SSH & Remote Administration

Prevent SSH Session Timeouts with Keep-Alive

🧩 The Challenge

You often lose your SSH connection during brief periods of inactivity or when traveling through unstable networks.

💡 The Fix

Configure the SSH client to automatically send periodic null packets to the server to maintain an active socket connection.

echo "ServerAliveInterval 60" >> ~/.ssh/config

⚙️ Why It Works

This setting instructs your local SSH client to send a signal to the remote server every 60 seconds, preventing firewalls or NAT gateways from closing idle connections.

🚀 Pro-Tip: Use ServerAliveCountMax to specify how many failed signals occur before the client forcibly closes the unresponsive connection.

Linux Tips & Tricks | © ngelinux.com | 7/8/2026