It's a familiar sight, you have an SSH session open and have to step away from your computer for a few minutes. When you come back, your SSH session has been disconnected with an error like this...


Not cool SSH, not cool!

The error is due to an inactivity time out and is easily addressed. All you have to do is tell your SSH client to send a keep-alive packet every so often so that the SSH server will not disconnect you. To do that, edit your ~/.ssh/config file and make sure the following two lines are present:




That's all there is to it. After making those changes the next time you connect via SSH you will not be disconnected due to inactivity.

-i