SSH Tips I Wish I Knew Earlier

Aug 12, 2025

After years of working with remote servers, here are some SSH tricks I use daily.

SSH Config File

Stop typing long commands. Create ~/.ssh/config:

Host dev
    HostName 10.0.1.50
    User deploy
    Port 2222
    IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ed25519

Now just type ssh dev.

Access a remote service locally:

# Forward remote port 5432 (PostgreSQL) to local 15432
ssh -L 15432:localhost:5432 dev

# Now connect locally
psql -h localhost -p 15432 -U postgres

Expose a local service to the remote server:

# Make local port 3000 accessible on remote as port 8080
ssh -R 8080:localhost:3000 dev

Add to your ~/.ssh/config to prevent disconnections:

Host *
    ServerAliveInterval 60
    ServerAliveCountMax 3

Access servers behind a bastion:

Host internal
    HostName 192.168.1.100
    User admin
    ProxyJump bastion

# Using tar over SSH for directories (faster than scp for many files)
tar czf - ./project | ssh dev "tar xzf - -C /opt/"

These small optimizations add up over time. The SSH config file alone has probably saved me hours of typing.