[KLUG Members] Dead ssh connections

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> I'm currently sitting in a coffee shop downtown (Grand Rapids, that is).  
> The coffeeshop is called It's a Grind.  

I live the Grind!  Almost as cool as the "Bronze", but the Grind's
musicians are even WORSE (insert shock face here).

> Anyway, they offer free Internet access via some DSL line, ut I'm having 
> some problems, and I don't really know where to start here.
> 
> You can use the web, IM, or whatever on here (although I'm quite certain
> that port 25 is locked off).  However, SSH connections, if left for a few
> moments with no keyboard input, will simply die.  They just will 'not

I've seen this type of behaviour on OLD ipchains based firewalls.  The
connection buffer isn't big enough and tosses old connections to make
way for new ones if they have been idle for any length of time at all.

> work' anymore.  As well: If you say, want to use your local mail client,
> and forward smtp or imap over your ssh connection to your mail server,
> guess what happens? Your ssh session /immediately/ dies.  oh! One more

They are almost certainly blocking port 25, can't really blame them.  Or
it may be the upstream ISP, I know those ignorant bastards at Earthstink
do it.

> thing:  Any SCPs never finish: the file will be created on the remote
> host, but will be of size '0'.  If you are like me, you have at least 5
> terminals open to various areas, and it is a huge pain to kill the session 
> and recreate it.
> Does this sound like a QoS item?  

QoS?  I don't they can spell it.

> Kill long-lasting sessions?  Don't allow 
> persistent connections like SSH to continue if there's no traffic? It 
> happens to any connection I make.  

I'd wager their firewall hasn't been updated since they hooked up the
connection, and may have been old then.

> Since I'm not here all the time, it doesn't bother me, but it's still 
> really annoying.  I'm sure anything I come up with that would be a 
> solution wouldn't be used...  Oh, well. Oddly, the only program I can get 
> to work flawlessly is GAIM.

I swing down there sometime and try it out now that I own a laptop.