2) Speeding things up Compression A good idea if you're forwarding X sessions on a dialup or slow network. Fast network: don't comress, it'll slow things down. At default setting, compresses text approx. 4x ssh -C config file: Compression yes Changing the protocol default on many systems is 3DES, which is slower. New versions of OpenSSH default to blowfish. ssh -c blowfish config-file: depends on ssh1/ssh2. see manpage ssh_config Cipher blowfish Ciphers "blowfish-cbc,aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour,aes192-cbc,aes256-cbc