session name. You will be reconnected to your session and you can continue from where you left off!

You can even detach the session and reconnect from home to pick up from the exact point where you left off. To detach the session you use C-a followed by C-d (thats Control + A and then Control + D).

There is simple online tutorial as well.

Using screen and tmux on remote servers is considered a best practice and is highly recommended. Some people go as far as to have screen as their default login shell, so when they connect they immediately start a new screen session.

fotos
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13

Try appending -o ServerAliveInterval=30 to your connection string (30 means 30 seconds and can of course be adjusted)

Fergie
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6

You can also set an idle timeout interval from SSH server side:

File: /etc/ssh/ssh_config

Content:

ClientAliveInterval XX
ClientAliveCountMax YY

This works in the exact same way as the client setting, but null packets are sent from from the server, rather than the client.

Extracted from:

http://www.sysadmit.com/2016/02/linux-y-vmware-ssh-evitar-desconexion.html

Ladinfremes
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  • To configure server settings, you have to modify the `/etc/ssh/sshd_config`. The `ssh_config` is for client settings, the `sshd_config` (SSH Daemon) is the server part. – Mikko Rantalainen Nov 18 '20 at 17:05
2

For people who want to prevent the client from timing out in the first place.

You could try to set ConnectTimeout 0 in the configuration file. The value 0 means the connection will be kept alive Indefinitely unless closed.

your config (or ssh_config) file might look like this:

Host *
   ConnectTimeout 0
Yohannes
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0

In my case problem was in large MTU size. You can change MTU on router if you using NAT, but I change MTU on server:

sudo /sbin/ifconfig eth0 mtu 1036
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

On Windows you can also increase this key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]
"TcpMaxDataRetransmissions"=dword:00000010
Vasin Yuriy
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0

Not sure if this works for gnome terminal too but you should be able to use the terminal again after you kill the ssh client process.

pgrep -a ssh

gives you the process ID which you can then kill

kill <pID>
MoRe
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