Excessive delay at ssh connection to remote host

[Damien Miller]

On Tue, 29 Sep 2026, James Moe via openssh-unix-dev wrote:

> 
> local:  OpenSSH_10.5p1, OpenSSL 3.5.3 16 Sep 2025, opensuse tumbleweed
> remote: OpenSSH_10.5p1, OpenSSL 3.5.3 16 Sep 2025, opensuse slowroll
> 
> About a week ago I posted a help request regarding a timeout when connected to a
> remote host. With responses given, I added the following to the local host:
>   ServerAliveInterval 60
>   ServerAliveCountMax 60
> and it resolved the timeout.

If these options help then the problem may be aggressive NAT timeouts.

> The connection to the remote was always oddly delayed about 5 seconds before the
> password prompt appeared. Not really an issue although no other host has offered
> such a delay.
> 
> Now the prompt has extended to roughly 2 minutes, way beyond my attention span.
> If I do not notice the delayed password response in a timely manner, I must try
> again.
> 
> What may cause the further delay for the password prompt?

It's almost impossible to tell without server logs here. Are you able
to get debug logs from the server?

-d