Dropping SSH connections over the internet

[Luis Mondesi]

On Jan 10, 2008 11:02 PM, Alex Janssen <alex at ourwoods.org> wrote:
> I regularly connect from home to a Linux box hidden behind a router at
> work via SSH.  Most times it is reliable. Other times the connection
> just stops.  I guess my packets just stop getting to the server.  I can
> logon immediately with another shell, so the server appears to be ok.
> Some times the second connection will be interrupted as well.  Then I
> can start a third and so on.  Other nights, it is rock solid.  I can
> transfer files with scp and login multiple times to run a bunch of apps.
> Anyone got any ideas?  I'd like to know if there is something I could do
> about it, within reason.

This happens to me as well. As the previous 2 posters said, SSH is
very resilient. So, it's not SSH. What happens, at least in my case,
is one of two things:

1. the router at my workplace has a timeout and just drops connections
after a while (bad). not even keep alive packets from SSH survive this
timeout. the behavior I see is that my terminal "freezes" and I can't
CTRL-C or anything out of it. I have to close my gnome-terminal window
and reconnect.
2. the line gets congested and the router discards packages like
crazy. this happens to have the same behavior as the last one, except
that if i leave it on long enough, it will reconnect.

The reason I know it's 2 different things is because we use 2
different methods to connect to the same remote network. 1 from home
over public internet (timeout). 2 from one office on one location over
a private T1 going to a different router.

If you find a solution to this, please post it back. Though I believe
the answer is in your middle-man (the router or switches that manage
the connection).

Regards,

-- 
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Luis Mondesi
Maestro Debiano

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