Hack 16. SSH Session Statistics using SSH Escape Character

by Ramesh

To get some useful statistics about the current ssh session, do the following. This works only on SSH2 client.

1. Login to remotehost from localhost.

localhost$ ssh -l jsmith remotehost

2. Display SSH statistics

On the remotehost, type ssh escape character ~ followed by s as shown below. This will display lot of useful statistics about the current SSH connection.

remotehost$  [Note: The ~s is not visible on the command line when you type.] 
 
        remote host: remotehost
        local host: localhost
        remote version: SSH-1.99-OpenSSH_3.9p1
        local version:  SSH-2.0-3.2.9.1 SSH Secure Shell (non-commercial)
        compressed bytes in: 1506
        uncompressed bytes in: 1622
        compressed bytes out: 4997
        uncompressed bytes out: 5118
        packets in: 15
        packets out: 24
        rekeys: 0
        Algorithms:
        Chosen key exchange algorithm: diffie-hellman-group1-sha1
        Chosen host key algorithm: ssh-dss
        Common host key algorithms: ssh-dss,ssh-rsa
        Algorithms client to server:
        Cipher: aes128-cbc
        MAC: hmac-sha1
        Compression: zlib
        Algorithms server to client:
        Cipher: aes128-cbc
        MAC: hmac-sha1
        Compression: zlib
 
localhost$