ssh error during backup from XP to linux server

tennis_slacker · 04-19-2009, 04:28 PM

I've been searching for solutions for hours, but I'm stuck.

I have Ubuntu 8.04 server setup with openssh. I'm using sftp with Syncback to backup my Mom's XP machine. It works just fine, except that after several hours or at random times I'll get the following error:

Code:

sshd[26837]: Read error from remote host xx.xx.xx.xxx: Connection timed out

After a couple errors like this the Syncback program from my Mom's machine will abort.

I tried adding:

Code:

TCPKeepAlive yes
ClientAliveInterval 3600

to my sshd_config on the server, but it didn't resolve the issue. I don't know if I need to increase this ClientAliveInterval or if the problem is somewhere else within XP or Syncback or what.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

archangel_617b · 04-20-2009, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tennis_slacker

I tried adding:

Code:

TCPKeepAlive yes
ClientAliveInterval 3600

to my sshd_config on the server, but it didn't resolve the issue. I don't know if I need to increase this ClientAliveInterval or if the problem is somewhere else within XP or Syncback or what.

Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

You should try *reducing* the ClientAliveInterval. Most consumer grade PAT/NAT routers timeout idle connections after 30s or 60s so if you set your ClientAliveInterval (or ServerAlive on your client's config) to some shorter period, that might stop those connections from getting closed. I used 25s on my servers generally.

- Arch

tennis_slacker · 04-22-2009, 01:06 PM

I've set the sshd_config with:

Code:

TCPKeepAlive no
ClientAliveInterval 25
ClientAliveCountMax  5

After reading through the man pages, it's what made sense to me. I haven't noticed any problems yet, but it was so sporadic before that it's difficult to diagnose.