Keep persistent SSH session using autossh and cron

Background Knowledge

SSH Tunneling

  • Local Port Forwarding: used to forward a port from the client machine to the server machine.
  • Remote Port Forwarding:

Local Port Forwarding

ssh -L [bind_addr:]port:target_addr:target_port user@server
  • bind_addr
  • port
  • target_addr
  • target_port
  • user
  • server

Remote Port Forwarding

ssh -R [bind_addr:]port:target_addr:target_port user@server
  • bind_addr
  • port
  • target_addr
  • target_port
  • user
  • server

Please see http://dirk-loss.de/ssh-port-forwarding.pdf

Prerequisites

  • autossh
sudo apt-get install autossh

Server Side

Add User for SSH tunneling

sudo adduser --system --shell /bin/false --gecos "Auto SSH" --disabled-password --home=/home/autossh autossh

Generate SSH key

sudo -u autossh ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -f ~/.ssh/autossh

Copy public key to ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

sudo -u autossh cp ~/.ssh/autossh.pub ~/.ssh/authorized_keys

Append Follwing Configuration to /etc/ssh/sshd_config

if did you want Local Port Forwarding please set GatewayPorts to yes.

Match User autossh
   ...
   GatewayPorts no
   ...

Restart SSH daemon

sudo systemctl restart ssh

Client Side

Copy SSH private key to client host

scp 1.2.3.4/.ssh/autossh ~/.ssh/autossh

Install autossh

sudo apt install autossh

Add SSH Client Configurations

Append following config to ~/.ssh/config

Replace 1.2.3.4 to real IP or hostname

for Local Forwarding

only allowed if GatewayPort=yes (default: no) in server configuration.

LocalForward 2222 localhost:22

for Remote Forwarding

RemoteForward** 2222 localhost:22

Test SSH connection

autossh -M 0 -f -N autossh

Verify SSH Connection

Check listen port in your system.

for Local Port Forward (in Server)

netstat -lnt

for Remote Port Forward (in Client)

netstat -lnt

ps aux |grep autossh

Copy autossh-bot to ~/bin

mkdir -p ~/bin
cp ./bin/auto-ssh-bot ~/bin

Register cron job

crontab -e

Schedule cron job to every 5 minutes

0/5 * * * * ~/bin/auto-ssh-bot