Question

SSH connection drops too frequently

Hi guys,

So in the recent two days, I’ve come back to my projects. I left them for about a month or so. I noticed when I work on my droplet, my SSH connection is fine but if I leave if for more than 5 minutes, it just drops.

Can you guys assist me, is this something specific to Digital Ocean droplets?

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KFSys
Site Moderator
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• October 13, 2019
Accepted Answer

Hi @Remdore ,

I can see this has been fully discussed HERE

To paraphrase, in order to keep your connection alive for more than the default time, some adjustments will be needed.

First, you’ll need to edit your sshd_config file.

vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Find the following lins and uncomment them

TCPKeepAlive
ClientAliveInterval
ClientAliveCountMax

Once you do, change their values to

TCPKeepAlive yes
ClientAliveInterval 30
ClientAliveCountMax 99999

Save the changes you’ve made and restart your sshd service

service sshd restart

Regards, KDSys

KFSys
Site Moderator
Site Moderator badge
• May 27, 2022

Hello all,

I’m giving an updated answer on the question so that it’s easier to follow:

To paraphrase, in order to keep your connection alive for more than the default time, some adjustments will be needed.

First, you’ll need to edit your sshd_config file.

vi /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Find the following lins and uncomment them

TCPKeepAlive
ClientAliveInterval
ClientAliveCountMax

Once you do, change their values to

TCPKeepAlive yes
ClientAliveInterval 30
ClientAliveCountMax 99999

Save the changes you’ve made and restart your sshd service

service sshd restart

You need to edit your local SSH config as well. You’ve finished the first part with the questions you’ve provided.

What you need to do is add

  1. ServerAliveInterval 30

locally.

There a couple of ways to do so. You can add it in the /etc/ssh/ssh_config file like so

  1. ServerAliveInterval 10

or in your .ssh/config file:

  1. Host *

  2.    ServerAliveInterval 10

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Robertwalt • October 16, 2019

Either you have made the changes that have lead to the issue or your hosting server. Contact the support team from your hosting site or visit their FAQs to know whether they have your answer.