bzr+ssh using persistent SSH connections?

[David Ingamells]

Nicholas Allen wrote:
> However, I don't know how
>   
>> this could be switched on automatically, or whether this behaviour can be
>> included in Bazaar's core to handle this and other situations where you
>> must connect more than one time to a server.
>>     
>
> My understanding is that Bazaar does not need to do anything for this to be 
> switched on automatically. As long as you open a master connection using -M 
> option then this should be transparent to Bazaar.
>
> Nick
>   
Nicholas, thanks for the information you have provided - very useful! 
I've learned 2 new things about ssh today :)

One observation - you say "Bazaar does not need to do anything", but if 
bazaar does nothing then the user has to!
Every time he does anything that needs access to the server he has to 
ensure that he has first started a master session. Thus the onus is 
pushed onto the user and further I suspect (I'm not an expert) that 
users keeping long-lived ssh connections open consumes resources on the 
server.

BTW we all use bzr+ssh here and since day one everyone has been 
instructed to add a key to the ~/.ssh/authorized_keys file.