Prevent SSH connection from timing out in Terminal
![Empty terminal with planes parked outside the windows.](/content/images/size/w2000/2022/09/prevent-ssh-connection-from-timing-out-in-terminal.jpg)
If you’re constantly connected to multiple servers via SSH and perform work on them throughout the day, dealing with timeouts can be cumbersome. Here’s how you can keep the connection alive.
Create a config
file in your home’s .ssh
directory:
$ vi ~/.ssh/config
Add the following by pressing the letter i
, typing in the text below, and pressing ESC
followed by :wq
:
ServerAliveInterval 60
Every 60 seconds a packet will be sent to keep the connection alive.
Lastly, modify the config
file so that it’s read-only to you:
$ chmod 600 ~/.ssh/config
From here on out, no more timeouts.
Featured image by Samuel Sosina.