Nearly a week ago I did a fresh install of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx
on my development system and I am still installing software I
need for my work on it and configuring the system. Today I
restored the .ssh folder from backup into my home
directory. I have in the config file inside this directory the
two following settings which keeps my ssh connection up even if
I don't use it for a while:
ServerAliveInterval 30
ServerAliveCountMax 4
The first setting makes sure that after 30 seconds of
inactivity ssh sends a message to the
server. This prevents the the connection being closed. The
second setting sets the number of such messages which may be
sent without ssh receiving any message back
from the server. If this threshold is reached
ssh will disconnect from the server.
man ssh_config