I often SSH into my linux box from work using PuTTY. If I am not running any port forwarding, PuTTY will often drop (or my server, not sure which the timeout comes from) my connection.

Now if I log in again using SSH, my past session (terminal) is still active.

Example from PS -A:
...
19669 pts/5 00:00:00 bash
19703 pts/5 00:00:00 man
...

I would like to be able to resume or at least kill these guys.

1) can I re-attach to these /dev/pts/# "terminals" using ssh?

2) if I cannot re-attach to them and continue where I left off, what is the best way to kill all the processes on "pts/#"? (didn't see an option in kill for this)


Also, while I am posting about hung sessions... I had a "screen" session running, and somehow I locked it up (ctrl-a commands work, but the bash shell in the screen window does not respond. Made sure scroll lock was not on, and tried ctrl-q to wake it up, but no dice. Anyone know of any other way I could have locked up the screen to no respond to commands?)

Install, learn and use package called screen It allows to resume dropped sessions with no consequences from the drop.

unfortunately, if you are dropped from putty/ssh session there is no way to reconnect to it (screen is a virtual session and is made for reconnections). You'll have to kill the leftover sessions by using 'ps aux' and killing offending process numbers.