hi, i think there's room for improvement in the way either ssh or the linux kernel handles error recovery. my ssh connections frequently "go dead". after many minutes, or hours, one of these "dead" connections may well "wake up" again. in the meantime, opening fresh connections to the very same machines is almost never a problem. hence when one of the newer connections "goes dead", i can open up an even newer one, or often, resume using one of the older ones that has come alive again. it's likely that the immediate cause of all this is bad wiring in my house. and qwest, in their famous molasses fashion, is likely to get it sorted eventually. in the meantime i'd say there's a golden opportunity here if someone out there responsible for error recovery code were interested in doing some testing using my nice bad connection testbed. i could imagine it being applicable either at the ssh app level or kernel networking level. if anyone "has connections" with any such folk, or otherwise thinks this might be worth pursuing, i'll be happy to cooperate.. greg Greg Whitley Mott IT Coordinator NonviolentPeaceforce.org