ssh keep alive

[Hal Burgiss]

On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 09:54:02PM +0000, John Masters wrote:
> 
> In both machines I can ssh-add my key and connect to my remote server
> (running Debian Etch). However, leaving the connection open causes the
> terminal to hang after exactly one hour on the iMac yet the connection
> stays up for days on the Virtual Ubuntu machine.

I would suspect something like a firewall related rule that does
something like silently drop packets from an unused connection. That's
just a theory, mind you. If the server or client were to close the
connection, it should properly close down and not leave a hung
terminal. The fact that terminal is left hung, would argue for
something not kosher in the network transport stuff that stops sending
traffic. And add the exactly one hour aspect, and you have what sounds
like a deliberate configuration somewhere.

I have had similar problems on Linux but its always been a router that
does some kind of stateful NAT stuff, and then when the statefulness
breaks, it just stops responding, leaving the terminal to wonder WTF
happened. I realize the router thing does not fit your profile, but
the stateful aspect of the problem *might*. .02

-- 
Hal