Check if paramiko ssh connection is still alive

I had observed is_active() returning false positives.

I would recommend using this piece:

  # use the code below if is_active() returns True
  try:
      transport = client.get_transport()
      transport.send_ignore()
  except EOFError, e:
      # connection is closed

For me the above answer doesn't work so I've done it by sending an exec_command() with a timeout :

self.ssh.exec_command('ls', timeout=5)

for exemple the full method will be like :

def check_connection(self):
    """
    This will check if the connection is still availlable.

    Return (bool) : True if it's still alive, False otherwise.
    """
    try:
        self.ssh.exec_command('ls', timeout=5)
        return True
    except Exception as e:
        print "Connection lost : %s" %e
        return False

and I call it every 5 or so seconds.

 if ssh.get_transport() is not None:
     ssh.get_transport().is_active()

should do it .... assuming I read the docs right.