# autossh > Runs, monitors and restarts SSH connections. > Auto-reconnects to keep port forwarding tunnels up. Accepts all ssh flags. - Open an SSH session, restarting when a monitoring port fails return data. `autossh -M {{monitor_port}} {{ssh_command}}` - Open an SSH session which forwards a local port to a remote one, restarting if necessary. `autossh -M {{monitor_port}} -L {{local_port}}:localhost:{{remote_port}} {{user}}@{{host}}` - Fork before executing ssh (runs in the background) and don't open a remote shell. `autossh -f -M {{monitor_port}} -N {{ssh_command}}` - Run autossh in the background, with no monitoring port instead relying on SSH keep-alives every 10secs to detect failure. `autossh -f -M 0 -N -o "ServerAliveInterval 10" -o "ServerAliveCountMax 3" {{ssh_command}}` - Run autossh in the background, with no monitoring port, no remote shell, exiting if the port forward fails. `autossh -f -M 0 -N -o "ServerAliveInterval 10" -o "ServerAliveCountMax 3" -o ExitOnForwardFailure=yes -L {{local_port}}:localhost:{{remote_port}} {{user}}@{{host}}` - Run autossh in the background with debug output logged to a file, ssh verbose output logged to a second file. `AUTOSSH_DEBUG=1 AUTOSSH_LOGFILE={{log_file}} autossh -f -M {{monitor_port}} -v -E {{ssh_logfile}} {{ssh_command}}`