ssh disconnecting [WAS: Getting Cut-Off]

Wayne Sierke ws+freebsd-questions at au.dyndns.ws
Sat Mar 6 03:49:21 PST 2004


On Sat, 2004-03-06 at 19:39, Rishi Chopra wrote:
> Wayne,
> 
> I would not suspect the hardware.  My suspicion is this has something to 
> do with SSH configuration.  Is there a setting within the FreeBSD SSH 
> configuration files that specifies disconnection of idle connections?
> 
> I didn't think my connection was idle since file transfer was occuring, 
> but since there was no activity in the SSH terminal window, I could see 
> how that could be taken as 'idle'; at any rate, there must be a setting 
> that specifies number of minutes for an idle connection, and/or a way of 
> turning off automatic idle disconnects.
> 
> A little help from the longbeards please? Arrrrrrrrrrgh!

My primary reason for suspecting hardware/drivers is that in my case,
both the current and previous sshd configs were unchanged from the
default install. A diff of the sshd_conf between my old and new servers
were identical (apart from version comments). This suggests to me that
unless 1) there has been a fundamental change in the default behaviour
of sshd between 4.8 and 5.2, or 2) my previous setup wasn't working
properly (ie. not doing idle disconnects when it should have been) then
the cause must lie elsewhere. Additionally, I believe I have witnessed
occasions on one of my LAN-connected machines when a ssh session
*hasn't* disconnected when left idle for a lengthy period, further
suggesting that it is not a configuration issue.

Unfortunately I'm still at the stage of only being mostly certain about
having witnessed uninterrupted connections. It would certainly help if
someone could indicate whether ssh disconnections should be expected or
not (on a LAN) with an unmodified sshd configuration.


Wayne




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