Attached you can find an example ~/.ssh/config file which makes working with SSH more pleasant. It contains several tweaks:

You probably already manage servers you often connect to inside the ~/.ssh/config file. What is nice: you may define alias...

We regularly need to connect to the server in order to e.g. access the production console. Guessing the Capistrano deploy...

Install OpenSSH Server: sudo apt-get install openssh-server To check if the server is running you should get no...

After updating your RubyGems, you will probably not be able to run Capistrano any more, but receive an error similar...

If you have problems with SSH session timing out, add the following to your /etc/.ssh/config: Host * ServerAliveInterval 55 ServerAliveCountMax 2

If a SSH shell dies (from timeout for example), you cannot kill it with the usual CTRL-C or CTRL...

Call with the server's hostname (and user if you have no SSH agent), e.g. install-gems-remotely my.server.com

This will tunnel HTTP requests to one given domain and port through an intermediary SSH server: ssh -L 8080:targethost...

Ubuntu lets you mount an SSH shell into Nautilus from Places -> Connect to server (select "SSH" as server type).

This may be awkward to set up, but will work once you're done. Fun facts:

You are getting when connecting via SSH or deploying with Capistrano (which uses SSH): Too many authentication failures for username...