How can I create persistent SSH connection to "stream" commands over a period of time?

Automatic Persistency Using OpenSSH

You can also use the ControlMaster feature of OpenSSH, which opens a unix domain socket for the first connection and reuses this connection in all subsequent calls.

To enable the feature, you can either use -M as the command line switch or enable the ControlMaster option in your ~/.ssh/ssh_config, e.g.:

ControlMaster auto

Additionally, you should set the ControlPath using the following lines in your ~/.ssh/ssh_config:

Host *
   ControlPath ~/.ssh/master-%r@%h:%p

To maintain a persistent connection to a host, e.g. if you want to run a script which needs to establish many ssh connections to the host, none of which persistent over the whole lifetime of the script, you can start a silent connection in advance using:

ssh -MNf remotehost

Cheerio, nesono

Not sure if it can be used in production but you can do something like this:

create file on #1

1> touch /tmp/commands

Then run command:

1> tail -f /tmp/commands | ssh [email protected]

That will open file /tmp/commands and start sending its content to server x.x.x.x (#2) and run it there line by line

now, every time something happens on #1 do:

1> echo "ls -l" >> /tmp/commands

or

1> echo "reboot" >> /tmp/commands

whatever you add to file /tmp/commands will be sent to #2 and executed. Just make sure you do not run anything interactive, or deal with it somehow.

In /etc/ssh/ssh_config add

# Send keep alive signal to remote sshd
ServerAliveInterval 60