These are the backup scripts that I used to back up any Linux servers to my local machine. First thing that you should do is set-up the SSH keys so you can connect to your local machine without the need of a password.

On the Remote host you need to generate the keys with the following command:

ssh-keygen -t rsa

When you are asked for a pass phrase just hit enter twice. Now you should copy the key you have just generated over to your local machine:

scp .ssh/id_rsa.pub username@host:.ssh/authorized_keys2

Just replace the username with the local machine user and the host with the IP Address or hostname of the local machine. After the key has copied over you should now be able to connect from the remote host to the local machine without entering a password.

Now for setting up the backup script

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This has happened to me in the past when you connect to a SSH server and the initial connection is really slow, it can be really annoying. After trying a few different things and after looking at debug information I found that the following solution worked for me.

Edit /etc/ssh/ssh_config on the local machine and make sure the option “GSSAPIAuthentication” is set to no.

Hopefully that will help a few people!