SSH Multiplexing

If use use a Linux or MacOS computer and your workflow involves making a lot of connections to HiPerGator you may want to use SSH Multiplexing to avoid having to go through MFA for every connection.

Unfortunately, our testing has shown that this generally does not work for Windows computers.

In a nutshell, ssh multiplexing works by creating a TCP socket the first time a connection is made. That socket can be used by subsequent connections within the idle timeout period to create new connections without triggering MFA.

See [1] for reference.

Example with SSH key authentication that enables SSH multiplexing. Each subsequent connection resets the idle timeout countdown:

Edit the ssh configuration file on your local computer (typically ~/.ssh/config) and add or modify the following entry:

Host hpg
    User albertgator
    HostName hpg.rc.ufl.edu
    Port 2222
    ControlPath ~/.ssh/cm-%r@%l-%h:%p
    ControlMaster auto
    ControlPersist 8h

If you use username and password remove the Port 2222 line from the configuration.