I’ve just set up a new Linux box (OpenSuSE 12.3 on VmWare). Now I stated that my SSH shell sessions are disconnected exactly after 20 minutes, clearly with activity. (Putty: “Network error: Software caused connection abort”)
I already set Putty to send keep alives every 64 sec.
In sshd_config, I set
ClientAliveInterval 50
ClientAliveCountMax 2
and did a deamon reload. Didn’t help. About two minutes after the link breakdown, ssh reports to /var/log/messages:
… … sshd[…]: Timeout, client not responding.
… … sshd[…]: pam_unix(sshd:session): session closed for user root
I don’t encounter this behaviour when connecting to other virtual machines, so I guess the problem isn’t in the network. Any help is appreciated.
Best Answer
The cause was network misconfiguration: The IP address of new box was already held by an unused and forgotten Windows Server instance.
If you fear to be in the same situation, the command line tool “arping” will help you clarify. See the man page…