Nov 142010
 

I have recently started using ssh multiplexing and thought I’d share this technique with everyone. You will find this technique especially useful in cases where the initial connection negotiation takes longer than expected. You may also find it useful if the remote host forces password authentication and you get tired of typing your password repeatedly.

The first thing you need to do is copy the following lines to your ~/.ssh/config (or the global ssh_config):

Host *
    ControlMaster auto
    ControlPath /tmp/%r@%h:%p

After doing this, go ahead and test that things are working:

solj@abbysplaything $ ssh -f pjacosta-desktop sleep 60
solj@abbysplaything $ ls -l /tmp/solj*
srw------- 1 solj solj 0 Nov 14 13:44 /tmp/solj@pjacosta-desktop:22

Here you can see that a socket has been created for my user which can be reused by any additional ssh connections which go to the same user/host/port combination. Not only does this bypass future negotiations, but it also prevents opening additional connections unnecessarily. This has also really helped out at work because now when I log into a remote machine with an extremely high load, I can simply use the existing connection if I need to open up multiple sessions.

I haven’t found any downsides to using this sort of multiplexing and it certainly has some upside. This feature doesn’t appear to be very popular or publicized, but I think that it provides really useful functionality.

 Posted by at 13:57

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